Not A Date

So I had a not a date on Saturday night. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. See, it doesn't happen very often that a girl calls me out of the blue and says, "Let's get together." And when it does, I usually consider it a date. But when she explicitly said it was not a date, I started to question exactly what a date was. Luckily I had some co-workers help me out at lunch on Friday.

I explained the situation: that Sandra had called me and wanted to get together. I explained the level to which I was acquainted with her, and the context of the phone conversation was laid out. "It's definitely a date," said Gruber, "I don't care what she says. She's only saying that because she already has a boyfriend." That's sort of what I thought. Anuradha didn't agree. "If she said it's not a date, it's not a date. She's not really interested in you so much as what you do." Well then why are we going out Saturday night? Why not a Thursday lunch of something. Why block off a weekend night? Anu didn't have an answer for that one, but told me "don't expect to get any."

But does getting some quantify whether or not something was a "date". I've been on dates before where either or both parties were cautious, and things didn't get going until the second or third date. Does that mean that the first one wasn't a date? That seems sort of silly. And what happens if you go out two or three times and decide that it's not going to happen. Does that mean that none of them were ever actually dates? Can a non-date become a date at a later time, or vice versa? It's all very confusing.

Well, we met up at Volterra on Ballard, which isn't too too far from her sister's house. Real nice Italian place, and I had a tough time deciding on what I wanted. I settled from the wild boar tenderloin with Gorgonzola sauce, but I wanted to make sure they were going to cook it right. The thing about wild boar is that you can't cook it any more than medium-rare, unless you want to use a hacksaw to cut it. Suffice it to say, it gets gamey. When the waitress hit me with those facts before I even asked, I know this place wasn't fooling around. I also had my way with a Caesar salad and some bruschetta. She ordered some sort of smoked chicken with pasta. And we talked. A lot of it was about my "work", namely the travel industry and the places to see and the places to avoid and the best times to see and avoid those places. It was fun, actually, talking like an expert about something I should know nothing about. Excellent practice for the cover story is what I mean. Dinner finished up around ten, at which point I walked her back to her car.

Now up until this point, I still wasn't sure whether it was a date or not. There were arguments on both sides:

• She dressed like it was a date. Not like elegant formalwear, but definitely the kind of outfit you'd wear if you were trying to make an impression
• The discussion, while slanted a bit towards my fake job, was typical first-date feeling-out introductory conversation
• We shared the Kahlua and Amaretto Semifreddo in what could be construed as a semi-sensual manner

• There was no suggestion of any after-dinner extension
• No contact was initiated during dinner, which would be difficult to describe as intimate.
• She didn't laugh at my "Semifreddo is Al Fredo's younger brother" joke

Well, on the way to the car, I asked when I could see her again, and she just sort of hit me with an "I had a lot of fun" followed by an "I'm really busy", then a few "boyfriends" and then a "but I had a great time and I definitely want to see you again."

So... what the heck does that mean? I don't know. Just par for the course in my life, I guess. The ladies... I do not understand them.

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Tomorrow there is a briefing on what I guess you would call new hires. I don't know where we're going to put all of the people that are rumored to be coming, but I'm sure it will all be explained in the meeting. I better not be sharing an office with anyone.