I'll have the Platonic Roll. Extra wasabi.

Well, Gabby and I finally had dinner last night. We had been casually emailing/texting for a couple weeks now and kicked around a few times/dates before finally deciding to meet last night, Wednesday at 7:00. Nice. I picked out a sushi place near my apartment called Blue Fish. I've been once, so I knew it was good. Turns out she eats sushi twice a week and was more than familiar with it. Okay then.

Here's the thing. When I first met her a few weeks ago, I was...well, I was drunk. There's no other explanation for my sitting down next to a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress drinking a beautiful glass of champagne. There just isn't. So I remembered some things about her, but not much. I knew she had a great laugh, looked great, seemed fun...that was about it.

When she walked in I froze a little. I remembered her being pretty, but not that pretty. She was really pretty. Like. Really. She was small (five feet flat), with a bouncy blonde ponytail. She was wearing a form-fitting dress. And. Well. You know. She kinda has a "Girls Next Door"-esque physique. Spinning classes and two bags of saline will do that, I suppose. (side note: I really don't want to harp on the breast implants thing, but my god. They were just so....there. Omni-present. Always sitting up at attention, daring me to glance down. But. Well, I've been a guy for 28 years now. I've figured out when I'm supposed to be looking her in the eye and when it's safe to look elsewhere. They say men like big boobs because, at the most primal level, it's a sign of fertility. Whatever you say, Darwin. I was having a hell of a time keeping my concentration.)

When we sat down, I quickly ordered a 22 oz beer. I felt myself getting nervous and realized that I needed to loosen up fast. And I did. Dinner was good. The conversation was good. She asked questions, I asked questions. We ordered sushi. We tried one of the crazy eel/shrimp/secret-sauce sushis (which was fucking terrible, incidentally). We laughed (albeit a little nervously). It was nice. It didn't necessarily feel like a date. It was like...hmm...you know when you meet someone at work, and you think, "I could be friends with this guy!" so you grab lunch and there's still this weird nervousness because you're getting to know each other? And it's not necessarily enjoyable, but you know it'll be better the next time? It was kinda like that. Which is to say it was completely absent of any sexual tension.

She very sweetly offered to split the check with me. A not-so-subtle way of saying, "I hope you weren't getting any ideas, buster. We're friends." She was fairly insistent, which I guess was her way of nonverbally adding "Seriously. This wasn't a date." But I insisted on picking up the entire check, because I wanted to, and I was the one who asked her out in the first place. I really didn't mind. As we were leaving the restaurant, we ran into two couples that she knew who were having dinner together. She introduced me as her "friend, Robert." In case I didn't get the hint back at the table. I walked her to her car. We shared a very sterile, platonic hug. I walked to my car and that was that. Shrug. Okay then.

Re-reading that recap, I realize that it may sound somewhat self-pityish. That's really not what I was going for. I knew going in that there probably wouldn't be any sparks. In fact, I was approaching it like dinner with a new friend, for that very reason. I don't know. I guess I realized that I'm not supposed to be with a girl who's got breast implants. That's not to say there's something within the implants that repels me. There are just inherent differences between myself and a girl who...and it's not just the implants! The entire checklist: spinning class, sorority girl from UT (HA! Kalinda!), always on the go, wine bars, sushi bars, fancy bars, shopping, high heels...But you go on dates (or dinners, in this case) to discover these things. It was a nice experience. And there are now twenty-some-odd people in Houston who have actually seen me having dinner with someone that gorgeous.

It reminded me of something Rob said in High Fidelity. When I got home, I pulled the book off my bookshelf and (finally) found the passage I was thinking of. So that's what I'll leave you with. A realistic, yet optimistic piece of advice. And his little self-description afterwards kind of sums up how I (and most normal guys) feel about themselves. I'm not sure how relevant it is to my date tonight, but it made me feel better. Enjoy!

The lesson I've learned...is that you've got to punch your weight....What am I? Average. A middleweight. Not the brightest bloke in the world, but certainly not the dimmest.

My genius, if I can call it that, is to combine a whole load of averageness into one compact frame. I'd say there were millions like me, but there aren't, really: lots of blokes have impeccable music taste but don't read, lots of blokes read but are really fat, lots of blokes are sympathetic to feminism but have stupid beards, lots of blokes have a Woody Allen sense of humor but look like Woody Allen. Lots of blokes drink too much, lots of blokes behave stupidly when they drive cars, lots of blokes get into fights, or show off about money, or take drugs. I don't do any of these things, really. If I do OK with women, it's not because of the virtues I have, but because of the shadows I don't have.