Groundhog Day

I had Date #2 with the Veteran on Friday night.  We went to Pequod's (amazing deep dish pizza, by the way - highly recommend) with an open evening after.  We had talked about going to see a movie or karaoke but decided to make final evening plans after dinner.  I'm so glad we did.

I was running a little late, and honestly, not particularly feeling like being on a date at all.  But, I did want to see him again as we had such a good time on the first date.  So, I pushed through and showed up only 10 minutes late.  He was there with a table and a beer.

I wasn't all butterflies when I saw him, and my attraction from Date #1 was definitely increased by the amount of beer I had consumed, but I wasn't disappointed either.  It was just kind of a "meh" feeling.  That same blandness seemed to inspire the rest of the date.

We had normal conversation, and discussed our weeks and plans for the weekend.  If I could pinpoint when it all went down hill, I would have to say it was when we started discussing his new work schedule.  The guy is going to work 2pm-12am with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off.  I have never heard of a worse schedule.  And I guess, it taught me something about myself.

I always thought I wasn't particularly concerned about success or drive in another person.  I don't consider myself particularly ambitious - I'm not willing to do shady things to make it to the top and I don't play politics very well - so I never thought of that as something that I necessarily wanted in someone else.  But after this date, I don't necessarily I think I can date someone that doesn't work normal working hours and doesn't like what they do. 

I could probably handle one or the other...like a chef who is passionate about their work but has shit hours or someone with a 9-5 sales job that isn't particularly fond of it.  I just don't want to feel guilty about going to bed at 11pm and you buying me dinner.  And I know for SURE that I would have with this guy.

So, that was my big negative.  But, wait...like a bad infomercial, there's more.  Two things that really kind of irritated me.  First, I don't think Vet was truthful when he said that he wasn't pursuing acting.  Mainly because he was driving 7 hour (each way) to go do a murder mystery dinner theater show this weekend.  One show, 14 hours of driving.  Clearly, this is something that is still important to you.  And the second thing...we talked about mostly the same topics on the second date as we did on the first date.

As Yogi Berra would say, it's like deja vu all over again.  I've had this happen on another second date too.  It's like you run out of mundane, first layer things to talk about and neither person wants to break that second level.  I did try - I managed to drag out of him that he doesn't really see his brothers and his mother won't come visit him because she can't drive on the highway (from rural Iowa and can't handle the highway?  This will be a pain in the ass mother in law to someone).But beyond that, we continued to discuss TV shows and movies.  Honestly, our dissertation on feta cheese last go around was more interesting than this entire date.

Overall, it was very bland.  And I'm uninterested.  I haven't heard from him since, and I'm really hoping that I don't.  I'd rather not have to do an awkward rejection or just ignore him.  I think he got the idea when I dashed out of the car at the end instead of subjecting myself to a good night kiss.

No special new prospects on the forefront either.  I need to resume my message assault and see where that gets me.  In the mean time, I may opt for a sloppy drunken makeout sesh at some point this weekend.  We'll where that gets me. :)