Brio and the Architect
Tardiness on a first date is never a good start. Let’s be honest, people being late is kind of my pet peeve. So don’t be late. The architect didn’t get the memo though and strolled in 15 minutes after our chosen meeting time. Although annoyed (cause it kind of looks sad when someone who is excessively punctual has to sit alone for 20 minutes while the server glares at you for using up their table unnecessarily and the other patrons wonder if you’ve been stood up), I do try and keep in mind he lives on the other side of town. Here in Phoenix that means a 45 minute drive, so for the time being I attempt to overlook it.
First things first: he mostly resembled the salt and peppered gentleman in the profile photos on the website. A reasonably handsome guy if you can look past the lazy eye. This realization suddenly made it painfully obvious why all of his photos involved him wearing sunglasses. I thought he was just an extreme outdoors kind of guy…lesson learned. The true problem was not knowing which eye to look at when talking to him, and wondering if looking him in the wrong eye would be interpreted as rude or off-putting.
The second problem was the conversation. I try to be engaging. I asked questions about himself and volunteer information about me. “What brought you to phoenix? Yeah, I like it here too” etc. One sided conversations are the worst and that is what our date ended up being like. Me, asking a bunch of questions to try and keep the conversation light, entertaining, and moving in a forward direction. Him, responding to said questions as briefly as possible and then staring at the buildings and people around us. I get it, we aren’t each other’s type and I’m fine with that.
When our bill came, he was surprised it was only 20 bucks (you’re welcome). He walked me to my car after. I’m not really sure why. It kind of felt like a pity walk. I don’t need (or want) pity walks…I’m perfectly capable of walking to my car alone. I would also prefer to avoid the awkward hug with your hips turned sideways so no one thinks it’s appropriate to kiss the other person. I really don’t think that was a concern in this particular situation, but the side hug happened anyway.
In the end, there was no confusion between either of us what the best part of our date was: the beef carpaccio.
😘