I'm going on a first date tonight, which will mark my first first date since late-January, and I'll admit to being a tad nervous. Not because it's a first date... hell, I've been on well over a hundred of those in the last three-plus years (many of which probably can't even be classified as first dates as there was no second), and I like to think I'm quite good on first dates (and thereby go downhill from there). No, I'm apprehensive because of all those first dates, this is quite possibly the blindest date I've ever been on. As in, I know nothing about this girl other than her name and email, her neighborhood, and the fact that she's friends with the person who set us up. I haven't even seen a picture of her, unless you count the tiny Facebook thumbnail photo that you can barely see when someone's chosen to keep their profile private. So whereas I used to hope that a girl I met off a dating website looked within three years and twenty pounds (ten if I'm lucky) of her pictures, tonight I'm resigned to hoping I can stand to look at my date long enough to put down at least one drink.
The last time I went on a date this blind (ironically the last date I went on at all), my mother, who I swear doubles as my pimp, had worked with another woman to successfully broker a date for me and her friend's daughter, who happened to be a former Olympian. Notwithstanding the fact that this woman and my mother live 1,500 miles away from New York, I agreed to the date, in part because I thought it'd be cool to take out someone who had competed in the Olympics, but mainly because I trusted my mother's instincts. Surely, she wouldn't set me up with someone "less than desirable," or at the very least, had seen a picture, right?
Umm, wrong.
Unfortunately, while this girl was very sweet albeit a total goody-goody (would you expect any less from an Olympian not named Michael Phelps or Bode Miller?), her Olympic sport of choice was apparently Greco-Roman wrestling, light heavy-weight division. Ok, ok, that's really mean. She wasn't actually a wrestler... but let's just say that I wouldn't want her pinning me if she was. I mean, I'm certainly not doing any modeling here, but I like to think I'm a fairly good-looking guy, and besides, any blind date requires at least a modicum of physical attraction, and hopefully far more than that. Regrettably, in this particular case, physical attraction waited outside while I had a couple drinks and played nice for a decent enough amount of time. Either way, it was abundantly clear that my dear mom failed to do her due diligence, and going forward I swore that I would go about finding my own dates.
But here we are, three months and exactly zero "real" dates later (I say real because it's not like I haven't, you know, "seen" girls in the interim), and I'm headed out on another super blind date. This time around, I'm putting my faith in a new friend who swears she's a pro at this matchmaking thing, and the truth is, I've got nothing to lose. At best, I fall madly in love (even though I swore last week I wouldn't do that anymore), or the date goes the way of the very first New York date I ever went on (a rather ridiculous one night stand, which I will most definitely rehash here at some point). And at worst, I bolt after one drink and then playfully ridicule my friend for apparently not liking me very much.
What will likely happen, however, is that it will fall somewhere in the middle. We'll get along well enough to see each at least once more, and then I'll get to partake in that ridiculous game of figuring out when I'm supposed to call her/ask her out again (another topic which I'll undoubtedly jump on in the near future), which is followed by freaking out wondering if I got in touch too quickly or waited too long. Dating... it's faaantastic!
