Group Date

*All names have been changed to keep the identity of my friends and potential love interests private. 

DISCLAIMER: The social outing recorded in this blog post does not meet the criteria to be qualified as a date (it was not paired off or paid for, but it was planned ahead.) That being said, the circumstances surrounding this social outing pushed me out of my comfort zone in an effort to show interest in a boy I think is cute so it's going on the blog.

Let's give you some background first.

The date is August 11. I'm attending a regional YSA conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Me and my friend Sara are in line for a lunch buffet there and we have the briefest interaction with a smiley blond kid named Will. We don't learn much about him but I at least knew I liked his vibe because he seemed kind and easygoing and had some sort of a sense of humor. Will and I exit the buffet line and as I'm waiting for Sara to finish dishing up her food I make a mental note to try and watch where he goes down to sit so that we can go sit by him, however, he's quickly lost in the crowd and Sara and I end up joining a table with 3 other boys much too young for us. 

As we're sitting eating our meal, I tell Sara that I thought Will seemed cute and nice and immediately she gets up and starts searching the dining hall for him, to no avail. Eventually, meal time ends and we all shuffle into the next room to listen to a speaker. Sara continues to search the crowd for Will as we move to the next room and eventually spots him sitting down in the middle of a row filled with girls (there were literally probably 5-7 girls on either side of him.) She was brightened by the fact that she'd located him, but discouraged by the surroundings she found him in, so we returned to our seats near the back of the room next to our friends. 

That's when, we spot Will stand up from his spot and walk out of the room. Sara, moved upon by who knows what, gets up and follows him out, where she finds him going through his luggage looking for something. I was not in the room when this happened so I have no idea what sort of conversation they had, but I know it ended with Sara getting his number for ME. Sara reports that the conversation was awkward but that he was very nice and chill about it, doing what he could to put her at ease because he could tell she felt awkward😂

The conference ends without another sight of Will. In the following days, I text him giving him my name but the conversation fizzles out as I become nervous and unsure of how to approach the situation because he lives a 3+ hour drive away from me.

Fast forward to yesterday, September 30. Sara and I are planning to make the drive down to the area where Will lives, but not to visit him. My friends Olivia and Owen are in town from Utah for a mere 24 hours for a layover and we made plans to spend the day with them! In the time leading up to September 30, Sara kept gently suggesting we make plans to see Will in person and I did nothing about it mostly because I still felt awkward and unsure about the whole situation. He did seem super nice and cool from our brief interaction back at the YSA conference but I did not know how to deal with distance obstacle in our way. I'm not great at keeping in touch with people I'm already friends who live far away, much less boys I barely know.

Nevertheless, we met up with Olivia and Owen around 11:00am and as I was eating a gluten free firehouse subs sandwich while everyone else watched me (they had all already eaten that morning) I decided to text Will asking him if he wanted to meet us all for ice cream that night. I did it for the plot (and to give me some blog material.) 

Nine hours later, we all met up with Will at an ice cream place that was entirely blue inside. Will continued to prove himself to be a kind, easygoing, and all around nice guy with a quieter sense of humor as he ate his single scoop of guava cheesecake ice cream with 4 near strangers.

His good qualities

1. Has a natural talent for putting people at ease
2. Smart!! (He's in med school)
3. Values the church

He also likes pickleball and is afraid of sharks.

In my debrief with Olivia, Owen, and Sara afterwards, we determined he is good at navigating possibly awkward situations, nice, personable, genuine, sincere, and might possibly have a sense of humor. He did ask some questions specifically to Olivia and Owen that gave us moment for pause during our debrief but on the whole we all thought he was a stand up guy.

In writing this blog post, I think the only thing I can think of that I don't like about him so far is his eyebrows.

All in all, props to me for doing something uncomfy and props to my friends for talking my anxiety down as we were going to meet up with him (my heart beat was 104 bpm.)

Moving forward, I'm still unsure of how to approach the situation. He did text me afterwards thanking me for the invite and a link to playlist of some Cody Fry songs that we'd talked about while we were all standing around eating our ice cream. I have yet to respond as I did not get home til 2am last night and have spent the majority of the day recovering from a crazy couple days full of activities and little sleep.

He's a nice guy.