Haley

Haley was a unique person. She lived with several cats in a small apartment a block away from me. She was four years older than me, too. She and I met through OkCupid, but she was already very familiar with me and all the intricacies of my life.

Or, at least, the parts of my life I posted on my blog.

Haley was what I would call a loyal reader, and what others might call a cyber-stalker.

Our first communication wasn't through OkCupid -- it was through my blog comments, where she would often praise my posts, even if it was just a youtube link. Haley made a point of commenting on everything, often pointing out how we lived in the same neighborhood.

Now, I had other loyal readers, the most prominent of them being Irene, an older woman who found my blog very randomly and signed each post, "Luvya, Irene," which creeped me right the fuck out. I sort of lumped Haley in with Irene -- to me, they were people who read every word I wrote and posted lots of comments. I figured this was no big deal, so long as these people stayed on the internet and out of my real-world existence.

Then I logged in to OkCupid to find a message from Haley.

"Hey Sam!" it started, "This is Haley, the girl who is always commenting on your blog! I saw that we were matched on here and thought I'd give you a shout out. Do you want to grab some dinner sometime?"

I figured sure, what the heck, I can have dinner with a reader. Because, at this point, I still viewed Haley as a reader and nothing more.

You see, I am like lots of guys in that I often have difficulty picking up various vibes. I've gone out to dinner and a movie with someone and thought it was a date when it clearly was not. That was actually kind of common for me for a while. This was the opposite.

I told Haley to meet me Saturday night at a restaurant in our neighborhood. I arrived wearing jeans and a sweater -- nothing fancy. Very casual. She arrived sporting makeup, styled hair, and a very nice cocktail dress.

And yet I still thought I was just meeting a new friend for a burger.

She talked about her long-term singleness, her trouble meeting guys worthy of dating, and how she wants to have kids someday. She laughed at every marginally funny thing I had to say. She smiled at me. She made lots of eye contact.

It still wasn't clicking. Not at all. I just didn't think of her that way. I couldn't think of her that way. That had never even crossed my mind.

The check came.

"Dutch?" I asked. It was this moment, as she was pulling out her wallet, that she knew that I didn't know that this was a date, which I guess is the reason she tried one more tactic...

"What shall we do now?" she asked as we left the restaurant.

"Well, I'm just going to walk back to my place," I said.

"Want some company?" she asked.

It now occurs to me that some very mutually enjoyable things could have happened that evening, had I been paying any attention whatsoever to Haley's behavior. Instead, we went back to my apartment and watched a rerun of Law & Order: SVU, a mood-killing show if ever there was one.

After about 30 minutes, she gave up and left. I didn't see her or hear from her for several months. When I finally did run into her at the grocery store, she introduced me to her boyfriend, a very friendly guy who looked like me. A LOT like me.

And that was when I knew it had been a date.