My Confession

I am really missing Mr. Nice this week.

*Poof* he did it again....

I had been on the fence about NDVB, but at the end of our date, when he asked if I wanted to go to dinner, I said, "Yes." Then, when he e-mailed me a sweet e-mail a day after our date, I responded in kind.

Four days later...enter crickets chirping, tumbleweeds tumbling.

Pigs definitely not flying.

Poof, he did it again.

This is something that will never make any sense to me. Why on earth would someone not only ask another person out on a second date but then follow up with an e-mail only to instantly disappear? Sure, on some level I can say, "He's just not that into me," and if I'm honest, I know that I wasn't that into him, either. On some level I can keep a rational perspective and move on to the next one (I have moved on to the next one, now that I think about it).

But my frustration has nothing to do with NDVB as a person. Not in the slightest. I barely know him. It's the whole process of dating, especially on-line dating, that's frustrating to me. It's the big picture of dating that's ridiculous. I don't recall a world full of players five years ago (and I've dated a lot of players in my time, trust me), or maybe it's that the game playing is so utterly in our faces with on-line dating. It's unavoidable. It's mocking us, this game of dating, mocking us even if we succumb to playing ourselves.

Signs of a good first date (???)

The number one search term that brings people to this blog is, "What are the signs of a good first date?"

In my eyes, the answer to that has always been obvious: you both show up; you have good, easy conversation; you laugh; you seem to have some stuff in common; nobody's rude to the waitperson or to each other; nobody's staring at their watch every five seconds; nobody picks up the cute guy (or girl) sitting alone at the bar; there's usually talk of a second date.

Blah, blah, blah. That is what a good first date looks like.

I had my first date with the non-drinking, Buddhist vegetarian last night. We went for tea. We talked. We laughed. When I had to leave to meet a girlfriend for a movie, he immediately asked me out for dinner.

Apparently, I was on a good first date.

But the thing is, I know what a good first date looks like, but what does it feel like? Truth be told, for all that the conversation was easy and could have gone on for quite some time, I felt nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I suppose it's worth another shot. NDBV is a nice man, relatively attractive, interesting, educated, funny. And I hear from friends that this thing called chemistry doesn't always appear in an instant, that sometimes it doesn't show up until days or weeks or even months into a whatevership.

But thinking back to my first date with Mr. Nice, in fact, thinking back to everything that led up to my first date with Mr. Nice, this was about as exciting as standing in line to buy stamps at the post office. Maybe I'm still nostalgic for Mr. Nice, still wishing that things could have turned out differently. But I can't help but think that the bar has been raised.

And I can't help but worry that this bar is entirely out of reach at the moment.