If you are showing up halfway through this story, here are parts one and two.

My friend and I invite my date to sit down, and he does - but not after going to grab some tea with me inside. I quickly find out we are both tea aficionados, and I talk his ear off about my favorite brews while he patiently listens. I find his face vaguely reminiscent of someone, but I can`t quite figure out who, so I continue to prattle on. I`m a talker at the best of times, but in this situation I was surprised anyone was able to get a word in edgewise. Surprisingly, my date seems quite comfy with me doing the majority of the verbal work.

When we got back to the table where my friend was sitting, the gent who we’d watched run out just moments before had joined her. I asked him why he ran, and he didn’t have a coherent answer. Hm. As I raised my eyebrow at my friend, the three of us proceeded to try and suss out the gent. We quickly discovered he’d come to the meeting to exchange music from his iPod, but didn’t even have one. Yet he lived mere blocks away, and wanted us to come to his place to get it. Oh, no, wait - that’s why he ran out of the coffee shop, because he forgot his iPod perhaps? we asked. Nope. He just laughed in response.

The more questions that were asked of iPod man, the stranger things got. After 45 minutes into the conversation, I still was too shocked at my date’s attractiveness, and hadn’t managed to even take a peek at him because of the way we were all sitting. Still, I wanted iPod man to go away, as his reverse discrimination and bizarre, ever-changing reasoning was really getting my goat. So, I thanked him for coming along. He got the hint and left.

After he was out of earshot, the three of us proceeded to share a long and hearty laugh, discussing the weirdness we’d all just been a part of. As that conversation became tiresome, my friend decided it was time for her to head back to her place. Since I was staying with her while stopping by on my way through town, we discussed my “curfew”: midnight. As my friend bid us farewell with a wink and a nudge (how subtle, I know!) the two of us made our way across the street to the bowling alley. I absolutely love bowling - even competed at a fairly high level as a kid - but I’d never gone on a bowling date. So off we went.

We had two lanes all to ourselves, while another group of rowdy folks played nearby. The lanes were dark, the music was deafening, and the lasers were on. That’s right, it was laser bowling. Hard to make much of a conversation, other than to exclaim prowess or defeat. Needless to say, I creamed my date at the game, but not without increasing tension between us. Good tension. Really, really good tension. The kind that makes you feel like your belly is being tickled with pop rocks every time you look at the other person. Like your bodies are magnets, draw to one another by forces beyond gravity. It was confusing, exhilarating, and absolutely delightful - and so was he.

But the date still wasn’t over. Neither of us were willing to stop whatever magic was blossoming, so we decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air and get to know each other better.

More to come… soon.