The Story of Us – Date #2

I knew that if there was any hope of my KISA falling madly in love with me I’d have to step it up a notch for our second date. So I did.

The day of our date I went to the Aveda student salon, where I frequented to have inexpensive beauty treatments done. That day I didn’t need a haircut, but I liked to get my hair deep conditioned every month by this super sweet girl that worked there and did a fantastic job on my hair. She deep conditioned my hair and then also curled it, knowing of my second and final chance to salvage this love affair with my KISA, who didn’t realize he was going to become my KISA. Any girl that has had her hair deep conditioned knows that it’s difficult for curls to stay in your hair when it’s super soft like that, but it was still somewhat wavy when I picked my KISA up. I’d also worn this adorable fuchsia summer dress and a pair of my gladiator sandals for the occasion. He’d given me his address, so I went to his house and rang the doorbell. He didn’t respond. I rang it again. No response. I called him on my phone and he came to the door, but swooped out so fast I didn’t even have a chance to peak in to see his living arrangement.

He seemed surprised that I would ring the doorbell and made a comment about how chivalrous it was of me. He was already a sucker for my Wisconsin charm.  He complimented me on how good I looked, so I immediately knew this date was going to be much better than the last. I hadn’t told him where we were going or what we were doing as I wanted it to be a surprise, not realizing yet how much he loves surprises. As we pulled up to Vitense Golf he realized we were ready to play a round of mini golf. One of my guy friends had once told me that a strong girl needs to make herself vulnerable. I’m not good at doing that, but I knew it was time to throw out all the stops.

We started playing 18-hole mini golf and I was killing him. Absolutely killing him. I was 9 strokes ahead of him halfway through. We started talking about dinner and we made an agreement that whoever lost in golf would have to buy dinner. And, we were going from that point forward, keeping our scores. I figured I had it in the bag until he started doing really well. He was catching me and by the last hole, where you have to put it in the clown’s mouth, I was only two strokes ahead of him. From all our commotion of taunting the other person or cheering for our own victories we’d somehow gathered a small crowd that was now watching how our game ended. My KISA got his in on the first stroke, so his only chance of winning was for me to miss it. I took the first swing and the ball rolled up…and then came back down. The taunting and the crowd got louder. I laughed it off, but then realized I was getting nervous. I can’t lose. I don’t lose. I took the second swing…and missed again. I realized then that as long as I made it on the next stroke we’d only be tied and I was ok with paying for my own meal, as it beat having to pay for both of them. On the third attempt…I missed again!! I couldn’t believe it. Who misses getting it into the clown’s mouth on the last hole? No one! Except me, apparently. This was my KISA’s first experience in learning that I was not grace under fire.

He gloated as I drove us to our dinner location and I acted like I didn’t care, but I don’t hide it very well. We got to The Great Dane downtown and I requested to be seated outside. I learned my KISA actually frequented The Great Dane as he worked close to another of their locations. However, he had never been outside at the one downtown. I have to admit, it’s pretty spectacular. They have patio tables set up and the backdrop is trees and brick walls with green vines covering them. It’s pretty glorious. We chatted all during dinner, shared stories, and laughed. We finally seemed comfortable with each other, unlike our first date, and were really clicking. I had a couple girlfriends that had invited me out for drinks with them that night, but I wasn’t ready for the date to end quite yet, so I invited my KISA along.

We drove to Sun Prairie and met up with my friends T-Lo, Emily, and Cass. They already knew about my KISA and how I really liked him, so they were eager to meet him. When my KISA would leave to get drinks or go to the bathroom we’d gush about how cute he was or something he’d said. At one point in the night my friend T-Lo, who had been drinking with the girls since golfing earlier in the day, invited him to be my date for her wedding the next weekend. He joked about how I’d have to ask him, but you could tell that he was interested in coming. She also made a reference about maybe having to break my vow early and I immediately shut her up as you could see my KISA wanted to know what she was talking about. She realized he had no idea and didn’t say any more, while my KISA was prying to get it out of me.

We all left shortly after that comment and my KISA immediately started quizzing me on what she meant by it. I finally admitted to him that I had a yearlong vow of celibacy. His follow-up question was asking how far into that vow I was. I told him I was 9 months into it, but he still seemed perplexed. He told me it was probably something I should have included on my Match.com profile, but I told him that then he probably never would have agreed to a first date. He said that was possibly correct. However, he still seemed intrigued by it. I dropped him off at 1 am and as before we got there he asked if I was going to kiss him goodnight. I told him that since he’d asked I wasn’t going to. He sat in my car, almost a little uncomfortable as I pulled up to his place as he realized I really wasn’t going to kiss him goodnight. I did hug him, though. I hadn’t left his place for more than 5 minutes before he called me and we proceeded to talk on the phone for the next two hours.

During the next two hours he somehow convinced me that we should be exclusive and that we should both take down our Match.com profiles.  So I did. That night.