How to be single The experiential dating advice blog

First PoF date… too much… too soon: Part 1 of 3

My first date with someone from plenty of fish started off well. Note the past tense. I was (really) excited to meet him, as we’d exchanged a couple of positive e-mails and even MSNed a few times, and all of our exchanges were very pleasant. Of the many things we had in common, similar family values was a key one.

For location of Date 1, we’d chosen a coffee and dessert shop in the downtown Ottawa. Bruce was very gallant: he arrived on time and even bearing gifts. It was almost as if Christmas had come early this year. (Details of the gift will be divulged later.)

What I initially liked about Bruce was that he was very open. I already knew where he worked and his full name… all things he didn’t know about me… I quickly discovered the reason for that, as Bruce did most of the talking. Not only did he talk a lot, he talked mostly about himself. It’s almost as if he desperately needed to ‘one-up’ all of my stories. Whenever I would start a new topic of discussion, he would quickly interrupt me and start talking about the time he did the same thing. HE JUST TALKED TALKED AND TALKED. For example, he talked about his first experience skiing (after I started telling him about mine); about his new snowboard that he hadn’t yet used; about how he liked where he lives – especially because it was near his grandmother (weird?!), about his cooky neighbour who is on meds; and on it went. It’s great that I’m such a good listener!

When he finished talking about his personal life, he proceeded to vent about his work and the fact that he didn’t feel his input was valued by his co-workers. He talked about work for quite some time, and – to be honest – I tuned him right out… until he asked me if I knew DB2, to which I casually responded: “I am familiar with DB2” (this will only make sense to my close friends.) Talking about work on a date is my least favourite topic, but not wanting to be rude, I waited until he was done venting, before changing the subject.

From our e-mail communications, I knew that he liked cooking and that, in past years, he had made Christmas dinners for his family. So, to wean him off the work conversation, I inquired about his plans for the holidays. The topic switch ploy worked, but he ran with the new conversation: he mentioned that his relatives were planning to spend the holidays in Florida, so they were celebrating the holidays early to accommodate them so that the entire family could celebrate the holidays together. He didn’t seem interested in knowing about my holiday plans.

When he finally got tired of talking about himself, he asked me if I was curious to open my gift. I was only semi-curious about the gift, so “pretending” to be as excited as he probably wanted me to be – I opened it. It turns out that during his lunch hour (of course he told me this after) he had gone and picked me up some candy and a Wii-shaped pez dispenser because I had previously mentioned to him that was the only console I played. I thought it was really thoughtful and decided to overlook the fact that for the most part Bruce had done all the talking and every attempt I made to talk had been quickly interrupted.

At this point, we were about 1.5 hours into the date, when all of a sudden, Bruce started to get very uneasy. When we had first arrived at the coffee house, it hadn’t busy at all, but it was starting to get packed and noisy. I didn’t bother me, but Bruce immediately mentioned that he disliked noisy atmosphere, and suggested we leave and go for a stroll. I said “yes”.

In hindsight, I realize that it was a bad idea altogether. I will describe the remainder of Date 1 in two posts that follow. To foreshadow, after post 3, the word “direction” will take on a whole new meaning. But first, post 2 will examine the beginning of the “ruins” of Bruce and what could have been a “happily-ever-after.” Sigh.