Upping the Ante

Emailing back and forth with my latest internet find quickly progressed to having too many topics and too many questions to fit the medium. So we agreed on tea. Trouble was I was traveling, and then he was traveling, and then despite the fact that I sent him a cheery, “Drop me an email when you get back and we’ll set up tea!” I had not heard from him for a week after his planned return.

Eaten by bears? Well, he had checked his online dating account recently, so unlikely. Just didn’t feel like talking to me anymore? Possible. Was just being a dink and waiting for another message from me? Most probable.

This is the second time this has happened to me: chatted with a guy who was off traveling, told him to get back to me when he returned, silence. With the last guy I figured it was a bad sign and wrote him off. 

I probably would have done the same with this guy except for this fact: he owned four kayaks. Images of paddling dates did not dwindle. Especially when he spoke of kayaking in power plant cooling ponds in the middle of winter where the water never dips below 60 degrees. Am I the only one who hears this and immediately has a new vision for the perfect date? Yes? Well, it takes all kinds.

So with a cheery, “Are you back in town? If so, let’s get tea!” we were on our way to scheduling our first meeting.

It took some back and forth to find a time that worked for both of us, and among the ensuing emails “let’s get tea” grew significantly. First, there was the tea itself. Sick of my overused first date spot, and worried that they would soon name a drink after me, I asked him where he would like to go. He gave two suggestions for tea houses. Not cafes, mind you. Tea houses. Where you take of your shoes. And go sit in a room and drink a pot of tea. Their websites spoke of their tea harvesting and curing practices.

This just had danger written all over it. I imagined sitting the wrong way and offending an entire culture. Or ordering chamomile to the horrified gasp of Kayak Guy. But hey, I’ve been through worse on dates.

Then there was the add-on. Tea became tea followed by a walk, and then morphed completely into ice skating followed by tea.

Ice skating? Are you freaking kidding me?

1.) I haven’t ice skated since I was 12.

2.) How did we go from meeting over tea to the stereotypical romantic winter date? Shall I wear earmuffs and red mittens with a matching red scarf? Shall I cling to you to keep from falling down, only to eventually pull us both down into a snow bank where we laugh and then have an awkward but lovely moment where we are caught in each others’ eyes, unsure what to do next, with so much unspoken? Oh! And at one point one of us must say, “This cold air makes your cheeks rosy.” But I think that goes without saying.

Oh, the things I will do for kayaking. If I don’t break myself ice skating you will get a full report.