Party of 5 Kids

Ben may be a bit of a stretch, but let’s call it what it is, folks—I’m gettin’ desperate. I am honestly at the point where I will give ALMOST anyone a chance. To go out with Ben, I had to think outside the box a little bit. He’s 35, successful government job, tall, athletic, has similar interests, and he has five kids. What’s that? Yup. Five kids. He’s a father to a basketball team. His kids live with his ex-wife in a Midwest state, so they’re not a constant physical presence in his life. We emailed a few times more than I usually like to wait, but I finally mentioned that we should get together. With the weather cooperating, we did a mini-tour of the western Virginia wineries. He was quieter than I anticipated, but my loud mouth and a bit o’ the smashed grapes helped him open up. He revealed that he was hesitant to talk to/go out with me because of my age. That’s fun, I’ve never heard that before! With his five kids, he wasn’t convinced that a 26-year-old would have the maturity to handle the situation and to just blend with his older, sophisticated, fatherly lifestyle. On the upside, he went on to say that he could tell through my emails that I was different than he was expecting, and that me being a teacher gave him some peace of mind that five kids wouldn’t be shocking to me.

I was having a pretty good time with Ben. We were having really good conversation, and exchanging various stories and thoughts for the future. He was super soft spoken and was very thoughtful with everything he said. He was almost too thoughtful. An example: he doesn’t like professional sports. None of them. And not just he doesn’t follow them. He really doesn’t like them because of how society builds up these athletes and they get all this recognition and money and role model status when…they’re just good at sports. I understand his point and tend to agree, but my G-Men are still great to watch on Sundays and I’ll be darned if I don’t make it to at least one Yankees game a season. I did like Ben, though, so I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t feel more of a connection. Since we were outside all day and it was sunny, sunglasses were a fixture on our faces. I took my sunglasses off many times throughout to try and initiate some eye contact. I feel that eye contact is so important in building a connection with someone. You can kind of tell if it’s there or not. He kept his sunglasses on at all times so that was frustrating. We ended our date with a hug, and I’m not sure that I’ll hear from him again. I couldn’t get a clear read on what he thought and felt about me.

Tomorrow I have a date with a youngin’ who came up out of nowhere. If Ben contacts me, I would definitely be open to going out again to see if a connection is there.