The Growth of a Forest

Lunch Dates

Dear diary,

Despite the less than ideal first date I've had with Andrew, I met another guy, Theo, and decided to go on a lunch date with him.

Leo's also a Canadian, recently graduated from --- and now working at a startup in the city. I think I'm just giving him a chance because he doesn't sound weird and he seems to be in the age group that would interest me. 

I don't expect much, as I barely know the guy, but I hope it goes well... If it doesn't go well, maybe I'll do as my friend suggested and let him pay for the food. Just kidding, I don't think I would be comfortable with that...

~~~

Dear diary, I met with Theo today.

Theo is a Taiwanese American from Vancouver and he recently finished his graduate program at MIT. He's 23-ish and made a very good first impression on me.

To revisit the checklist:

Intelligent 

 Caring and thoughtful 

 Funny/witty

Attractive

He was definitely intelligent, especially in things that I wasn't familiar with. He held doors open for me and other people and also tips well. He was an adequate conversationalist, filling in awkward silences with questions, and was very clean. Cleanliness is attractive in my books (not to mention he didn't chew with his mouth open). So I'd say he was a very nice person to go out with.

I sometimes felt awkward around him, not only because he was 5 years older than me (or was it 6?), but because I initially couldn't remember how much about himself he had told me. So I skirted around the edges of questions about his life for a little while before deciding that I should probably just ask again if I didn't remember.

I have to confess, the age thing threw both of us a bit off. He kept on marvelling at how young I was (come on, he's just a few years older), but I guess part of the illusion of being much older than me was that he was already working. I think that your occupation contributes greatly to people's perception of your age. For example, people who go to college are definitely older than people who go to high school. However, people in high school who have a job seem older than their peers who don't have jobs, regardless of their physical age. I think this has a bit to do with maturity being indirectly measured from how much responsibilities you have. And in this respect, I totally understand his exclamations at my youth. Doesn't mean I have to like it though

But speaking of my appearance on the dating scene, my friend has also entered! She's working at a summer camp in New York this summer and a lot of the other counselors like her. So far, she's had a 9th grader confess to her, a coworker ask her out, a coworker jokingly proposing to her every day, and a few secret admirers as well. She's actually going out with one of the abovementioned people tomorrow, but has doubts about it because they'll have to work with a long-distance relationship if it goes well.

For her sake, I hope it goes well. She's a wonderful person and he doesn't sound too bad. And we all need a bit more experience with relationships. And on the subject of experience, I watched a TED talk a while back that supposedly gave you the formula to love. The presenter said that the prime time to marry is usually 1/3 of the way through all the guys that you would potentially date. Now, the actual fraction varies by person, but the important part is that you want to gain experience with relationships before settling down, because it's important to get a feel of the prices in the market before buying a product. So don't tell my friend, but I don't think the relationship will last forever, but I think that she'll enjoy it and learn a lot from it.

Anyways, what a girl needs in college is to take her first steps into the real world. And what better way to take these first steps than to meet real people?