Date 3...or bringing that number up to 7

Last night, I met up with Date 3. Date 3 introduced himself to me on Match and didn't have any photos posted with his profile. I found this odd for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how much he discussed his love of photography in the profile text.

Rather than clicking the blue "No, Thanks" for a violation of my "you have to have a photo" rule, I gave the guy a chance and asked him flat out why someone that loves photography doesn't have a photo. He shared a link to his flickr stream and very quickly offered to give me his phone number. I wasn't really keen on just picking up the phone and cold calling this guy...and even less so when he said, "sure, we can meet up, but feel free to call. It would be nice to hear your voice."

Creepy!

Anyway, two weeks later we finally settled on meeting up at Willow in Arlington. One benefit of this experience--discovering new places. With a completely insane schedule, I agreed to meet him during one of my only free hours this week--at 9pm following my tennis lesson. And very quickly I realized that Date 3 would change my "I've only had five really bad dates" line to "I've only had seven really bad dates." I suppose that's a bit unfair; Date 3 was perfectly nice, very eager and very polite about the fact that I was completely exhausted--so the date only lasted a mercifully brief 45 minutes. The point at which it entered the "really bad date" category was when I figured out who he reminded me of--its the husband of someone I know that no one likes.

I texted my sister Katie when Date 3 went to the bar to settle the tab and told her this. She replied, "OMG, runnnnnn!!!!"

So, seven really bad dates and one painfully awkward conversation. That's quite a track record. I'm off to Jamaica for a break from all of this.

And, here's a spot-on article my friend Beth sent yesterday regarding online dating:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/14/online.dating.netiquette/index.html?hpt=C2