Kate's Dinner Date
Posted 02-29-2012 at 01:30 PM by KatieGal
Somewhere there’s a website that has some of my views concerning romance. One of the things I said was that I liked guys to cook me dinner. Twice guys have cooked me dinner so I know that it can be both romantic and adventurous. If the guy is cute and the dinner is complete with candles, wine, and cloth napkins, it can almost be a full-fledged turn-on. Of course two other needed components are good food, and an interesting conversationalist.
I had a dinner date yesterday where the guy did the cooking. And by the way, I would approve of weekday romantic dinners, if anyone would bother to ask. Anyway, it was our second date. The first one was actually sort of a semi-date. It came to pass a few weekends ago. We agreed to meet at the Dairy Queen and keep it short. A half hour or so. I had a Blizzard. It was my first date since the end of a three year relationship. I freely admit to a rather high level of anxiety.
His name was Steve. He seemed like a nice guy, but he said he thought it was “dumb” to rendezvous at a Dairy Queen. Meeting there was my idea and I thought the notion had a kind of quaint charm. I mean, [I]Dairy Queen[/I]. I guess you either get that kind of thing or you don’t. I happened to mention my penchant for guys fixing me dinner so I was both flattered and less than completely surprised when Steve called this past Saturday afternoon and volunteered to do just that, cook dinner. Of course I agreed.
I discovered that Steve lives in a modest, three room apartment. There really wasn’t any kitchen, per se, but rather one rather large, all-purpose room that had a chair, sofa, and a TV on one end of the room, a slightly wobbly dinner table on the other end, near the kitchen appliances. I suppose that the “kitchen” began where the carpeting ended and the tile floor began. The apartment’s furnishings were not brand new and nothing fancy, but they looked comfortable.
As for the dinner, there were no candles on the dinner table, but everything looked nice and neat except for the fact that the napkins were in actuality paper towels. Steve is of course a guy, so I suppose paper towels is not too big a sin. At least the plates were made of something other than paper.
Steve made baked conchiglie pasta shells stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and portions of Italian sausage. They were his own creation and he has named them “stoats”. Apparently that’s a combination of “Steve” and “boats”, which is what they vaguely looked like, tiny boats. If you like pizza and also pasta, then you would have to like stoats. Their aroma filled the small apartment and made me hungrier than I already was. They went well with the red wine.
Now, for the bad news. The most important element of the dinner could have gone much better. I’m speaking of the conversation. Steve is 29 and he appeared to be angry that he was driving a truck for FedEx, as though it were beneath him. He said he had applied for supervisor positions but had thus far been overlooked. He seemed almost hostile about that too, and I wondered if one factor in his demeanor might be some odd jealousy of me, a fairly well-paid, college-educated woman. As he talked about his job, I longed for him to smile and utter some self-effacing humor. But I guess the man I wanted to see was not the man he was. It turned out I was giving him words of encouragement, which I found a little bit unsettling.
Shortly after dinner, Steve talked about a previous girlfriend, a no-no for a guy who is with me, or most women, for that matter. But what made it all the worse was that what he said about her was negative and outright hostile. He might have sensed he was going too far with the diatribe because he finally shrugged, smiled and said that their problems might have been part his fault too.
Later that evening Steve sat near me on the sofa as we casually watched TV and sipped wine. He told me he liked my “long, silky hair” as he began to caress my forearm. The evening had not gone nearly well enough to continue in the direction Steve wanted it to go, so I climbed to my feet and said I should leave. I had had a long day, I explained, and was looking at an even longer day the following day. Steve put up a short, mild protest, but fortunately nothing more.
He did walk me to my car. I thanked him for the dinner, gave him a quick kiss, and then opened the car door and climbing in.
If Steve calls back, which I figure the chances to be about 50/50, I think I’ll pass on a third date. Everyone hates rejected, and I hate to be its perpetrator. But it would either be a mild rejection now, or a stormier rejection some time in the not too distant future. Best do it now, should it become necessary.
