Date #18 & #19: From Charming to Chilling

February 26th, 2022

Date #18 lived far. The day of our date I was a good hour late because my cousin (who was out of town) had some repair man come look at her broken shower and I obviously couldn’t leave him in the house alone. I felt bad having the guy wait but he said he could chill at his sister's place who lived close.

Anyways all this is just fluff at this point because there was nothing spectacular about this date. He took me to this spot that in his words had the “best” pizza – Bugsy’s Pizza in Alexandria, Va. Was the pizza good? It was. Was it the best? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t even say it cracks the top 5 in the DMV (I actually want to go on a pizza tour and try hella pizza spots in the DMV but that post will be in my ‘Foodie Finds’ category when I get around to it).

Being completely transparent with yall I would definitely skip talking about this date because there’s literally nothing I can say about it but I am trying to say a lil something about each one.

So yeah we went to get pizza… yall why this man didn’t even get pizza??? I just realized that as I’m typing this that man got alfredo pasta…

Alright so it was a typical date. After decent conversation we drove up the street to grab drinks but it was closing soon so we just dipped. I will say he did get a second date out of me two weeks later where we went to Dave & Busters. I feel like this is one of those places where you can really get a feel of someone’s personality and I think he was just boring. And then he was on his phone the whole time and I knew he wasn’t seeing me again. 

March 19th, 2022

Date #19 ohhh what can I say about #19? Our first date was a good one. But before we get into the date let me try to describe this guy for you guys. #19 was the epitome of a “good guy”. Very straight and narrow. He was very serious about his job, extremely serious about school, even had plans to go to medical school. He was also really religious. I’m talkin church every Sunday and every social event with his church friends. It was all good and dandy but it would have never worked out between us. He was short, glasses, locs, he even showed up to the first date with a black collared uniform shirt and navy blue uniform shorts with multi-colored tennis shoes. I absolutely hated his style, I'm sorry to say. He was passive, unsure of himself, romantic yes but just too much of a “nice guy” for me. Ok great now that I got that off my chest… on to the first date!

We were both in school. He asked me out and I said I had to study and he said we could study together. Someone who wants to spend time with me while also taking into account my studies as well as his own? I was already intrigued. He picked me up and we headed to Lewi Cafe in Silver Spring, MD that afternoon (now permanently closed). I got some type of grilled cheese that was awful. But besides the food, we really did focus on our own work while still getting to know each other. Honestly thinking back to this date it didn’t even feel like a first date. It felt like we were already friends.

After the cafe we went to Nada, a Latin American restaurant at Pike & Rose for dinner. Pike & Rose is a shopping area in North Bethesda, MD, so after dinner we grabbed drinks nearby. After enjoying a drink each we headed to another restaurant/bar to grab another drink. Although the date was a really good one, I didn’t feel any connection, but there was definitely a friend vibe so I agreed to a second date.

March 26th, 2022

The morning of that second date was hell. I can’t even break down what was going on but he wanted to meet up at Milk & Honey in College Park, MD at noon. I lived on campus at Gallaudet, and he lived in Hyattsville so it would’ve been backwards for him to come pick me up. Uber was $40 so I decided to take the metro that would’ve taken me about an hour and a half. I woke up late, I had to take my COVID test or I would’ve been locked out of the student system, and I had already missed the first two buses I needed to take. I was over the date before it even started. I bit the bullet and spent $37 on a Lyft. I even got there before him and when I did, the wait time was some ridiculous time like an hour or two. So on top of being irritated, now I was hungry. 

He said let’s just go to the second plan at The Board and Brew – a cafe offering board games – to do more homework. We got there, ate of course, the food wasn’t good… and we didn’t even do our homework. We ended up just playing games which lightened my mood. We did stay long enough to where we were hungry again so we said let’s just pick up food from Milk & Honey, since they’re in the same city, and go back to his place, where I just played with his keyboard and guitar.

Next time we saw each other was on the 29th for a movie night I believe? (I’m really going off pictures to tell this story). When I arrived he had for me a single rose and three red velvet cupcakes and anyone who knows me knows that red velvet is my absolute favorite. It was such a sweet gesture but I still wasn’t into him. At one point I did actually tell him this was the case: that I only saw him as a friend because he wasn’t as confident, assertive, as I would have liked. He agreed to still being friends but I guess the movie night was when he wanted to prove he could be something he wasn’t. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me and turned me off more.

Over the next 8 months we did, though, still hang out alot as friends. Farmers market trips, studying sessions, movie theatres… I knew he was still really into me, but I (was hoping) it was clear to him that I wasn’t interested in him on that level. I really appreciated his friendship. He was really smart and we were in the same field – his goal of becoming a psychiatrist and my goal of becoming a clinical psychologist. He helped me alot with my papers, college applications, looked over my resume, and helped me apply to different internships and programs to get further into the field. He, what I thought, was a true guy friend. We were able to hang out without him trying anything. We would lightly flirt but because I am a natural flirt I thought it was harmless.

Towards the end of our friendship he said we had to stop with the flirting because he did still like me. I agreed and we were still cool with each other, until a few days later he sent me a youtube video about God and temptation. Attached to that was a couple paragraphs that I didn’t much pay attention to if I'm being honest because one part he said he couldn't “control himself around me, especially sexually” and I can’t begin to explain how uncomfortable that one line made me because what do you even mean by that? I replied back that I understood but really I was extremely creeped out. Luckily for him I didn’t want anything to do with him after that anyway. I do hope and know he will be very successful in the future but I didn’t want to stick around to find out. I had to take him off my socials because everytime he popped up that line would pop in my head and I would feel disgusted all over again. Good luck to that man.