Not a Latte Conversation

Something historic happened tonight: I went on a date. Why is this historic, you ask? Well, I can actually count the number of guys I have dated on less than two hands. I didn’t even go on my first “official” date until the week before I turned 23. As you can probably see, dating has never been high on my list of priorities. I figure that there is a lot of hassle involved that I just don’t care to handle. I was at an event for work a couple weeks ago, and afterwards, I was getting lunch with a few of the ladies from the office. They were all talking about their husbands and making marriage sound incredibly enticing (not.) when one of them asked me what I thought about younger men. She proceeded to tell me about her cousin (let’s call him "T") who was a sweet guy and had broken up with his long-time girlfriend earlier this year. I said I was open to being set up and told her that she could see if he was interested.

When I got into work on Monday, my co-worker said that her cousin was very interested, and she gave me T’s number so that he and I could talk. I sent him a text that night to say “hello”, and so, we started talking and trying to get to know one another. Only, the texts didn’t really make up a conversation. There weren’t many questions being asked, just a lot of statements being made. It didn’t seem like we were really making much progress, but T still kept texting me anyway. He also would send me messages very early in the mornings to say things like “Good morning. Have a great day.” Keep in mind that we had not even seen in each other in person yet. Those are the types of messages that you send when you are already in a relationship.

Within a few days, I was already getting bored with the texting back and forth. I don’t think T meets new people very often, and I don’t think he is a bad guy. I simply wasn’t interested. We didn’t have much to say to each other. I had to make a day-trip to Atlanta for work last Friday, and he was texting me during the middle of the day. When I said that I was travelling, the subject came up of whether or not we each liked to travel. I have been out of the country twice, and I have travelled to various places around the United States. I love travelling, and I want to do much more of it in the coming years. However, T had only been to two of the immediately surrounding states. There is nothing wrong with this. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being happy where you are, but that isn’t the culture in which I was raised. My family greatly values learning and travelling and growing as an individual, and that hunger for knowledge was instilled in me from a very young age.

Things were not off to a great start. We didn’t say much over the next couple of days until Tuesday. It was the same story with the text messages not really saying anything. At this point, I was about done with the situation but didn’t know how to politely end it. I sent a message saying, “I feel like we don’t really have a lot to say in our text messages. It’s hard to get to know someone when you aren’t having actual conversations.” Much to my surprise, T agreed and asked if I wanted to go out for lunch, dinner, or coffee. I couldn’t say “no”, so I agreed to coffee, the least committal of the three options. We agreed upon a time of two days later and a place near the river.

Fast forward to Thursday: the date wasn’t terrible, but I think I really only went because I felt like I owed it to my co-worker to give it a shot. T was polite and held the door open for me, but we were struggling the entire evening to find common ground. We don’t share many, if any, common interests. At more than one point, when there was a pause in the conversation, he would mumble, “What else is there to talk about?” There was no flow of conversation, and I don’t think either of us were at fault for it not being a good match. After sitting and talking for about an hour, we took a walk, which landed us back at the plaza around 9 PM. T asked if I wanted anything else like ice cream or whatever, and I said that I was good. Then, I asked if he just wanted to call it a night. It was getting late, and we both had work in the morning! He walked me to my car, we hugged, and we parted ways. 

I don’t expect that we will be having a second date, which is fine with me. I have no ill feelings towards T, and I would consider being his friend, just not a romantic partner.