Date: 2008-08-19

Had a date with goth girl. Confirmed the date at 11 with some callback humor, to which she replied, “Sure. I finish at 8. Where do you want to go friend?” I asked Martyr and Paw Paw about the “friend” bit, they both agreed I need to make a move. Got some advice about touching from Paw Paw.

I texted her a street a few blocks from where she works. She calls me, I tell her I’m at work so I can’t really talk, but that I know she gets hungry after work and I didn’t want her to faint, so I figured we’d get food first, then figure out the rest. She agreed and hung up.

A few minutes before 8 I get to the area. I find a nice restaurant where they have seats adjacent to each other, but the wait was for an hour. I went to a place where my friends are usually hanging out (coincidentally across the street from where she works), I tell them I’m going on a date and didn’t know where to take her. They suggested a place, which I thought was great. I texted her telling her where I am, to come find me there.

“No thanks! :-)”

I was stunned. Did she mean she didn’t want to meet up? Or does she just not want to come in? I decided to call her with the assumption of the latter. There was no point in assuming the worst. I called her a few minutes later, asking if she’s alright, accusing her of getting lost just crossing the street. She said she was still cleaning up and that she’ll be there in five minutes.

Five minutes later she calls me and says she’s outside. I tried to get her to come in so I can show her and my friends off to each other. Unfortunately she didn’t want to, so I went out and met her. She explained that she was sick of being indoors and that she wasn’t feeling very social, gave me all these explanations. I shushed her and told her it was alright.

She asked where we were going, and said that she had a place in mind around the corner. We went and I looked at the menu. I told her that I also had a place in mind, and asked if she had ever been there. She said yes, but it had a lot of fried stuff. But if I really wanted to go, that we can go. I told her no, I’ve never been here before, let’s check it out.

We sit across from each other. I wanted to sit next to her (it was a table with four chairs, two on each side) but I still feels unnatural to try to squeeze in next to girls in these situations. I can do it when one side is comfier than the other because I have an excuse.

We have interesting conversation. I try to be more fun than on my last date with her, focusing on leading the conversation, my tonality, and my body language. We finish our food, I suggest a walk to a nearby park, because I know she’s tired. She thanks me and we walk there.

Up until this point it was difficult to touch her, which I gradually do, starting with her upper arm.

We arrive at the park. I suggest sitting at benches in the dark, she is hesitant, which I point out. She says it’s dark, so I point to the benches next to it, which are much brighter. We share a bench and put our stuff on the adjacent benches. The wind picks up but I don’t have the balls to put my arm around her to keep her warm. She puts on a shrug. Timidly I put my elbow up on the bench, facing her, then put my arm around her, though it was more like me putting my arm on the bench and she was had a one inch gap between my arm and her. It did allow me to be physically closer to her, though.

After a while she’s clearly falling asleep, so I suggest we go. We walk toward the subway and come across an ice cream shop that she says is great. I say, “Let’s check it out, I’ve never been here.” She orders some ice cream, we eat inside. Once she’s done, she’s suddenly energized by the sugar rush, and hopping all over the place. She grabs my hand at some point, to shake it, but I didn’t hold on.

As she’s hopping around on her sugar rush, she becomes a lot more engaging. We touch a lot more, conversation is just popping. Unfortunately it was still getting late, and we had to go. We did bump shoulders many times as we were walking, almost flirtatiously.

We arrive at the subway, hug good bye and kiss on the cheek.

Lessons:
- Touching definitely helps. But I need to be braver and move faster.
- Get her ice cream at the start of the night! I remember when I first met, she was very high energy and peppy. She was also eating ice cream! Work probably kills all her energy, so ice creaming her at the beginning of the date should do wonders.