Jason

picture exotic beer in a cozy booth at pub italia on a stormy snowy night. i had already decided to get there first (usually i am the last to arrive, but always on time). as i headed over, i started to feel nervous. REALLY NERVOUS. occasionally i will feel a bit nervous prior to a date (especially if it's with someone i've met in person and like), but this was weird. oh no, i hope it doesn't throw me (and my date!) off. enter jason: 30, 6'2" (hmmm not sure about that one, but at least he's taller than me!), plumbing apprentice, scruffy, black-rimmed glasses and tattooed arms (mom, i see you cringing as you read this). he was cute! jason is part scottish, which explains why he's originally from glengarry (AKA Little Scotland), is obsessed with the highland games and will probably wear a kilt to his brother's wedding. he's a country boy and grew up on a hobby farm. he has 3 brothers (2 of which are named rodney and ryan - my dad/bro's names). jason is currently living in manotick with two roomies - he moved there in order to start his apprenticeship (something he's not 100% sure it's something he wants to continue doing, one of his bro's is also a plumber), but is leaning toward moving out on his own and maybe even downtown. his dad is a retired carpenter and his mom is a nurse. one thing that i really like about jason: he's extremely close with his family and has quite a few nieces/nephews.

when jason and i first started communicating on POF, i immediately noticed that this boy cannot spell to save his life. listen, i have really good friends who can't spell at all (and who i mock on a daily basis - oh yeah, great friend) and jason was making them look like spelling bee champs. not a dealbreaker, but my god, it was difficult not to judge. one time he told me to be careful when walking home because it was "sleepy" outside - i promptly called him out on this. he thought it was funny and corrected himself: "slippy". the funniest part is that slippy isn't even a word either! ahem, i think he meant slippery. oddly enough, somehow spelling came up on the date...he mentioned that his dad is french and that he is fluently bilingual and sometimes gets mixed up between english/french and often thinks he should put an "e" at the end of every word. haha. still, no excuse.

when our bills came to our table, i excused myself and headed to the washroom. in all honesty, this was a test (i know, i know, horrible person). will jason pay for my drinks? c'mon, surely he can pay for my two beers! thankfully, when i returned to our booth he had paid :) he did offer to drive me home. i thanked him but said that i was ok to walk home, that i had a good time and that we should do it again sometime. i wanted to make sure he knew i was interested, but just passing up the ride home. i don't know why, but i feel strange accepting a ride home with a complete stranger on date #1. maybe on date #2 -- but what's the diff? i think it's ingrained in my head to refuse car rides from strangers. did i mention the roads were really "slippy"? it was nice that jason drove all the way out to my neck of the woods.

chemistry is a funny thing. while i felt attracted to jason, i did feel like we were two friends hanging out. i don't mean that in a bad way. he just seemed so at ease and laid back... meanwhile, i was incredibly nervous, for whatever reason, and kept fidgeting with my sweater zipper. ugh! on my walk home, i started worrying -- what if i didn't answer his questions "correctly" (e.g., "so do you like the country?"), what if we don't have enough in common, what if i blew my chances with this guy, why didn't he ask me for my number, etc, etc. holy crap, dating was making me bananas! when i got home, i sent jason a message re-stating that i had a really good time and that we should go out again sometime, hope he got home safely, etc. he responded and wrote that he definitely wants to hang out again -- maybe even check out a movie we had discussed! (sidenote: of course this sentence was fueled with spelling errors, but who's counting?)