Tag Archives: first dates

TEN GREAT FIRST DATES: I CAN READ YOU LIKE A BOOK

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This post is about meeting a first date in a book store.

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This happened to me a few years ago. A book store seemed like a good place because if my date happened to be late (traffic, finding parking or whatever) I could browse around and I wouldn’t look conspicuous just waiting on some street corner like a hooker or in some cafe sipping a cup of coffee hoping that I won’t be stood up.

I had suggested meeting by the travel section on the second floor of a bookstore that was mid-way between where he lived and I did.

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I didn’t see him when I got there and so I took out a book on Nepal and looked at the pictures. Ten minutes, then fifteen minutes passed. Twenty minutes is usually my maximum before I leave.  Then, I spotted him at the pen section. Continue reading →

TEN GREAT FIRST DATES: SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

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When I meet a man for the first time I tend to focus on what’s wrong with him. Call it sabotaging or relationship anxiety or simply that  even though I do want a man in my life I sometimes fear that he might take up too  much of my time and I will have to forgo my dreams. In fact, this is so much part of my inner making that The Dating Club, the novel I am writing, circles around the theme of a woman having to choose between her career or the man she loves.

So, I tell myself -and in this I do not think my mind is in either panic nor disillusioned mode – I believe that a man in my life ought to make it better and not worse. Naturally, as self-preservation, I look immediately for the worse. Why waste time?

Instead of seeing a good heart, an exciting mind and a man pursuing his own remarkable dreams, I see the physical faults which are enough to stop me from going beyond the surface.

I don’t think that I am alone in this and men probably suffer more from this syndrome than women do. Continue reading →

Ten Great First Dates: Walk on the Other Side

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An interesting first date, I find,  is to visit each other’s neighborhood. When Andre, a man I met online,  suggested that we go for coffee I counter suggested that we walk around his neighborhood, Saint Henri. I told him about my blog regarding Top Ten First Dates. He happily agreed.

It was in Saint Henri that one of Canada’s greatest authors, Gabrielle Roy, set her famous novel The Tin Flute, translated from the French Bonheur d’occasion. The novel depicts the grinding poverty of working-class families of Saint Henri in this post WWII industrialized section of Montreal and won several awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Prix Femina in France and made into a movie in 1983. Truly a great novel.

I had read the novel in university and again a few years back and so one of the first things I asked Andre when I met him in front of the Lionel Groulx subway station was, “Are there any historical sites of Gabrielle Roy’s Saint Henri?” Continue reading →

Ten Great First Dates: The Market

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Raise your hands if you’ve been guilty of suggesting going for a coffee on a first date? Oh, my, quite a crowd.

Well, I’m here to tell you that going for coffee on a first date sucks for many reasons. First of all, meeting a guy for the first time makes me nervous enough without having to add more caffeine to make me look like I’ve just been released from a study on clinical anxiety.

I know. Yes, of course, I know. Coffee is just a metaphor for let’s meet somewhere (preferably a coffee shop) where you can tell me all about your favorite breakfast cereal and I can tell you how much I hate these first dates. Then what?

So, my suggestion is that you roam around a market where you can have interesting things to talk about.

For instance. Look at these beautiful leeks.

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I have a great recipe for a leek pie. Took it from The Silver Palate Cookbook and modified it. No longer put in cream but milk. Sometimes substitute the Gruyère cheese for goat’s cheese, like the Greeks do. Have you ever been to Greece?   Oh, you have. So how do you like to travel? Continue reading →