This is a modern dating experiment. One girl. Five dating sites. Hundreds of chats. Thirty days. Thirty dates. Eighteen guys. (?) boyfriend. To start at the beginning, click here -- or jump right in at date ten below.
Date 10/30: eHarmony Andrew*
My first eHarmony date! FINALLY.
Having successfully typed our way through the gauntlet that is eHarmony's Guided Communication, eHarmony Andrew and I decide to switch over to regular old email, where we lay out details for a Monday night date.
I have a 7:00pm basketball game on Monday evening. I'm thinking we meet at or near the venue around 9? Sound like a plan?
- M
p.s. When I entered your info into my phone, I accidentally dialed you, assuming my frantic "end call" flailing didn't save me in time. Sorry about that.
Huge fan of the over-honesty.
We meet at Frolic Room in Hollywood, with the intention of continuing on to Bardot for School Night. Spoiler Alert: We never make it to Bardot.
I first walk in the door to find a tall, corn-fed guy sitting somewhat awkwardly amidst the dinge in his lawyer uniform. Adorable. Apparently a few of the bar's finest had him pegged as a limo driver, so I get to play celebrity client. Totally one of my favorite games?
My initial fears of stilted conversation are immediately vanquished by our impressive list of commonalities: We're both from Nebraska/can chat Pelini, Osborne, and the option for at least a solid few hours. eHarmony Andrew is a former Navy man. My grandpa is a former Navy man. eHarmony Andrew's sister used to model in NY/lived in the East Village, but now lives in Beverly Hills/owns a pastry shop. I used to model in NY/lived in the East Village, but now live in Beverly Hills/consume so many pastries. eHarmony Andrew is a lawyer. I still have an LSAT book on my shelf.
Unsurprisingly, eHarmony Andrew and I close down the dive bar. We then realize we're starving and head over to K24 for some late-night grub. Over a lovely spread of veggie burger and steak, he discloses that he did click on my blog for a second, but x-ed out of the screen immediately, because felt like he was spying on me - he understands that creative people need their freedom.
...Swoon. So cute. Except for the excessive hair-flipping going on over on that side of the table. Let's maybe not do quite so much of that.
eHA: I don't mean to be too direct, but I really enjoyed last night. I know we are both busy so I didn't want to wait too long to try to make plans again. Are you free this weekend? I was thinking dinner on Friday or the NU game on Saturday (SC has a much needed bye).
Love direct. Totally free.
Back at home, one of my besties and I engage in a little girl talk recap via email:
Bestie: How did dates two go? I don't think I can wait for the blogs. Will there be a date three for either of the date twos? Agh! xoxoxo
Me: Bahaha. Both dates were spectacular. Seriously. It's so confusing haha. The fair was basically the quintessential carnival experience - we held hands on the scary ride, made robots in the kids' craft section, he won me the biggest prize, we ate fried food, and got molested by snakes lol. And then he spent half of yesterday sending me links of John Krasinski acting like a marionette.
Arctic Monkeys was super fun. We ended up going to a dive bar after and having a very serious dart competition. And then made out like teenagers. We're doing dinner downtown Saturday (read: right by his apartment) and then this haunted house thing the following Friday.
Tonight was my first eHarmony date with a man who is also from NE. We were supposed to grab a drink and then go to School Night, but we ended up talking for five hours, never made it to Bardot, and went to K24 at 2am.
Tomorrow is date two with Match Nathan. I don't really think there's any chemistry - at least not on my end - but he's SO nice, so I figure it's worth another roll of the dice. He's picking me up at 5:30 and we're going downtown for dinner and then to a show at Mark Taper Forum.
DEEP BREATH.
XX
*Not his real name