Ahh yes. Third time’s the charm isn’t it? One of my friends always says that good things come in threes. One day, out of boredom, I had gone on the site, browsing profiles and came across this gem. Her profile was short, to the point and her pictures made my heart leap out of the prison of my chest. There was one in particular where she was at a wedding in an indian suit and the picture was taken without her knowing; it in she was laughing. I’ve never seen a more innocent, vulnerable yet beautiful picture in such a great time. So I sent her a message saying I wanted to get to know her better. The same day she replied saying she too felt the same. The next day we were talking.

And holy cow did we talk. Every day we talked at least three or four times. She would call me on her breaks from work and I would call at night. We clicked instantly, had much to share about everything, and in every conversation we laughed a lot. Over the span of the weekend we must have talked a good three or four hours a day. It was great. It was like a dream… alas; the nightmare was just about to begin!

So, we decided to get together on the Monday, as we had been talking for about three days, she had Monday off and could come downtown. Now, I’m kinda old fashioned.. comming from a small town. It kinda bugged me that she was comming to pick me up, rather than I picking her up. But… what can one do?

Sunday night I had trouble falling asleep.. I’ve always been a night owl and started to get used to getting up before 6am, but since we had been talking till 3am every night, I had trouble falling asleep and probably only got 2 hours of sleep that night. Waking up Monday, I felt exhausted. On top of that, the weather turned sour as well and it had been raining all day. I had the blues man… the last thing I wanted was to go out with someone.

The day went on and by the time I got off work I was spent man. I just wanted to go home and sleep, but it would have been impolite to cancel on her. She called around 6pm as she was driving downtown (she lives in Van). So I gave her directions to get to the train station, but she got lost. So I waited in the rain till she found the place.

So, the initial meet is always awkward, because you feel like you know the person after talking to them soo much, but at the same time you still don’t. She didn’t really look like her picture, but she also kinda did; if that makes sense. No biggie though, she had a beautiful smile. I’m wondering if I look like myself in real life compared to my picture.

Anyhow we decided to goto Cactus Club for dinner and we parked on Robson pretty much right half a block away from the restaurant. Sat down, ordered…. aaaand… nothing. I couldn’t think of a thing to say or talk about. It was really weird. The stuff that came out of my mouth was pathetic and I after saying it I was like wtf? Did I really just say that? My 13 year old nephew has more game and more style than I did that day.

She was concerned that she hadn’t paid at the meter so I told her I’d go out and take care of it, mainly cuz I just wanted to get out of there to shake my head and take a break. I walked to her Jeep and tried to put money in the meter but the dang thing wouldn’t take my money. It had a number on it that  you can call to pay, but you need a credit card.. and I don’t have a credit card, but I called it anyways to try to talk to someone… the line was busy. On the other side of the street were some dudes wearing City of Vancouver vests so I asked them about the meter, but they didn’t know anything. Not much more I could do, so I walked back to the restaurant and told her, but due to the noise in the restaurant I guess she didn’t hear me, and I figured the way the night was going we’d probably be done dinner pretty quick.

Dinner was alright, it was hard to find something to converse about - maybe it was cuz we talked each others ears off the days previous, maybe it was cuz the day just wasn’t vibing, maybe it was cuz instead of looking into her big brown eyes and thinking about the future, I was thinking about my head laying upon my nice soft pillow. Such is life.

I paid for dinner thinking how I kinda felt bad for her as the date lacked spark and romance. We walked back to her Jeep and uuh… golly, there was a parking ticket. She looked at it funny and I tried to plead my case but I don’t think she was impressed. And honestly, at that point I didn’t really care.. cuz I thought it was pretty dang funny. So I laughed a little.. and dang, that really didn’t impress her. She called the number on the meter to try to resolve things saying that I had tried blah blah blah, but the person on the other end just said that she’d have to call the number on the ticket.

Sooo.. she went to drop me off at the Skytrain, but instead of hitting up Waterfront where she picked me up, she went to Burrard because it was closer, I presume because she was concerned about saving the environment and wasting gas… not cuz she was trying to get rid of me faster.

Aahh yes, I said goodbye, got on the train.. and midway on the ride home it dawned on me that I should have probably offered to pay for the ticket. Heh. Such is life.

We still talk now and then, but you know, if that initial chemistry is not there, it’s almost twice as hard, if not impossible to create it after the fact.

Live and learn.