Thank you all for your lovely advice.  I probably should mention that I am the product of a loving union between a Democrat and a Republican, so I’ve seen evidence that politics needn’t be a dealbreaker.  Man, it is a hard one to get over, though.  I don’t want to say anything to fast too soon, but I think I like this guy.  I like him enough that I was trying to think of blog nicknames for him on the way home.

Because I don’t want to jinx or otherwise ruin things, instead of telling you about last night’s date, I’d like to tell you about a date that I had back in 2002.  This would be the other time I tried internet dating, before I was rescued from everlasting single-hood by Birmingham.   Back then I was still living in the city, and my few forays into meeting guys in real life fizzled and burned.  An actor from the play I was working on told me that he met his wife through the classifieds, and convinced me to try it out.  So on to Match I went.  Fun fact – back then it was free!  Long live Web 1.0.

Despite the small price, there were very few good dates that came my way through Match.  There Republican guy who asked me, “what’s the point of conserving the wetlands if we don’t drill for oil in them?” (That’s the kind of conservative I can’t live with…)  There was the guy who agreed with everything I said, which seems nice in theory but got boring after about 5 minutes.  And then there was the really cute guy who made me all nervous because he was so blatantly out of my league and I was an awkward 20-something who had never had a boyfriend.

Following the advice of all the blind-date pros, I met him at a well-lit place where you have the option to bolt at any moment.  I chose the coffee shop around the corner from The Man of Action’s place.  I blathered on over coffee and a scone, and even though there was lots of stammering on my part, we were getting along pretty well.  After about a half hour, a friend of a friend (who I’m now happy to call a friend) came in because he also lives around the corner.  At first, I admit that I was kind of superficially glad that it was him, because this friend is attractive in many ways.  Some girls have actually keeled over in a swoon just from one glance.  So when he came to the table and gave me a hug, it was a small coup.  As I sat back down, he said, “Wow, you look great! I almost didn’t recognize you! Do you normally wear makeup?”

I don’t know if it was that was the moment where the date died, but from then on, I felt like the guy was trying to picture what I really look like and what kind of horrors he would find in the morning if we spent the night together.  That put me right back into stammer mode, and a bit later we parted ways never to see each other again.  In hindsight, I guess it wasn’t as bad as the blind date with the guy who took a fifteen minute call from his mom or the guy who was perfect in every way except for the fiancee in New Jersey.  Even worse, my attractive friend got his tea to go, so I didn’t even get a chance to chastise him for being so thick.  But don’t worry, I’ve found ways to bring it up almost every time I’ve seen him in the past 6 years.