I had one (crazy) date with Harry Potter, and then he went on vacation with his family for 12 days. I like my family, but TWELVE days? Hell no.
Sure enough, upon his return, he emailed me a trip report (including photos), his thoughts on the book Princess Bride (which we discovered we were both starting during our first date), and an inquiry about when we might get together again.
One of my friends had suggested that I should maybe give the guy a solid second chance. After all, he was tall, not ugly, smart, and employed. All things I look for in a potential mate. Of course he was also really weird--and not in a way I enjoyed--and lived really far from me and had a dog, but since I'm all about being open these days, I agreed to his suggestion of a date, and we scheduled a Sunday night at Lambert's.
Lambert's is a BBQ joint. He'd told me on our first date that he was vegetarian at home due to health issues, but ate meat in restaurants. . .and followed that up with a story about going to Fogo de Chao with friends. Apparently, he was seeking to prove his public meat-eating ways with his restaurant choice. Except, when we ordered, he went with the daily fish special. Uhhh. . .??
Anyway, the date was fine. A little boring. Somewhat less weird that the first date: he only put his head down on the table briefly to laugh. He acted like he thought I may have been using some sort of mind control game on him when I told him the book I'd just started reading because it was next on his list, too. I was reading the book for book club, he was reading it because a friend of his suggested it. Obviously, I took this opportunity to make vague references to Dark Arts (Harry Potter humor, ha ha ha!) and joked that it was possible the friend who recommended the book to him was the same person who suggested it to my book club and they were definitely probably an evil sorceror whose name we should never speak. (He who must not be named, ha ha ha!) I couldn't tell if he was joking with the idea that I'd somehow influenced him to read the book, or if he honestly believed I might be able to do something like that. Not being able to tell if someone is joking is a fairly good indicator to me that we are not on any sort of future date track.
He walked me to my car after dinner, and I mentally prepared myself for another weird hug. (When he hugged me--twice--during our first date, he did some sort of weird floppy thing with his hand on my back. Try this right now: flip your hand back to front pretty quickly, and then give yourself a slight squeeze with that same hand. A little creepy, right?) Instead, he said "How about a kiss?" and leaned towards me with his face scrunched up and lips pressed out like a fish.
I almost pushed him away from me. Somehow, I restrained my hands, and squealed out "Oh the cheek?" as I turned my head. He opened his eyes, fish mouth intact, to see if I was indeed offering my cheek. He gave me a light kiss there. I started backing away from him. "I might be getting a cold, see. . ." I fumbled with my words and my keys. "I don't want you to catch anything. . ." He said he didn't care, but I responded that I did as I jumped into my car and waved. Ugh.
As soon as I arrived home, I emailed him to apologize for the awkward ending to our evening, and to tell him that I'd suddenly realized I wasn't feeling a romantic connection to him, so I couldn't in good conscience give him a kiss. Or, I don't know. . .I said something nice and normal and actually probably pretty weird. He responded that he understood and thanked me for letting him know and wished me luck. Evanesco!*
*I learned this on the internet; it's the name of the vanishing spell from Harry Potter.
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