On the first night of Hanukkah...

I went on my first Jewish date of the year. Whew, now that quota is filled, I can move on. Ha. It wasn't THAT bad. It actually was just kind of... blah. I hadn't really been looking forward to it, and I actually broke some of my first date rules. First of all, I was going into it with a really negative attitude. Since I had seen that his pictures on Match were two years old, I was definitely a little nervous about what he might look like now. In person, he didn't look like his pictures, but he didn't NOT look like his pictures. He looked like an older version of what he had posted, with less hair, and maybe a little out of shape. I wasn't completely disappointed, but not overly impressed either.

We met up at the Iron Hill Brewery, I like it there, and it's a pretty good date spot. It might become a regular in my dating rotation. It was PACKED when we got there, and we were told there would be an hour wait at least for a table. This was fine with me, because since I was breaking rules, I wasn't thrilled about having a dinner date as a first date, and it gave us an opportunity to have drinks for an hour or so, and if I needed to cut it short (because of an "emergency" - which I've never done), it would still be possible. We talked for the entire time, had some beers, which definitely lightens the mood and eases the conversation. We talked about being Jewish... and how neither of us had really known it was the first night of Hanukkah until that day. So, he's not religious, which is good, but he's not very interesting either... which is bad. When our table was ready, I wasn't feeling the urge to run for the door, so we had dinner.

He has a really cool job. He writes for the Phillies for a local newspaper, so he gets to go to all their games, travel on the road with them, he's even written a book about them. All of this is very cool to me, and we did spend a lot of time throughout the date talking about that, talking about celebrities, who he's seen or met, where he's gotten to travel for work. You might be thinking, this sounds like a lot about him... yes, he did talk a lot about himself. And I did my fair share of talking about myself. But the funny thing is, I didn't feel like we had many conversations. It was like he talked, then I talked, and then he talked about something similar, or sometimes something completely unrelated. There wasn't a very natural give and take of the conversation. And he repeated some things more than once or twice. I felt like he had a limited span of what he talked about, and he didn't ask me much about myself... I don't know if I asked much about him. It's been a while since I've had to think that much about the conversation while on a date. I felt like I had to prepare a topic in my head, just in case I ran out of things to say, and didn't want that uncomfortable lull in the conversation.

We stayed and talked for a good while. The date itself was about four and a half hours long, and by the end, I felt it. It wasn't that it wasn't going well, but on a Friday night, after a ridiculously long week, I was exhausted and it started to show. I started yawning at the table, which I guess is a clear sign that the date is over. We walked over to our cars, had a quick hug goodbye, and he mentioned that he'd be in touch and we should do this again. I don't know if it will happen, I couldn't tell how interested he seemed. I am not sure how interested I am. What I'm hoping is that it was just first-date nervousness, and that if he does want to go out on a second date, we'll go, and we'll have a much easier time with the conversation. If he asks, I'll go out with him again.

I'm not lacking for dating options though, most of the original 8 are still hanging in there - one of the Jewish ones kind of disappeared - which bums me out, he was the one I was most looking forward to. Maybe he'll resurface. But there's another one, not Jewish - who's taking his place in the count. One I might have to cut for distance, but he seems pretty cool, so I haven't done anything about that yet.

Guy who lives with his ex is hanging in there too, we had dinner on Thursday, and we were supposed to go to a movie... but we never made it because we spent too much time talking at dinner...go figure. He kissed me goodbye at the end of the night, but that's all.... and he mentioned that his mom is coming to visit for 2 weeks around Christmas, so he won't be able to see me during that time. Really? Do I really want to date a guy who I will only see at most once or twice a month?? Probably not. He's on the edge. We might be taking a trip to Ikea on Tuesday together, I don't think that counts as a date though.

8 nights of Hanukkah. 8 potential dates (too bad they can't all align with the nights of Hanukkah!) There will be more to come!