A nice surprise

Hello my faithful readers:

This weekend was chock full of surprise and adventure. Overall the weekend was great and the highlight was hanging out with my girls (Brookey, EJ and Momo) at the Ne-yo, Musiq and Jazmine Sullivan concert last night at Radio City. I was especially surprised by how fantastic Ne-yo is live - he made me want to go back and get some of his older CD's he was that good. I also had a couple of dates this weekend and let's just say both of them ended up being the total opposite of what I was expecting from them.

On Friday night I had a coffee date with The E-Card Stalker and was pleasantly surprised by how well we connected. I have to admit that I was totally NOT into going on this date as many of my co-workers can attest and almost considered backing out last minute. To get myself in the mood I went to get a manicure-pedicure at the local nail spot and ended up running almost 20 minutes late as a result. I know - this is definitely one of the things that if I were on the other side I would have been ticked off by, but in my defense I texted him 20 minutes prior to our meeting time to let him know that I was running late. He didn't get the text (apparently he is one of the few who doesn't check their phone after getting off the train), but things ended up working out and I got there about 20 minutes after our scheduled meeting time.

My first impression of The E-card Stalker was that he looked a HECK of a lot older than what his profile said he was. His face looked older than my father's face and I will admit now that my Dad has a babyface, but I remember thinking "how old is this guy really?" He was dressed casually in black jeans and a white t-shirt with a NY Yankees baseball hat and some sneakers. He's an attractive guy except for the fact that he looked way older than me. I felt like anyone looking at us would think I was meeting my pops for coffee.

I am sure I was still giving off an uninterested vibe at this point, but I did have the good sense to be apologetic about running so late. I cracked a few jokes about him not checking the phone and we were all good. The thing I liked most of about The E-card Stalker was our conversation. We connected on a number of topics and we debated on and off about relationships and the thing I remember most is his saying that "Women hold all of the power in relationships." I agree with this statement to a certain extent - we do hold power in our relationships, it's just a matter of being confident enough to assert our power in the right way. He also seemed to be pretty perceptive without me saying much correctly identified me as picky and more mature than my age might indicate. We both agreed that our biggest issue with online dating is that most people don't take the time to actually read the profiles before they make contact with the potential dates.

I learned a little bit more about him the more we talked and I found out he's African (has an accent and all), he went to college and worked in Canada for a few years before moving to Rochester to work at Kodak for 9 years before moving 3 years ago to NYC. He's working as a chemical engineer and says that this involves a lot of testing and I get the sense that he spends the majority of his time working. He's also a huge fan of sports especially football and basketball; he played football when he was younger.

We spent two and a half hours at Starbucks (we probably should have moved on to another location) and at by the end of the night he was sweet and walked me over to the entrance to my train and watched to make sure I got on the train safely, wise cracking that he wanted to make sure I got on safe because he was the last person to see me! Overall I appreciated his sense of humor and intelligence; I'd be willing to have a second date with him. He called me on Saturday evening and left me a nice message. I left him a nice return voicemail message on Sunday and haven't heard back from him yet. Hopefully we'll get the opportunity to go out on a 2nd date to continue getting to know each other better. The E-card Stalker was a nice surprise and a great way to kick-start my weekend. Although I'm not sure how physically attracted I am to him at this point - I think we could be friends at the very least.

Tomorrow I'll give you a little recap of my 2nd date with Mystervee. This date was also a bit of a surprise, but more on that tomorrow. I have a good feeling about this week so far I'm learning a lot about me and what I want with this whole project. I really appreciate everyone for giving me tips, advice and sharing their personal stories with me. You are all truly an inspiration to me. Here's to a great week!

Mwuah,

Georgia Peach

PS - I told him during the date that his e-cards were a little off putting to me, he was puzzled by it, but I think that I was able to make him understand why it might be weird to get them with such sappy language from a total stranger. I think after having met him that it might just be a cultural/age issue more than him being a total weirdo.