The Date Before Last

I had a girls night with my friend Raquel on Saturday night and she mentioned that she's had occasion to see a certain person lately who happens to be the uncle of someone I had forgotten, a person I shall call H because that's not his real name. I think of him as my Date Before Last.

I call him that because he was the last date I had before I had my first date with Aaron. Which was my last first date.

Aaron almost beat him to it. Aaron asked for my email address during sacrament meeting on July 10th and H asked for my phone number a couple hours later while I was hanging around after church. Aaron emailed me on Monday just to say hi, but H called and asked me out for Friday. I had the passing thought that I would rather say no and then sit around and hope Aaron would ask me out, but then I realized that was pathetic and I said yes. And then Aaron did ask me out and I had to take a raincheck. Doh.

I wish I could do H justice through writing. Something about him was kind of off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but he made me slightly uncomfortable. I'm not sure how old he was, but he was definitely older than me (probably pushing 30 at the time). He was not unattractive, but he wasn't really good looking either. He felt slightly greasy without actually being greasy.

To be fair, he was an extremely nice and incredibly talented guy. He just rubbed me the wrong way.

For the first part of our date, he took me to a fancy pizzeria. One of those places with gourmet type pizzas instead of regular pepperoni type stuff. I ended up with pepperoni anyway. I could tell he sort of disapproved but I didn't much care. You don't take a girl to pizza and then expect her to happily order an arugula pesto beet pizza. Just..no.

He spent dinner telling me all about how well he had done for his age. Which I can appreciate now, but at the time I was like, I don't care that you own your own house and a fancy car. When you're 20 years old and only sort of interested in getting married any time soon, you're more worried about whether or not he's attractive enough to show up with at your 10 year high school reunion (no) and if he's not, is he funny enough to make up for it (also no). And I didn't like how he was all trying to educate me on what "escrow" meant during dinner (I worked in real estate at the time, genius). But I got it, he was putting his cards on the table, showing me what he had to offer. It's cool, that's what dating is about sometimes.

Then he took me to walk around the grounds at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale at Gainey Ranch.

The place is really awkwardly romantic for a first date. It's beyond gorgeous. They have canals with Italian-singing gondoliers who will take you around. We went there for dinner for Winter Formal my junior year and everyone struggled with their food because it was really fancy and we were 17 and would have been happy with burgers. There are gorgeous pools and gardens and waterfalls. You go there to get engaged. Not to get to know each other.

As we walked around the pools and canals I realized that it wasn't actually a date we were on. It was a business interview.

Dinner had been the orientation part where he tells you about how awesome his company is and you're supposed to sit there and think about how badly you want to be a part of that company because it is just. so. awesome. Think of the benefits!

The walk was the part where he probes me to find out whether or not I'm really management material and if I would be a good fit for the company. For the company, you see, has very high standards and expectations.

He had very subtle and roundabout ways of finding the information he needed and he was always the picture of gentlemanly behavior and conversation, , but it still didn't take me long to figure out what he wanted. My high school gpa and my projected college gpa. Any genetic illnesses in my family. My politics. If I could handle the rigors of being a trophy wife to a highly paid corporate executive. If I thought I might ever let myself go.

I wish I was kidding.

At the end of the night the purpose of our date was very clear. He was going to be a well off businessman. He was going places and he was in search of a wife who could keep up the necessary appearances. I was almost glad I had worn a cardigan because otherwise I'm not sure I even would have made it through orientation. Appropriate attire is important.

I'm pretty sure my choice of pepperoni pizza over the "amazing spanakopita" doomed me from the start (my pedestrian tastes were showing). I almost wondered how I even made it to the interview portion.

He still invited me over to his house after our walk at the Hyatt to watch a movie (showing off the corner office). I lasted through 30 minutes of the movie before asking him to take me home because I was tired. Really, I was kind of hoping that Aaron guy was online (he was. And he asked me out for the next day).

The Date Before Last wasn't bad, per se, just totally alien. I don't blame him for dating the way he did...he was probably feeling a little old and wanted to ascertain very quickly whether or not we could ever work out. But I was coming from a totally different place and I think we both said goodnight with a little feeling of relief.