Confession One: I may be a nerd at
heart, and I may be dating a nerd, and I may sometimes exhibit an
intellectual elitism, BUT. This story goes to show that intelligence
is not everything. Not even close.
Confession Two: I don't have much
dating experience. At all. Not including dates with the boyfriend, I
have been on three official dates. This story is about my second
date.
It wasn't supposed to be a date.
I had agreed to hanging out, not
going out. Huge difference in the connotation between those
two very similar expressions.
John* was living outside of Paris at
the time, doing research at the National Archives. He was a grad
student from Yale (working on his Ph.D. in history), skinny,
bespectacled—my kind of guy, right? He contacted me on okcupid a
week or two before my winter break,** during which I had plans to
travel to Toulouse, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Paris, and
Saint Germain-en-laye. His opening message referred to my admiration
for George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and linked to one of
Orwell's essays. After a few brief exchanges, John told me that if I
were ever in Paris, I should let him know so we could meet up. I was
a little paranoid about meeting up with a guy so shortly after
initial contact, but I didn't know when I would next be in Paris, so
I agreed to meet him during my vacation.
So, I have since deleted our initial
exchange that took place via okcupid, but we very quickly moved to
gmail. Thus I can share with y'all this little gem.
“Also, there is a marvelous little
bookstore right across the Rue des Archives. I'm not suggesting going
there, because girls tend to look at me funny when I suggest a
bookstore as an appropriate venue for a first date, but a much, much
nerdier person than I am might conceivably have visited the one-euro
book box on the sidewalk outside every day for the past eight months
while trying to gather his courage to confront the slightly
terrifying person who runs the place for long enough to find out
where the cash register is.”
1) This is when John elevated our
meeting to a date. 2) How could I demote our first encounter after he
so cutely suggested we visit a bookstore?***
I know at this point he sounds like the
man of my dreams. And yet...
Things started off very awkwardly.
I held out my hand to shake hands when
we finally met in person... but he took my hand and kissed it. I'm
sure some girls would find this very charming, but I did not.
The conversation would have been fine,
I guess, if he had been capable of discussing anything other than
history. That was it. Maybe a few anecdotes from undergrad or
childhood, but otherwise, it was nonstop history the entire time.
My degree is in history. I love
history. I want to be an archivist or teach high school/university
history. I will talk your ear off about history when given the
chance.
But I do not want to spend three or so
hours on a first date discussing history.