Date Number One

Background:
Yental Grandma has been trying to better herself throughout the year by taking on a different challenge each week (evidenced at Grandma's Blog of Joy and Love). At this point in time, I was crying to her about my sad and lonely nights of eating Chips Ahoy and watching "The O.C." and "Weeds". Well this lined up very well with one of her challenges: invite a stranger to hangout.

From what I’ve been told, Grandma was walking to class and listening on a tall, dark stranger’s conversation. These two minutes of eavesdropping was all Grandma needed to hear to know that this was going to be the love of my life. He liked philosophy (!) and literature (!!)She stops him and inquires about his love life.
   This is the point in my narrative where I’d like to thank Grandma, for having more moxie than pretty much anyone I know. Anyways she told him to call me so we
could get together sometime. He didn’t. So Grandma did the only logical thing and texted him…

Date Inducing Text Exchange:

Grandma- hey . this is grandma - the girl who talked to you today about how you should meet my friend. well, she's definitely interested, but she's being coy. she says that you should meet her at [room number] at 10pm. we're having a faux wedding party. she'll be wearing fishnets! (she wants you to know she's not a skank and does not normally do things like this) also, she wants to know your last name so she can stalk you :) thanks ! sorry no caps.

Boy - I'm confused. What day does she want me to meet her. It's past 10 last I checked. Also I don't have a Facebook. So I'm unstalkable.

Grandma - oops. Sorry - wedding party is on Friday!! Minor details :) And you should get facebook! Shame on you. Can I tell her you'll meet her on Friday?

Boy - I'm thinking about it but I have to ask. Is she a freshman?

Grandma - Nope, junior standing - 2nd year. Who are you asking? What year are you?

… There is a reason Grandma has been in a relationship since she was shopping at LimitedToo.

   He still didn’t call so the next day with help from Grandma, I called him. I had no
idea what to expect. Grandma literally picked this stranger up off of the streets.

The Date:
   I meet him on Saturday for coffee at a local shop. He greets me with a shifty smile. He is tall with dark hair and light eyes. He has hipster hair and a hipster hat, but to his credit he doesn’t look like a pretentious douche.
   Anyways we get to the coffee shop and he pays for my order (This must mean that he thinks I’m attractive, right? I mean right??) We grab a table and begin to chat. We discover we have a lot in common. We both find apathy in youth incredibly disheartening. We think that the American educational system is failing its students. We feel like the people of generation are addicted to technology. We feel like this is the time for social change in the country. We both listen to vinyl that we've stolen from our fathers. We  attend music festivals and we've seen the same bands.  We both like “Parks and Recreation”. We both read poetry. We actually read novels. We had the same professors. We were in the same class (hmm… and I didn’t notice my potential suitor… Bad sign?) We both enjoy philosophy. We both grew up in the same town. Yeah, seriously. We even went to the same high school… This is when I begin to think that someone can have too much in common with another person.
   About two hours later he apologizes and says he has to go to work. He tells me that we should hang out again and he’ll give me a call sometime. He explains that he was kind of dreading the date, but was pleasantly surprised.
He doesn’t call…

The Next Week:
   My friends repeatedly bug me about how the date went. I have no idea what to tell them so I say it was fun and that we have a lot in common and that he said he wanted to hang out again. They beg me to text him, as it has been almost a week and he has not contacted me. So in the middle of dinner I send out the most eloquent text message ever viewed by human eyes: “Hey. What’s up?” I press the send button and my table of friends applaud. As applause is contagious especially in small spaces filled with college students, the rest of the dining center follows suit so I take a quick bow and wait for the text message that never comes.
   The next day, Grandma, sick of the lack of response texts him. He tells her that I am “cute” and “as smart as a tack” but something like we’re going different places. I, of course, break down into a million tears. We had so much in common! However, there just wasn't that "I can see you as a future romantic partner" spark. We might have had too much in common and perhaps if we had just hung out as friends and not gone on a date we could have been friends. (And nope, there are no other possibilities for the rejection). Anyways, Grandma’s boyfriend hears about this exchange and deletes the boy’s phone number from her phone so she can no longer meddle. And I am once again left single and searching for that perfect fish to swim on by.

Date: B (Casual coffee shop conversation. Perhaps not casual enough, though)
Match: B+ (Although we will never see one another again unless we are awkwardly
in the same class, we had a lot in common and had a great discussion. Plus, in a different life I could see him as being that cool older brother type who would sell drugs to all of my friends)

Next Time:  This is when I will have definitions and speed dating.  I couldn't forget about this first date, though.

xoxo serialdater