At the Coffeehouse

We finally met! ^_^

So here's how it went down . . .

We agreed to meet at 2pm for coffee instead of a late lunch. He was coming from an appointment at the optometrist's. I finished shadowing early (I'll blog about that later), so I just lazed around in my apartment for a few hours before I left . . . time that I should've used to study (like now).

At about 1:35pm or so, I decided to leave. It only takes about 20 minutes to get there, but I had never been there and I was afraid that the monstrous highway overpass/exchange/junction would confuse my GPS. You see, just prior to entering the city from the west, there's this area where several highways join together and there are a ton of overpass bridges and exits and such (to me, it's a little more confusing than the Chicago loop - and that's saying something).

So anyway, my GPS was fine but I took wrong exits. Twice. *Sighs* That place really IS confusing. :-/ I thought I would be late, so I was kind of nervous about that. But I got there a little after 2pm. Balls it was cold outside today! It was definitely below zero (Fahrenheit) with windchill.

I enter the coffeehouse and I don't see him anywhere. The coffeehouse had this distinctly . . . hippie feel to it. Which is fine, it was rather nice. I figure I'll get my coffee first and sit down and wait for him. At this point it was already 5 minutes past 2pm. I sit down for a while, still don't see him. Then I noticed there was an upstairs area, so I go there. And I still don't see him. I go back down and sit at a table very visible from the entrance (because it was almost right by the entrance). 10 minutes later I get a call from him apologizing about how he was so late because he had lost track of time. About 5 minutes later he walks in the door, drops his stuff at my table while apologizing, and goes to buy coffee. By this time I had almost finished my coffee, lol.

This was our first time seeing each other in person. He was just as cute in person as in his Facebook pictures, lol. He had this hippie-ish look about him as well. From the way he talked and moved, I could definitely tell he's gay (and remember, my gaydar sucks). But he's not really fem . . . kind of like in between(?). After only a few minutes of chatting he remarked how I remind him of one of his friends - like a doppelganger - except that I'm Asian and his friend is Mexican. That amused me (I hope that's a good thing?).

We talked about (in no particular order): school, career ambitions, religion, medical ethics, stem cells, abortion, genetics, prostitution (commercial sex work), regenerative medicine (his interest and ultimate goal), evolution, research, treatment of lab animals, circumcision (he totally brought that up out of nowhere, o_O), TV shows, and other such things. He admitted that he smokes pot occasionally and drinks (which I'm fine with as long as he's not an alcoholic - he's not), and did drugs a couple times. But he reassured me that he wasn't a druggie or a whore or anything. I'm believe him, because it seemed like he had a rough couple years and is now working hard to turn his life around and really do something with his life. And I can totally respect that. However, I did nothing to hide my disapproval for smoking pot and drugs (though I verbally withheld my tongue). He remarked that I seemed really well-behaved and he might be a bit too much of a wild-child for me, lol. We'll see I guess . . .

He's currently working towards his Associates (I think) in nursing and has a contract to transfer to a great 4-year university for 2 more years to then complete his Bachelor's. Then he's going to apply to med school with the ultimate goal of going into regenerative medicine (not even a medical field yet really) and help people regrow tissues, limbs, and/or organs. His road is MUCH longer than mine, his ambitions higher, but I think he can make it.

Anyway, if you've gathered from some of the topics above, we had a mostly intellectual chat. I think that was mostly his doing, as he was more talkative and constantly said something like, "You don't know how great it is to have an intellectual conversation with someone - the people around me are usually stupid and I feel like I have to constantly dumb down my language." Well, he certainly doesn't have to do that with me. ;-)

He's definitely a straight-forward, in your face to-the-point kind of person; whereas I'm a more cautious and moderating person, at least in what I say out loud (or write). We talked for a good 2.5 hours or so with no awkward silences. At around 4pm I had wanted to go and at least move my car, because I parked on a side street that had a sign saying 2-hour parking limit between 7am and 7pm. Yeah, I'm a goodie goodie. Even so, we just kept talking for another hour or so, haha. It was past 5pm when we both decided to leave, mostly because we were both getting hungry (hey, I only had a banana for "lunch").

We happened to park very close to each other, so we walked into the sub-zero cold together. Once we got to our cars, we chatted for another couple minutes in the flesh-penetratingly chilly weather. Then we hugged and said our goodbyes. I must say, it felt really good to hug him for some reason.

On my way back, I got lost on the ridiculous monstrous highway overpass bridge/exchange/junction thing. Twice. This time it was my GPS's fault. And then I hit rush hour traffic. *Sighs* Fuck that, next time I'm taking local roads into the city, as it's only 3-5 minutes longer than by highway.

I realized that I had this slight smile when I got back to my apartment. Maybe that was why when I was chopping an onion, I accidentally sliced off a couple layers of epidermis on my right ring finger with the cleaver. No worries though, it wasn't a deep cut at all and there was no blood. But it's still annoying and now that finger's pretty sensitive. :-/
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So I guess I'll share my impressions of our "date."

I thought that our conversation flowed pretty well. We didn't get into any arguments, heated debates, or anything like that, but we seemed really interested in what the other person was talking about (him almost passionately so a few times). So I think we had a great chat, as evidenced by how long it actually took us to leave, lol. I think we felt pretty comfortable with each other.

I thought he's super-cute, physically. He also has a pretty cute personality in a carefree youthful way. While I obviously disapprove of the pot and drugs (which I don't think he does anymore - not that he did a lot of it in the first place), he'd have to be clueless to not be aware of it. And I think that as his education goes on, he'll be less and less likely to do such things anyway.

I don't know if I really felt a spark, but I would definitely like to get to know him more (Idk, that might be my sex drive talking - did I mention how cute he was?). He seemed like a pretty cool guy overall. Intelligent yet still "green" in many ways. Whereas his roommates are a bad influence on him, maybe I can be a good one, lol. When we parted ways, he expressed interest in getting together again later, as did I.

So yeah, this was a pretty long and detailed post. But I wanted all that in there so I can ask: what do you all think - worth pursuing further?