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Love is a Battlefield: Part Four

Posted by Norcalmike77, 21 Feb

Love is a Battlefield: My War Story, One Cliché at a Time

Part Four: Rules of Engagement

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Continued from Part Three: Taken by Surprise

A little confidence goes a long way. After the nice IM session with Ms. Macchu Picchu, I spent some time trying to contact women within a reasonable driving distance and who wouldn’t be out of the country for an extended period of time. The more emails I sent, the more replies I got.

Insert cliché here: “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

It’s not as if I sent a slew of cookie-cutter emails with a few fill-in-the-blanks for personal details. If someone was going to get an email from me, it meant I’d read her entire profile, made references to it and asked a relevant question. Not all of these would lead to dates, of course, but I felt good about making an honest effort to connect. It didn’t feel like wasted time.

My first Internet date was “short and sweet,” which is a lot better than “long and torturous.” I wanted to try to avoid dinner and a movie in favor of something that kept the vibe casual and allowed us to actually chat a bit. Thanks to ever-glorious L.A. traffic, I ended up waiting half an hour for her to show up. She was nice enough to text me when she was 10 minutes late to let me know I hadn’t been stood up. When she finally arrived, found parking and walked in the door, we commiserated about our “long day at the office” and agreed that a drink was in order. There was a place right in front of us with a quiet dining area, but we discovered the bar was crazy loud—it was happy hour. After yelling the same things in each other’s ears for long enough to down one drink, we decided this place was a mistake and moved on.

Insert cliché here: Location, location, location.

Since we had chatted about music in our pre-date emails, I’d done my homework and picked a part of town that hosted free outdoor concerts on the beach during the summer months. A beautiful sunset and soft moonlight make for a pretty romantic one-two-punch, so our luck changed along with the time of day. After the show, we found ourselves still enjoying our conversation and decided to hang out longer. We somehow got onto the subject of reality TV. I professed my love for BBC America programming and she admitted to once hosting a “Joe Millionaire” party.

Our sights set on some frozen yogurt, we strolled across the street. Little did we know that we were committing a crime together. For the record, I thought jaywalking tickets were about as real as unicorns and letters congratulating me for winning $25 million. Luckily, the police officer let us off with a warning after a stern lecture on the importance of pedestrian safety. Every single wants “a partner in crime,” but this was taking it a bit too literally.

Turned out to be a pretty memorable date! Once we realized we weren’t going to spend the night in the pokey, our “police contact” turned into a great running joke. Would Date Two involve an FBI manhunt? We both wanted to find out. I wasn’t thinking about what went wrong, what might go wrong, but only… Wow, this could be pretty good.

4 responses to "Love is a Battlefield: Part Four"

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zahura says:

Posted: 03 Jul 11

love,it depends with everyone's destiny, i believe in the story and i hope some of us get the right people

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Darlinu says:

Posted: 18 Jun 11

Loved your story! I felt like I was with you every step of the way. I actually read it part four, then sought out 1,2,3. Glad I did, you write so well, give the mans perspective very well and you made a connection. That last part I love most of all! Peace! NB- keep on sharing...

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lillymay says:

Posted: 22 Apr 11

Iam realy loving your story, and will read it again. Then make an effort to change a few things in my own profile, true like berry said your search for love tale is an "eye opener"cant promise but will try, and hey i hope its to be continued and not the END.

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BerryBmore says:

Posted: 20 Apr 11

Love, love, love...your taking me/us along with you on your great on-line dating adventure, without malice or drama, makes a good read. Our stories are very similar to “May I throw my hat into the ring?” in that this has been my first interracial relationship adventure, so far so good. As far as: “He who hesitates is lost.” Making first contact has been a little daunting but I can’t get out there without some sort of contact and it has improved my options. I never thought about keywords (duh). Thanks for that eye opener. I mean really, one of my pics say librarian & one night time adventure (gonna remove this one)? Truly polar opposites (true I’m eclectic but not one dimensional) getting some pro ones done and long-distance relationships be damned…lol. I can say my first date was short & sweet…but didn’t work out as great as yours :-). Thanks for just making this a little easier for me (and knowing I’m not alone).

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