The Ding! Guy

At last, a guy messaged me who had all of the qualities I wanted and more! I called him "Ding! Guy" because after reading his first message I became so excited that I read it to my family and followed each positive thing he wrote with an enthusiastic "DING!"

He's 26- Ding!

He doesn't like sports- Ding!

He graduated from the same college as I did- Ding!

He was working towards his MBA- Ding!

Which he just completed a month-and-a-half ago- Ding!

He's 6'2"- Ding!

According to his whopping two photos he seems cute- Ding!

He has an older and younger sister- Ding!

His favorite place to vacation is Disneyland- Ding!

And Hawaii- Ding!

He works for Apple- Ding!

He's got his own apartment- Ding!

He has a degree in finance- Ding!

He doesn't like coffee- Ding!

He's not much of a drinker- Ding!

His favorite movie is the Indiana Jones trilogy- Ding!

I'm sure there was more, but as you can see my list of reasons to date this guy was growing fairly long, very fast. It took us a month to finally meet and by the time we decided to go grab coffee I was definitely excited. This guy seemed to be exactly like me!  Is that a bad thing or a good thing?  I failed to see the bad in it.

So we met and we both ordered hot chocolates and sat down to talk.  I guess I was a pretty good date because he asked me out for the next night- dinner and a movie.  As I drove home I had mixed feelings.  Aside from the fact that he looked better in his photo than in person, he seemed to be awfully quiet.  Even so, I was looking forward to date number two.  A chance to really get a feel for his personality.

So he picked me up at my house (a nice touch I might add) and I intentionally tried to stay a little more quiet.  I felt like on our last date I did most of the talking and that he didn't contribute much in terms of conversation.  I wanted to give him an opportunity to relax, open up, and talk to me. The problem is, things remained pretty quiet.

"Describe your personality," I told him.  He was confused. What did I mean?  "Well, you seem to be pretty shy..." I started.

"Oh," he quietly inserted, "I can be shy."

Silence.

"So tell me about yourself then.   I want to get to know you a little better."  He looked like he was uncomfortable with that. "Would you rather have me interrogate you?  I'm really good at questions," I suggested.  He smiled.  I waited.  I guess that's a yes.

"Tell me about the craziest thing you've done," I said.

He proceeded to tell me of a time several years ago where he was dating an Asian chick and she invited him to an Asian party.  He was the only white guy there and all of the Asians kept buying drinks for the "white guy."  He laughed.  He got really drunk and threw up five times.  I waited for the crazy part but the story was over.  Well that was disappointing.

"Okay, then tell me your most embarrassing story," I smiled. "Well... maybe not most embarrassing because no one wants to share that.  How about AN embarrassing moment."

"Throwing up those five times!" he laughed.  That's it? Really? Maybe this guy is so quiet because he's got nothing interesting to say.  He's boring.  Then he told me how everyone at his work was at least 20 years older than him and sometimes after work they'll go out for drinks and his coworkers will all buy him drinks.  "For the quiet guy," he added.  Oh great, they know him at work for being the quiet guy too?  Well maybe he's new and just not comfortable with them yet, especially since they're much older.  How long have you worked at Apple?  "Two years," he said. Yeah... that's not it then.

The rest of the date continued like that and once we sat down in the theater we didn't speak at all, which I guess is alright since you're supposed to be quiet anyway, but I'm used to at least commenting on the previews like, "Oh that looks good!" or "That's gonna suck" but there was nothing.  Just as well though.

As he was driving me back home I looked out the window, pretending to be consumed with the stars in the night sky or the homes we passed by, only to avoid feeling forced to generate more conversation to fill the awkward silence (which I'm sure he was used to).  

As he pulled up to my house he hugged me goodbye and asked, "Well, am I too shy and quiet for you?"

"Well that depends. How long does it take you to open up and start talking more?"

He chuckled, "I don't know."  That's it?!  That's all you're giving me?  A vague and crappy answer like that?  How am I supposed to know if the magic number is date number three, three months, or if this is just how you are all of the time?!  I thanked him for dinner and the movie and told him to drive safely back home and walked into the house a very disappointed girl.  Disappointed that my "Ding!" guy was really a dud guy.  That's okay though, I'm going bowling on Monday with a cop that wears cowboy hats to work, which at the very least, should make for another interesting blog, right?

DING!