The Friendship Date

I love open communication - but sometimes I worry that it scares people away. Maybe this is silly.

Recently, before going out on a first date with a guy, I sent him a note saying that I'd like to approach the evening as a 'friendship date'. In order to minimize the awkwardness that often follows blind dates, I wanted to pretend that we were testing each other out as friends and then if we liked some level of friendliness then it could evolve. He reacted to my note in a nonchalant way with something along the lines of "sure sounds good - whatever." This response left me wondering - well he must think I'm already pushing him away before I've even met him - oh well.

We had a nice enough evening where he really respected my space and boundaries, spent a long time walking around the city talking about life and social issues. All in all a pleasant evening but not spectacularly fun - the lack of laughs was a disappointment but other than that - a great night.

Then no call or email. So I decide to pull the forward communication card again and tell him that on the date-scale of friendship to 'more than friends' I'm somewhere in the middle and asked where he stands. Surprisingly he had the straight forward answer of yeah me too - - placating? I'm not sure. Even though this will not likely lead to a great adventure in love, it's great to know that I can say what I want and ask my curious questions and sometimes get exactly what I'm looking for.

Killing the awkwardness of blind dates with experiments in friendship was a great idea - perhaps a tool to be used in the future.