Grab a can and settle in for the longest date yet!
Early in my dating days I had ways to stay safe, makeup and outfits ready, etc. but I did not know how to manage my time around dating.
In comes another online match, we will call him “CRA” (short of Canada Revenue Agency). CRA was just my type, he was a great amount of flirty and nerdy. I was into him by text. We decided to meet for coffee at a local shop around 3 in the afternoon. We decided to go for a walk with our coffees around a nearby lake since it was a beautiful day. We walked and the conversation was normal first date awkward and he shared about his family and his job, all things I am interested in hearing about on a date. And he just kept talking while I politely listened and nodded and smiled. We walked around the lake four times, then sat on a bench for what seemed like a decade. He suggested we get something to eat because now we were encroaching on dinner time, HOW?! We walked to a nearby restaurant and sat down for some food and a drink because after almost three kilometres of walking, I was hungry! CRA just kept talking at the restaurant. By now he had exhausted most date topics, so he moved onto each of the individual 120 amendments that the government had made to that years personal income tax rules and forms. Not kidding. If you need your taxes done, let me know, I am an expert now!
We left and started walking back to our starting point. I am going to do my best to describe what happened next. Please use your imagination. We were walking along the sidewalk and came up to a bus stop with a bench. CRA wrapped his arm around my waist and in one quick movement had me sitting down on the bench. Then he leaned in really close, but now you see we are sitting beside each other on a bench so the logistics aren’t great. Lots of twisting and basically ended up like a pretzel. Then came the moment, the kiss. He must not have eaten enough at dinner because he seemed to be trying to eat my face. The imprint of saliva left on my face was larger than an N95 mask.
After wiping my face and getting back to my car, I quickly realized that six hours of my life was gone. POOF! It was not that I was having a good time. I wasn’t having a bad time either but it wasn’t great enough to warrant a quarter of a day spent. What did I learn from this date? I learned that it is entirely alright to cut a date off whenever. In hindsight, I should have called it after the very long walk around the lake. I had enough information about him to decide if I wanted to see him again or not. I did not need to do the dinner and perhaps the ending could have been less awkward if it happened on another (less marathon style) date.
I only had one beer on this date which is probably too little for the length and subject matter. For this story I thought I would highlight a favourite brewery along the Victoria Ale Trail by BC Ale Trail. Category 12 kind of sounds like something you would find in a tax document but instead it is this really great brewery in the Victoria area. My favourites are their two hazy brews, Juicy Data (hazy IPA) and Compressed Data (hazy pale ale). They also have a great kitchen with many delicious things, but I would recommend their pretzel all day, every day. Especially on a 6-hour date.
