Blair

after a while, you recognize all of the same faces on pof. I tend to search by "new" all of the time to see if any fresh blood has decided to bite the bullet and join. there's also a section called "ultra match/top prospect", and sometimes new faces magically appear there... although I'm not exactly sure what makes them my super match. in any case, Blair popped up unexpectedly somehow in one of my searches. how could I have let one sneak by me? ha.

we messaged back and forth for a day or two and then decided to meet up. I would be his first online dating experience! the pressure. I didn't know much about Blair except that he's 35, 6'2", lives in Stittsville and is a manager at a grocery store. I admit it, I judged him a little bit based on his career.. buuuut my Dad claims he must make good money (really?). I got the impression he puts in some long days. I also knew that he had recently completed the Spartan Race and loved it (something I have done as well), and was at the same football game as me on the weekend. Oh, and he had a really cute pup who recently passed away, but is thinking of getting another one. He had also been split with his ex for about the same period of time and they were together for 2.5 years.

I was trying to think of a pub downtown that he could get to easily right off the highway. I gave him a few choices and he settled on Pub Italia since he hadn't been there in a while. He asked how this worked - was he to pick me up? I told him he was sweet to offer (bonus points!), but that I would be riding my bike over to meet him. I could tell that he felt a bit weirded out by online dating. He had been on for 3 or 4 months just perusing profiles mostly.

our date went really well! we seem to have a lot in common... for example, we both have cottages on the same lake! well, his parents recently sold theirs, but he's interested in co-owning one with a buddy of his because he loves the spot so much. we are both Cancers (he just had a bday, so technically I guess that makes him two years younger than me). our exes were very similar in a lot of ways. we enjoy the same activities/spots in Ottawa (both originally from here). he has a great social circle of friends (most of whom he's known forever). we even like some of the same TV shows! Blair seems really kind and patient. he is managing a store out in Arnprior and has 200 employees to keep track of. while he enjoys his job, it sounds like he's looking for a change. he puts in long hours, but gets four weeks vacation each year. he bought a house with a friend of his. he also mentioned that he volunteered at the mission for two years and says he misses being downtown (he also used to live on the same street as me).

we ended up chatting for about 3 hours before calling it a night. the conversation flowed really easily and I felt very comfortable with him. Blair didn't offer to pay for my drinks (minus bonus points), but I kind of chalk it up to the fact that he doesn't really know how dating works?! lousy excuse, but for some reason, it didn't bother me as much as when other dudes didn't offer to pay. Blair is not the best at texting, and yet I can see that he is online a lot, which is annoying but in the words of my love guru, Kiki: be patient and keep crazy in the bottle. something I clearly need to work on. he did make it seem like he was also interested in meeting up again, but who knows. fingers crossed!

UPDATE: I asked Blair out on a second date and he told me that i'm not "the one". excuse me? we had been on ONE date. The bottom line is that he was new to online dating and was waiting for the next best thing to come along...it just bummed me out because I felt like we had a real connection.