Just when we thought it could only get worse...

...it got better.

Ok, so this is a nice little follow up to the last entry that Diana and I posted - the one with all the bad date stories. I know it's a little premature (and in fact, I am most likely jinxing this entire thing), but I am going to post here the details of the date I had last night. The paranoid part of me is worried that a) he'll find this blog and be weirded out (or annoyed or insulted!) that I am posting the details of amazingness or b) I'll be so excited and post this and then he'll never call me back ever again. Or even c) he'll find this blog and be so creeped out that I am as infatuated as I am that it'll creep him out and he'll never call me again. (He knows I have a blog and I mentioned the name, but what are the chances of him searching for it?)

I call this story The Tale of the 16 Hour Date. Why? Cause, well, the date lasted 16 hours. Yes. Six. Teen. Hours.

So here it is:

We met online. He popped up as a match for me one day (91% compatibility, what what?) so I emailed him. I don't normally do that or at least if I do the guy doesn't respond. We only exchanged a handful of emails before he asked to meet me in person. I immediately said yes, though I had low expectations, especially after the duds I've gone out with recently.

We'll call him A, for the sake of his reputation.

We decided to meet for drinks yesterday afternoon at Deep Ellum, a local bar that I had been to once. We agree to meet at 3, and when I arrive he is already there, with a nice table and water for me. He helps me pick out a terribly expensive (and delicious) cocktail and we decide to split some malt vinegar fries (yum) and a beet & cherve terrine (YUM). It's amazing.

We talk and talk and talk and joke and have a great time. Suddenly it's 6pm. We've been there for three hours. It just flew by.

We agree that it's time to leave (especially cause our waitress was already off shift and the bartenders were nicely refilling out water glasses) and he timidly offers to invite me over for a drink on his porch. He says that he doesn't want to seem forward, but that he doesn't really want to end the date. I don't either, so I say yes.

We settle into some chairs on his porch, with glasses of honey whiskey, something I wouldn't normally go for, but that he insisted I try. It's delicious. He puts some vocal jazz on (like Ella and Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong) and we just talk. And talk. About everything and anything.

Now normally I am weird about time. I like to know what time it is at all times (although I don't wear a watch, strangely) but last night, I find myself not caring. When we do check the time it is somehow 8:30. We've been on this date for 5 1/2 hours, and not a second has been boring.

I'm hungry at this point, so he offers to make me something to eat, since he loves to cook (and he's good at it!). We putz around his kitchen for a while, snacking on random vegetables and trying different amazing cheeses he got the other day. We drink cava because he had a random bottle of it in the fridge, and when he said he had never drank champagne for no reason I told him that we should do it, because that's the best way.

Eventually he decides to experiment with some pasta dish - zucchini, red peppers, garlic, basil, sage, truffle oil, fennel, and tomatoes. It's incredible. And watching him prepare it is fascinating, because he really knows what he's doing.

We indulge in some port after we eat (cause why not?), and talk more. I look at the clock and am surprised to see that it's already 11:30. I still don't want to leave (and he doesn't want me to leave).

We finish our port and he looks at me and asks if I dance. Then, in the corniest fashion ever (which of course, won me over) he pulls me up from the table and we dance in the kitchen, to Ella Fitzgerald. And then, nine hours into our date (well, right before midnight), he finally kisses me.

And it's sweet. And awesome.

We don't move for a while, just kinda swaying and laughing and talking in the kitchen. It gets very late and he offers to let me sleep there and he will drive me home in the morning. It is all very innocent and perfect and gentleman like. So I sleep there and he drives me home early enough that it's like I woke up in my own room. Sixteen hours after we first met.

He is funny and sarcastic and sweet. Smart, interesting, and eclectic. We both admitted that we felt ridiculously natural and comfortable - and how strange that was since we really just met.

So, even though I am probably jinxing this, I wanted to remind us all that good dates DO happen.

And when they do, it's pretty sweet.