First Impressions

My first date with my now partner-for-life went rather uneventfully up until around 2 AM.

We’d met up around noon for coffee at a local Peet’s. I had prepared by rolling out of bed around eleven, pulling on jeans and a cartoon T-shirt that felt indicative of my overall personality, trying and failing to comb my hair, then strolling into the coffee shop a few minutes early.

My partner apparently had spent hours agonizing over what to wear, trying to look not overly casual but also somehow formal (?), doing up their hair with ample amounts of product, putting contacts in, and showed up early as well, looking way too good for me.

Years later we will each confess to our pre-date preparations and I will be lectured on the importance of making a good first impression rather than a realistic one. Oh well.

Regardless, date proceeded and after coffee we took a walk, then we went to get lunch, then after lunch we decided to see a movie, and after the movie we figured we’d get dinner, and then after dinner we ended up sitting in the trunk of a car in an empty Safeway parking lot, listening to music on the speakers and talking.

I’ve not had many dates, so at the time I did not realize this one was going well (yes, I’m aware how dense I really am) and at some point the topic of what body parts attracted us came up in conversation. To my horror, my partner expressed a complete disinterest in body parts - like any of them.

To which I suddenly blurted out, “What? But that’s like my best feature!”

[Note: Dear reader - we leave the applicable body part out here so you may imagine the one that would incite the same respective level of horror in your own response]

And my darling partner looked at my indignant face and just laughed.

Then hugged me tight.

“What about your personality?” Still laughing. I sat rigidly in shock, trying to process exactly what was happening here.

“Personality?? Are you kidding me?” Again, I had no clue at this point that the date was actually going well. I was, in fact, utterly convinced I had just wasted over twelve hours of my life on someone who I now thought had no interest in me. Despite spending those same twelve hours avidly chatting and responding to every word I'd said. No, instead I felt horrified that my usual charms had not had any affect - instead, they'd had zero impact, and here I was now coasting along on personality alone.

[Imagine the horror, dear reader.]

The lesson I have since learned is that whatever strengths or sexiness you might think you have, what people actually appreciate about you may likely be none of those things whatsoever.

That and apparently personality is, in fact, a thing people find attractive - who knew?