He makes a plan for us to meet.

And of COURSE the wine bar where we shall meet at is on no other street than “Harvard St.” I chuckled out loud when he sent me the address.  Such a coincidence and also quite appropriate.

I’m literally and figuratively moving from one match to another, with a good break in between.

Luckily, my experience with Mr. Harvard was nice but I’m past it now.  By meeting up with other guys since we’ve stopped talking two months ago (for instance, Mr. Romeo last night, and another great person-who-shall-remain-nameless-because-he-reads-this-blog I had dinner with last weekend, etc), it’s helped me to realize what other things I’m really looking for in a match.

So, as I usually say and feel, we’ll see what happens.  It’s early with Mr. Romeo.  But we had a GREAT first date…

He arrived looking extra fancy and all dressed up.  He’s in a black suit situation with a bright red pocket handkerchief and black Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses.  I’m wearing a cute dress and I’m glad we match the level of effort from the other.  You never know what you’ll get in LA.

We walk towards each other on the street and hugged while saying hello.
It’s that awkward/exciting moment when you first meet someone IRL (aka “in real life”).  I’ve done this a million times in my dating life by now and it’s pretty much second hat at this point.  I still feel the slight butterflies each time, though.  It’s a fun experience and one of the best parts of dating is meeting such interesting and cool people to get to know, albeit for perhaps a short time.

He knows the owners of the wine bar – two female friends who opened up the spot a few years ago – and he introduces me to one right when we’re seated.

They prepare for us a smashing wine flight and cheese pairing board, full of delicious types of cheeses, nuts, dried fruit, a bit of homemade pasta salad.  It’s fun to discover together what we like and he’s a foodie, too, so I’m happy about that.

We sat there for almost 3 hours!

Laughing and talking and carrying on, asking each other questions that ranged from what our favorite Disney movies were to how we could create an app to solve some problem and then create additional revenue from it together.

He’s just as charming in person as his letters were, although now I get to see him in front of me and hear his AMAZINGLY charming deep voice that matches his slow and easy demeanor.  He’s like an old-fashioned soul that met up with the modern world – a nice balance.

It’s getting late and it’s a “school night” so I say I must get going.  I head to the restroom and come back to see him paying the bill.

I always offer to chip in and when I offered he looked at me almost concerned and said, “What? Oh, baby girl.  Not at all.  You haven’t been dealing with THOSE types, have you??”

I just smiled and said, “You’d be surprised. But I always offer.  Thank you.” I do love a gentleman and always appreciate a man who pays, especially if he invites me to something more than coffee for the first date.

He made sure we were on for our next date that upcoming Saturday – the Renaissance Faire.  We had talked about it a few times on the phone the week prior to meeting.

He said he was going as a pirate and that I had to find a pirate wench costume to match. I confirmed.  I was actually really, really looking forward to it. 🙂

Later that night, I smiled thinking about our date while I laid in bed and ordered a costume from Amazon to be delivered the next day.  This was something I’ve never done before (especially on just a second date?!), but heck, I’m game for adventure and shenanigans.

I was stoked…