A second date! I felt ecstatic and terrified with just a few days to plan my first-ever second date. My date repertoire was limited and focused on first dates. A second date seemed like it should be different. This had to be a fluke. How could my first-ever second date be with the woman I felt most excited by? I felt like the underdog and was determined to make up for it by planning the perfect date.

In the post Meeting You, I mentioned Frankie being in-town right before Danielle and I matched on Hinge. While visiting, he wanted to go to the Downtown Market for food and the board game bar House Rules just across the street. It was creative, a blast, and after going with him, familiar. So I stole his idea for a hangout and turned it into a date.

We met just inside the entrance to the Downtown Market. Do you know the tension between two people who are interested in each other but don’t know each other? Well, that was in the air! It was pretty awkward. I had an appointment and was not wanting to be late and lose our table at House Rules. So we jumped right into figuring out what to eat. And she led off by asking if I was vegan. Just a few minutes into the date and I was already panicking! What led her to ask that? My mind was in overdrive running through the different possibilities. Do I look like I am a vegan? Is she a vegan? I am not vegan. If she is, can I live with that? Can she live with that? Is this the end of things with us? Do they have vegan food here? I tried to keep an expressionless face as I thought of the right follow-up question to go with my answer. I said I wasn’t and asked if she was, I know that is the most obvious follow-up question, but I needed a second to find it. She told me… she wasn’t. Oh, the confused relief I felt at that moment. I might have signed without realizing it. I almost felt like she was toying with or testing me, but I tried to shrug it off and get back to the task. After determining that we would eat, if not prefer, meat, we tried to figure out what to order and walked around looking at the different vendors. Ironically we finally settled on hamburgers and ordered. We looked at tea and debated the pressures one might feel about purchasing something by browsing a shop and talking to the owner. Once our food was ready, we headed to House Rules, where I would face another choice that felt like life or death.

We checked in, grabbed our table, and started eating. Then the question finally had to be addressed, which game would we play? I had considered this, but I swept the question under the rug when planning the date. Two-player board games are a tricky category. In hindsight, we should have played a game like Connect Four. We did not. Instead, we stood in front of the wall of options to pick one. While considering the options, I realized the importance of this choice. So many games will list themselves as two-player but have different rules. A game that works for four players is often less interesting with just two. If we picked a game neither of us knew, we’d spend most of the time learning rules and not each other. I also felt that if I chose a game she wasn’t interested in, I might lose her interest. On top of this, we needed a game we could play while eating dinner. After considering a handful of options, the weight of the choice was becoming suffocating.

When it seemed like we would never find a game, she suggested Azul, which she has a copy of. It was the best option we had, so we ran with it. She tried to teach me, and I tried to learn with on-the-fly instructions. We also learned more about how she gives instructions and how I receive them. I don’t think we played it quite right, but it worked out alright for me. Somehow, I won by a landslide. I suspect she let me win. By the end, I regretted the board game idea. We were so focused on the game and eating that we weren’t talking much. At the time, I felt like the date was a failure.

I was starting to accept that things were probably over when we finished the date and headed back to our cars. Making one last desperate attempt to salvage things, I said that the board game idea wasn’t the best second-date idea after all, explained that we didn’t get much time to talk, and apologized. She was reassuring, saying she enjoyed it and asked to keep talking. In disbelief, I told her we didn’t need to. It was getting dark, and I didn’t want her to feel unsafe. I also thought she was being nice and offering me some pity after a failed date. To my surprise, she asked if I had to be someplace and seemed disappointed. After that, I quickly switched from accepting defeat and trying to minimize the letdown to excited hopefulness. We found a table just outside the Downtown Market and started to chat. It was a good conversation. We talked primarily about college and faith. While I shared my go-to large-public-university story, she was dying of laughter!

She impressed me so much! Dates were different with her. It didn’t feel like either of us had to perform to win the interest of the other! It felt natural! I was more to her than a way to feel desired; she was more to me than a trophy to be won. Time with her was life-giving. I didn’t feel I had to change who I was for her. Time with her encouraged me to be who I aspired to be. She had the key to my heart; I was hoping she’d give me the key to hers.