Second time isn't always less awkward...

My first met-you-on-the-internet date was fine. It certainly wasn't good. The guy was the Real Life Version of Comic Book Guy from The Simpson. Voice and all. But I rallied through it enough to be willing to try it again - with someone else from the internet.

Internet Guy #2. He was a straight-up geek from the get-go. He made no excuses or denials of that fact. And I was fully aware. I thought, "Well... maybe I'm really in to RenFairs and I just never knew it." So we chatted for a few weeks and I decided now-or-never. We set a date. Thing is, I was petrified. I begged a friend of mine to come along and, because she's a true friend, she agreed. We met at on the UChicago campus (where he was a grad student). The plan for the evening was that he was going to teach me how to play Go. (A game I'm fascinated with, and have always wanted to learn, but can't ever quite get the hang of.) We show up. He begins his lessons. The inital awkwardness doesn't seem to be fading quite as quickly as I think it should. I make a silly move, he goes in to pat me on the shoulder in a teasing way but hesitates on his way in and then quickly hits me and backs off like my shoulder was a hot pan. I think, ooooookay. He's not into me. That's fine. We'll just wrap this up. We eventually do, we're walking toward the door... my friend and I say our thanks for his hospitatly and lessons and such and we turn to leave and he opens his arms to me. I think, okay fine - a hug is an okay thing. I go in for the hug and he goes in for a kiss.

Whooooooooa there.

I sort of back up a little, but by this point his already got his arms around me so I can't go very far. He gets the idea, though. I give him a quick pat on the back and say, "Thanks again!" And I bolt.

After about 120 seconds of utter silence while walking back to the car, my friend and I burst out laughing. She reassured me that there were no social cues that should have led up to him thinking a good night kiss was okay - plus, my friend was standing right there saying her goodbyes, too! She didn't need to witness a first-date make-out.

Poor guy is too smart for his own good.

All that and I still don't know how to play Go.

~ Dinah

Not Manly Enough

So I meet this guy “Gabriel” online and we hit it off pretty well. We exchanged emails for a couple weeks and decide to meet. I was pretty excited to meet this guy because he seemed to have a good personality and we had quite a bit in common. We decide to meet at FlatTop Grill in the West Loop. I get there a few minutes early so I can get a drink to help calm my nerves. A few minutes later he walks in and comes over to me. As soon as he spoke I was immediately turned off! This might sound sound awful, but he had an extremely girly sounding voice. It was so unattractive I could not get past it, no matter how the date went.

After dinner we went to the bar to have a couple drinks. Note: I am a smoker and do not hide it what so ever. After a decent amount of time trying to calm my urge for a cigarette, I said I was going to excuse myself for a few minuets to have a quick smoke. He immediately looks at me and says “You Smoke?" I’m like “Um, yeah! I have it listed on my Internet profile!” Then he tries to make a joke of it... "It's not big deal." But get real, if you make a comment about smoking then of course it’s a big deal to you. If you don’t like smokers than you should review profiles a little more carefully. I’m not going to stop smoking for anyone except for myself and, good, bad or indifferent, I still enjoy it so I’m not stopping anytime soon. Needless to say, I didn’t see the girly-sounding, anti-smoker again!

~Violet