This is a modern dating experiment. One girl. Five dating sites. Hundreds of chats. Thirty days. Thirty dates. Eighteen guys. (?) boyfriend. To start at the beginning, click here -- or jump right in at date sixteen below.
Date 16/30: OkCupid Taylor*
First date: Friend vibe-ish sushi dinner at Sugarfish in Beverly Hills.
Second date: Super cute trip to the County Fair.
Third date:
OkC T: Are you free Sunday night? I was thinking we could go to one of those full-service movie theaters.
Adorable. I'm totally in.
Sunday night, I'm running late yet again and am weirdly nervous about it. Probably because it's rude and annoying of me. Hopefully not because I'm already starting to get a tiny bit attached.
Thanks to some excellent navigation, I make it to the theatre just five minutes behind schedule. OkCupid Taylor is nowhere to be found. Well, this is entirely odd and uncomfortable. I grab a table over in the bar area and wait it out. Ten minutes later, I wonder if I'm being stood up. Does that actually happen? Like, is that a real thing, and is it happening to me?
I decide to text him to find out.
Me: I'm here! 5 minutes early for my usual 15 minutes delay.
OkC T: Hah just parked on my way.
Amazing. Possibly a real thing. Not happening to me. Thank God.
He already has our tickets in hand and we make it into the theatre just in time for the last of the previews. I learn that "full-service theatre" means "dine-in movie". Comfy seats, a menu with decent enough options, and a full bar -- big fan.
This should be a pretty foolproof date -- I mean, all I have to do is sit there and not do anything weird while staring at a screen for two hours. Perhaps easier for some than others.
I start by kicking out my footrest just seconds before a ten-person group comes down our aisle, forcing every single one of them to maneuver (poorly) around my 6 ft. long legs and dangling feet in the dark. Then, in the middle of the first particularly weighty cinematic moment, I forget how to hold onto a fork and it clatters against the ground for an abnormally lengthy amount of time. Awesome. Really holding it together over here.
About halfway through the movie, OkC T and I both find out that the seats make those never-get-old sounds of flatulence when they recline. Because we're five-years-old, we think this is hysterical. The people around us do not think this is hysterical. OkC T decides to take this special little bonding moment to reach over and interlock his hand with mine.
Oh God. Already? There is so much movie left. How long are you supposed to do this for? How am I supposed to know when it's okay to unlatch my gentle, gentle grasp? (Don't get me wrong -- I LOVE holding hands...but like most things in life, I like to know that I have an easy out in case things get awkward. I'm looking at you, gym membership.)
Fortunately, the whole handholding thing goes pretty smoothly (read: not sweatily) and we decide to decamp to the restaurant next door for a post-movie drink and dessert. Several truths are revealed. Namely, that OkC T was a huge nerd in high school. Like, LAN-party huge. If you're like me and have never heard of a LAN party, Wikipedia defines it as, "a temporary gathering of people with computers or compatible game consoles, between which they establish a local area network (LAN), primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer video games." Hilarious -- and so very endearing. So many things make so much more sense now.
Back at my car...
OkC T: I really want to kiss you, but I have these cold sore things from the fair last week. It's really embarrassing -- I get them whenever it gets really hot.
Ok, so slightly less endearing -- but also kind of hilarious. We'll just go ahead and hug this one out.
*not his real name