Date #5: The Warm Gun (Second)

As I was walking across the bridge into University City for this date, all I could think was: I cannot believe I'm crossing a river in heels to meet a guy who I will probably hate the second time around.  This will be awful.  But think of where I was coming from: the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Date #4 second date.  I let my hopeless-romantic, believe-in-the-good-in-people side (yes, it exists) trump my original intuition that this guy was a loser.  And low and behold, he was.  Of course I thought this date would go badly.  Because I had the same mediocre intuition after W.G. that I had after Q.

But when I got home at 1am after a 6 hour-long evening, I remembered why I like second chances and occasionally root for the underdog; sometimes, they pull through.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  A couple of days after our first date, W.G. called me to see if I wanted to grab a meal some time the following week.  I perseverated for a couple of days, honestly unsure I would call him back.  It went beyond the initial reaction after we met; he is from an entirely separate world than I am.  How much could we really have in common in a long-term way?  And part of this hesitation also comes from an unwillingness on my end to change: I don't want to be influenced by a guy who watches a ton of movies, hangs out with his dog, and doesn't normally pick up a book because I like reading and walking around and having thoughtful talks.  But to not call him back would have been operating under incredibly judgmental, unfair assumptions that for all I knew, were self-sabotaging.  So I called him back and reluctantly made a date for the following week.

In the middle of the day before our dinner, I remembered that we hadn't actually chosen a restaurant- I left it up to him and told him to let me know.  Just as I went to call him, I received a text that said, "How about New Deck? On Sansom between 33 and 34?"  Sitting in my cubicle during the early afternoon, I burst out laughing.  Occasionally, I have these moments when I realize how small of a city Philadelphia actually is.  It's miniscule and there in no getting away from any poor choice you've made in the past.  That text was one of those moments.  I knew exactly where New Deck was because I had been on a date there two years before with a man I call the Pecker.  The dinner with him was relatively terrible; he was a bad person with an even worse sense of humor and had an attention span built only for the Phillies.  Still, I was desperate, had too many beers, and went home with him that night.  I left his west Philly apartment at 8 am the next morning unable to walk because of his name's connotations.  Yes.  That was the worst date I've ever been on.

Poor W.G. was getting the blunt end of the stick: I had a speculative attitude going into this, I was exhausted from the work day, and now, bad juju from a date past were haunting us.  The odds were against him as I walked to meet him that night.  I walked inside to find him sitting at the bar with a beer, very comfortable just watching the game.  Oh no, I thought, here we go again.  But unlike the Pecker, W.G. pulled up a chair for me at the bar, and started talking, with the game was in the top of the 8th and the bar buzzing with middle-aged beer-guzzling, pot-bellied men.  He was trying.  

So we chatted: I found out he had officially been let out of his building contract that he was on for three months, and hoping to turn into something full time.  There just wasn't enough work at the office.  But he's not completely strapped; in fact, he is cutting down trees until he finds something a bit more permanent.  That's right: I'm dating a lumberjack.  His family background is also similar to mine: his parents are divorced, he has a complicated relationship with his father, talks about his mother fondly (and although that could mean something different for guys, in this scenario, I found it endearing).  

The game finally finished (the Phillies pulled off a no hitter- it was apparently good), and after a couple more beers at the bar, he asked me if I wanted to get a table and grab a bite to eat.  True to anti-date food form, my absolute favorite bar food are wings.  I was feeling good with W.G.: we were touching, our legs were alternating between one another as we faced on bar stools, so I let my dirty secret spill.  "I have to tell you if we're going to eat, I don't really believe in date food.  If it were up to me, we'd get wings."  He looked at me, mostly amused and unsure how serious I was.  "Really, you want to get wings?  Like wings on the bone that you eat with your hands?"  "Um, yeah," I responded, "You have to earn that wet nap."  The wings were delicious, and if I do say so myself, sort of cute in an unconventional way.  The way that sucking on bone marrow is attractive, I guess.  

All of a sudden, our wing-eating foreplay was interrupted by a man's voice on speakers announcing Wednesday Night Quizo.  It was around 10 then, so we'd put a lot of time in already, but when he asked if I wanted to stay and play, I couldn't say no.  The date had already exceeded my expectations.  Plus, what did I have to do the next day?  Work?  Another date?  Eh, I'm young.  I can do it.  We played a grueling (not really) four rounds, ordered a couple more beers, and by the time we left, it was midnight and I was sufficiently buzzed enough for a raunchy make-out.  We left, arm in arm, and he kissed me most of the way home (I walked the last four blocks by myself after the first 10 took an hour).

All in all, it was a good date.  I can tell you, the things that will get to me and prevent this from being any more than casual: he smokes too much weed.  Having friends who smoke everyday doesn't bother me, I think I could even date someone who smoked everyday if we connected on an intellectual level, but W.G. and I don't.  I'm having trouble identifying if it's the pot that's nagging me or the value of education.  He calls himself disenchanted by the English major he earned, and I am as well, but to an extent.  Did I think I would like my editing job much more than I do?  Absolutely.  Did I actually think about careers when choosing a major?  Not at all.  However, am I embittered that I learned a skill set that is not valid in the real world?  No, because I think that skill set improves who I am as a person.  Critical thinking thrills me.  And that's just not there with him.

That being said, I find him sort of adorable and endearing, not in the sad puppy way, but in the man-ish way.  He has calluses on his hands and drinks beer and has terrible hand writing.  He's a good kisser, is uncomplicated and honest, non-judgmental, uninhibited; all things that I need, things that, when they haven't existed in the past, have ruined men for me.  And I want him; the physical throw-down factor is there.

I'll go out with him again, I'm just not sure how far it will go.