Jason is a 29-year-old bartender who lives in midtown. He describes his style as “average.” He says he is “funny and goofy” and “slightly underwhelming with the ladies.” Jason’s interests are “playing sports, watching movies, keeping up with the news and listening to music.” He describes his dating life as “mostly sad” and says, “Women have had to come in third in my life, after making money and helping my family. I also like to get out of town by myself whenever I can.” Jason says that he is interested in women who are “kind to others, empathetic, hard-working and good with kids.” When he went out with Larissa, he had been single for “a long time.”
A good buddy of mine was getting married. This was before the pandemic. I had ticked off the box to bring a guest on my reply because I had just started going out with someone I liked and assumed the relationship would continue until the time of the wedding. It wasn’t that serious at the time, but the wedding was months away so I assumed we would build up to it. What ended up happening is that the relationship fizzled, late in the game. I was OK with us being broken up but, by then, things for the wedding had been planned for and paid for. I was going to be at a table full of people I knew, so I thought it would be easier to find a new date than to explain myself.
I had been texting on and off with Larissa, who was a friend from work, for a while. We didn’t interact much at work, but we had become friends. She was kind and smart and I really respected her. There had not been anything special between us at work. She didn’t hold back on text, especially when we hadn’t been in touch for a while, but I assumed she was mostly joking.
After thinking about it for a few days, I asked Larissa if she was up for going to the wedding with me. I explained the situation, for full disclosure, and said it would be a night out with some good people, and jokingly pointed out that someone else would be paying. She said she would go.
When I picked Larissa up, I thought she looked amazing. She was in full wedding-guest regalia. It was great to see her. I was taken by surprise by how good she looked. Out of nowhere I felt nervous, which I assumed was about the situation and not Larissa, since I had known her only as a work friend. It did feel different to be around her, out of nowhere.
It was a classy, high-end wedding at a fancy spot. My buddy’s wife had done a great job planning everything and was really welcoming. She didn’t seem bothered that I had brought a different date than I’d planned to.
We had a lot of fun. Larissa fit in really well. She had a good read on the situation and she was friendly with people she didn’t know. We had a really good rhythm together. It started to feel like everyone else in the room had disappeared. Things started to feel more serious than just being at a wedding with a friend and at one point Larissa suggested, in a joking way, that we should take things between us to the next level. I knew I needed to get my courage up!
Full of nervous energy, I recommended that we go somewhere else for a drink. We hopped in a cab and ended up at a bar that was far from the wedding, her place and my place. I don’t remember who suggested it. The room there wasn’t great, so we finished our drinks and went to another bar a few doors down. We decided to leave that spot and were on our way to Larissa’s place, when she suddenly announced that we needed to stop and get food, now.
It was funny to see Larissa in her fancy dress at a no-name restaurant. We were both in such a state that anything would have been funny. We were making a bit of a scene, actually. We got our food and left, and got into a different cab, where she kissed me for the first time.
Jason rates his date (out of 10): 4