Love Is(nt) Blind

Well I’m sure everyone would be delighted to know that the latest event in my (non-existent) love life was that I went on a blind date. A real one this time. As in not one where I had seemingly found someone to meet up with of my own accord. This time it wasn't someone I had 'met' over the Internet or from a wrong number. No, this time I was set up by someone else. Someone I know had a friend who was single and since that person was single and I was single (what a fortuitous coincidence!), why not hook us up?

And why not indeed I thought. Initially I knew close to buckleys about my prospective date, not having any other information to go on apart from his name and his age, but that meant I couldn't be disappointed right? After an introductory phone call it even seemed as though we might indeed have a lot in common but I’d have to say now that there is definitely a difference between the things you can talk about and the things you want to talk about. Just as there is a difference between what sounds like a good idea in theory and what doesn’t quite work out so well in practice.

Its needless to say right now I guess that this date wasn’t exactly the success of the century. That’s not to say it was bad though, because it wasn’t. At least in my opinion. To be honest, as far as first impressions go, I think I was pleasantly surprised at first. There wasn't any glance-across-a-crowded-floor kind of gut feeling that whispers this one and I didn’t get a he-has-a-smile-that-just-makes-me-want-to-jump-him type of reaction but I’ve never had that with anyone else either. Once I'd actually met him however, there were several things I actually found quite attractive. There were also things I found odd.

You re-read books!?! Why?!?' he practically cried at one point. It seemed almost as if he believed this was a disastrous occurrence and perhaps as though it was a sign I was truly a crazed individual. I mean why would one do such a thing!? I tried to explain that I enjoyed reading and would re-read titles that I had enjoyed but he wasn’t having a bar of it. This is actually a progression for me though. One of my previous 'dates' wondered why I'd read books at all, this one just couldn't conceive that I'd would read them again. Voluntarily.

That did seem to be the only area of contention though, the rest of the conversation being made up of questions and answers innocuous enough to casually pad out the time between hello and goodbye. How best to say goodbye did actually result in a general feeling of awkwardness for me though as I never feel confident in these situations. If I was the kind of person who embraced people irrespective of their relationship to me then I probably wouldn't have had a problem but I thought if I even kiss him on the cheek, it’d probably look like I was making a move and I'd feel like an idiot. So I told him to take care and walked off - feeling like an idiot anyway. But at the end of the day, I did get a couple of things out the experience so it was all worthwhile.

Note to self: try to avoid going on any and all blind dates in the future.Additional note to self: if you wouldn't trust somebody with your secrets, don't trust them with your love life either.