RYAN'S DATE
Key Takeaways: Shutter Island is a criminally underrated masterpiece
Vitals:
Name: Gabriella, because her favorite movie is High School Musical
Length of date: 3 hours
How the date was obtained: A third date (same girl as the last two blog posts)
Where: My apartment
After the homeless man's cockblock last week, I had high expectations for my third date with Gabriella. We texted back and forth on Thursday and decided on going to a bar in my neighborhood, followed by a movie night at my place Friday night. On Friday afternoon, I looked around my dirty apartment in horror, realizing I hadn't hosted a female guest in an embarrassing amount of time. I spent an hour furiously cleaning in preparation and made sure the kitchen was stocked with feminine alcoholic options (rather than my nasty stout beers and IPAs). I texted Gabriella to double-check our plans were still on, and she asked if we could just skip going out to the bar in favor of movie night. "Oh wow, Gabriella isn't messing around this week," I thought to myself. "She's trying to finish what we started."
At 8pm, Gabriella arrived to my mood-lit apartment, and I smoothly handed her a glass of white wine and offered her to choose a film from my selection of Blu-Rays (no better way to woo a woman than with your nerdy collections). She chose Shutter Island, a huge favorite of mine, and I silently thanked God that she didn't choose anything with Zac Efron singing. As the movie was playing, Gabriella chatted away, asking questions about the plot, which is normally a huge pet peeve of mine. Luckily, I know Shutter Island like the back of my hand, so I didn't mind too much. At one point, I put my arm around Gabriella in an attempt to set the mood (and protect her from the crazy people attacking Leonardo DiCaprio), but after 2 minutes she nicely told me, "That isn't comfortable", and joked that maybe I should stay 6 feet away. "Either I'm horrendously ugly, or she's really into this movie," I thought to myself. Or both.
Before I knew it, the movie was over, and Gabriella's mind was blown at the ending (seriously, watch Shutter Island if you haven't seen it). I don't know why lobotomies and lighthouses turned us both on, but before I knew it we were making out and walking into my bedroom. "Here we go, Ryan," I thought to myself. "No homeless men here to stop you. Time to break out of your slump." As we laid on my bed, however, I felt the seconds turn into more and more minutes, until I felt like I deserved a gold medal for the World's Longest Make Out Session With Clothes On. "Maybe she wants me to make the first bold move," I thought. I decided to try to wow her with my pale hotness, and I stripped off my shirt. I don't exactly have washboard abs like my namesake Ryan Gosling, but I was feeling dangerous and was frankly out of moves. Just as things seemed like they were about to escalate, Gabriella stopped me and sat up. "Woah, that was intense," she said. "Intense?" I thought. "Is she talking about Shutter Island, or is she referring to my underwhelming performance?" "Maybe I should go," she said. Ah, so it was my underwhelming performance after all. I offered to walk her back to her car, but then looked down at my shorts to realize it was going to be difficult to stand up. I awkwardly shuffled to the side when Gabriella wasn't looking in an attempt to hide my situation and limped after her. I mentally prepared my excuses if she looked down - it was an optical illusion, a rare mutated growth, etc. Luckily, I made it to her car without comment, and I hugged her goodbye (with my optical illusion avoiding her, don't worry). Overall, it was fun to spend more time with Gabriella, but I can't help but feel that our lack of mutual interests/passions makes us a difficult match and that I'm looking for something more casual than she is.
Overall Experience:
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
The future for us… An awards ceremony for Bluest Balls
Next Week: Lots of swiping on Hinge
CHRISTINE'S DATE
Key Takeaways: All in all I wasn’t as assertive as I should have been on the date and shut down a bit, and I don’t think I can date a guy who loves drinking, which I kind of knew, but this affirms it.
Vitals:
Name: Funk as he was very funky, a party animal kind of fun-loving guy.
Length of date: 3 hours
How the date was obtained: bumble
Where: Playa Del Ray Bacari PDR restaurant in Playa Del Rey, on the westside of LA
Funk and I did a lot of texting before this date and he was very funny and seemed very communicative. When I picked him up, he was tall, had on bright clothing, was full of smiles, and seemed very positive, all of which I liked. Also, he was very playful and his background is kind of free-wheeling so... def a free spirit, which I respect!
However, after Funk's told me about his date destination, it was clear that we were in for quite a drive. He was talkative, asked interesting questions, so we passed the time in the car, and finally arrived at the restaurant. I should tell you that this was the first time I've been to a restaurant in six months (WILD) so I felt a little out of my element and awkward. We did eat outside, which was good.
During dinner, Funk had two beers and I am sober so I feel like that was a little bit of a red flag for me. He did pay for dinner, which was sweet and chivalrous. but, the date got really interesting when we left the restaurant and were crossing the street. He suddenly pulled me in and kissed me! In normal circumstances that would be romantic and lovely and dating fun. BUT during a pandemic, it just freaked me out. We hadn’t discussed kissing and it was very much something that caught me off guard. After we kissed we made out more on the beach (because screw it at that point) and then I drove him home. I felt really anxious after and he texted to see how I was and I told him I was anxious. Then, he immediately called me on the phone to make sure I was OK which was super sweet, very thoughtful guy, but I just felt overwhelmed and sad that the dating world had come to this level of weirdness.
I learned that I should stick to whatever the plan is and not add on extra things to the date. And I want to talk ahead of time about whether I feel comfortable kissing. I felt like I reacted to parts of this date rather than being proactive in deciding what I was comfortable with. I learned to be more assertive.
Overall Experience:
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The future for us… I sent him a text the next day saying that I’m not ready for an emotional relationship yet, which I don’t think I am. I think I’m looking for something more casual with no kissing and no drinking and very PG for right now especially during this pandemic!
Next Week: He said hopefully we can be friends which YES I told him, I would love that!