I had a dinner date yesterday where the guy did the cooking. And by the way, I would approve of weekday romantic dinners, if anyone would bother to ask. Anyway, it was our second date. The first one was actually sort of a semi-date. It came to pass a few weekends ago. We agreed to meet at the Dairy Queen and keep it short. A half hour or so. I had a Blizzard. It was my first date since the end of a three year relationship. I freely admit to a rather high level of anxiety.
His name was Steve. He seemed like a nice guy, but he said he thought it was “dumb” to rendezvous at a Dairy Queen. Meeting there was my idea and I thought the notion had a kind of quaint charm. I mean, [I]Dairy Queen[/I]. I guess you either get that kind of thing or you don’t. I happened to mention my penchant for guys fixing me dinner so I was both flattered and less than completely surprised when Steve called this past Saturday afternoon and volunteered to do just that, cook dinner. Of course I agreed.
I discovered that Steve lives in a modest, three room apartment. There really wasn’t any kitchen, per se, but rather one rather large, all-purpose room that had a chair, sofa, and a TV on one end of the room, a slightly wobbly dinner table on the other end, near the kitchen appliances. I suppose that the “kitchen” began where the carpeting ended and the tile floor began. The apartment’s furnishings were not brand new and nothing fancy, but they looked comfortable.
As for the dinner, there were no candles on the dinner table, but everything looked nice and neat except for the fact that the napkins were in actuality paper towels. Steve is of course a guy, so I suppose paper towels is not too big a sin. At least the plates were made of something other than paper.
Steve made baked conchiglie pasta shells stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and portions of Italian sausage. They were his own creation and he has named them “stoats”. Apparently that’s a combination of “Steve” and “boats”, which is what they vaguely looked like, tiny boats. If you like pizza and also pasta, then you would have to like stoats. Their aroma filled the small apartment and made me hungrier than I already was. They went well with the red wine.
Now, for the bad news. The most important element of the dinner could have gone much better. I’m speaking of the conversation. Steve is 29 and he appeared to be angry that he was driving a truck for FedEx, as though it were beneath him. He said he had applied for supervisor positions but had thus far been overlooked. He seemed almost hostile about that too, and I wondered if one factor in his demeanor might be some odd jealousy of me, a fairly well-paid, college-educated woman. As he talked about his job, I longed for him to smile and utter some self-effacing humor. But I guess the man I wanted to see was not the man he was. It turned out I was giving him words of encouragement, which I found a little bit unsettling.
Shortly after dinner, Steve talked about a previous girlfriend, a no-no for a guy who is with me, or most women, for that matter. But what made it all the worse was that what he said about her was negative and outright hostile. He might have sensed he was going too far with the diatribe because he finally shrugged, smiled and said that their problems might have been part his fault too.
Later that evening Steve sat near me on the sofa as we casually watched TV and sipped wine. He told me he liked my “long, silky hair” as he began to caress my forearm. The evening had not gone nearly well enough to continue in the direction Steve wanted it to go, so I climbed to my feet and said I should leave. I had had a long day, I explained, and was looking at an even longer day the following day. Steve put up a short, mild protest, but fortunately nothing more.
He did walk me to my car. I thanked him for the dinner, gave him a quick kiss, and then opened the car door and climbing in.
If Steve calls back, which I figure the chances to be about 50/50, I think I’ll pass on a third date. Everyone hates rejected, and I hate to be its perpetrator. But it would either be a mild rejection now, or a stormier rejection some time in the not too distant future. Best do it now, should it become necessary.
Total Comments 1
Comments
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Belated welcome to the blogs, Katie.
The greatness of Dairy Queen, with absolutely fantastic soft-serve vanilla ice cream. That's heaven on a cone right there. Date or no date, that's great stuff.
Posted 02-29-2012 at 03:21 PM by case44
