Date 3 - Drinks (plural) with Giovanni



Our typical intern

Like with many of my volleyball teammates, I haven’t really taken the time to get to know our office interns outside of the usual context I see them in. In my defense, they are only there temporarily, and we try to keep them busy. There is also the fascinatingly complex relationship between an ambitious intern with their eyes on the top of the industry ladder and the assistant who technically outranks them, but who they traditionally treat as an indentured servant. Mostly we don’t develop much of a rapport. So far, out of all of the interns I’ve worked with (five, and counting) Giovanni is one that I could actually hang out with. I think.

Gio is in his late twenties, confident, quick, affable, witty and quite well-liked around the office. He also has a fantastic geeky streak, which nearly redeems him for being a little too good-looking.

So when my Friday date didn’t come through for me (Mark decided that he didn’t have the time), I was faced with the prospect of spending the first Friday of Lent drinking hot chocolate and watching Netflix with my roommate (categorically not a date) or manning the hell up and asking the intern out for drinks. Both have their advantages; but only one involves venturing outside my comfort zone.

I over-thought the hell out of it. Big surprise.

There were a (metric) zillion concerns and potential problems associated with asking Giovanni for a date. Here are the top 5:

Girls gotta stick together

1.       Last time I checked, Gio was seeing someone. And perhaps even more than one someone. If he’s actually single, he’s the kind of single person that dates a lot. He took his Valentine’s Day date to Star Wars Trivia at a local pub (so obviously, the kid’s got serious game). And I don’t want to interfere with that in any way. I would not want to cause discomfort or jealousy for Star Wars girl, corndog profile pic chick, the one he ditched for a hockey game in January, or some other new woman. That would make me sad.

    
2.       I do not ever want to be involved in a law suit for sexual harassment. In any way. Ever. I work with Giovanni, and though our office does not have cumbersome HR manuals on this sort of thing, it would fall to me to draft one if shit gets weird. I don’t want to go through that, and then have to write a tedious manual on how to avoid going through that. It’s too much.  

3.       If anything serious happens, I will see him every weekday until next November. That’s a lot of awkward silence to suffer through.

4.       Giovanni knows about the Lent challenge and is quite bright. Odds are pretty good that if he tried, he could probably figure out where I am publishing this blog and read it. He’s way more internet savvy than I am. After all, he was the one who showed me how to play the dino game when the internet stops working. So if he really wanted to read about our date, he could find a way. Like by googling "Lent + 40 Dates + Weird" or something. I don’t know. The internet is a magical and very insidious place. I have no intention of trying to obfuscate more than necessary and use elaborate lies to hide his identity from him. So it could go terribly wrong if anything supremely embarrassing happens. I mean, I could simply not write about it, but where’s the fun in that?

   

Some guys are just good with computers.

5.       I could get attached. Obviously that is one of the dangers/goals of going on a date with anyone and trying to get to know them better. But it is a legitimate concern for me. The odds that we will still be acquaintances after his year-long internship is over are minimal. Not just because people move on, but because his career path is long and bright and cheery, and nostalgia for an ignominious little company that he suffered through for a year is probably not something to indulge in. And I know I get attached. I still have a Blackberry, for crying out loud. I am wretched at saying “goodbye,” even when I don’t like someone. Better not to think of interns as human beings. If I allow Giovanni to be a person, it will suck when he inevitably ditches our company for the big leagues.

There are more reasons, but they’re even more convoluted and self-indulgent and neurotically pessimistic. So we’ll just focus on what happened when I finally overruled all of these objections and asked him out. Because I did. Bam!

Friday was wrapping up. I was working in the office next door as opposed to the office I share with Giovanni. Oh yeah, we share an office. This is such a mistake. Anyway, I was next door because the light in there was better for tracing an antique portrait of John Stuart Mill into a cartoon where I try to make a pun out of Happy Family Day. (It seemed like a legitimate project at the time.) 

I heard Gio packing up his stuff and getting his coat from the closet. I popped my head out and asked if he was done for the day. He confirmed he was. I asked what he was up to that night. He started talking about his plans, which included some place where you go to play board games. I stopped listening because I had to let out the breath I’d been holding and tell myself to relax and was already mentally planning on what music I’d listen to in my pajamas while doing laundry at home on my Friday night.

When I started listening again, I realized that he had asked me something. Why did I want to know his plans? He must have anticipated this or something. My throat closed up and my mouth went suddenly dry. Maybe I'm allergic to unexpected conversational gambits. 
After a moment, I told him that I was going to ask him to grab a drink tonight.

He said sure. 

Oh shit.

I think I must have turned either ghost white or mottled red. Not a normal colour, anyway. 

He said he’d be done his board game thing at like 8:30 or so and we could meet up after. I gestured toward the pub across the street and maybe said something coherent. He told me to text him. Then he realized that I have not ever texted him before. Yeah, that is intentional. I have tried to maintain boundaries. He asked if I had his number. It was on my company contact list, I’d called him from the office phone once. Despite that, I read it out to him to confirm. He said yup, told me to text him later, and left.

My boss was in the next office over (and our walls are thin) so he likely heard the entire exchange. He did not express any opinion or anything whatsoever and he said “goodnight” before heading home a few minutes later. I stayed working late on legitimate projects as well as frivolous ones, and worrying about all zillion of the possible consequences of a drink with an intern. I composed a solid half-dozen potential texts, and eventually sent one. I didn’t get home until well after 7pm.

For dinner I ate an amazing macaroni and cheese omelet concoction that my lovely friend made and dropped off at the office earlier that day. It was glorious.

Young Trebek, total babe.

I changed shirts several times and got advice from my roommate and then a couple more times. Because I’m suddenly making up for 30-something years of tomboyishness now. I checked with my colleague (who I text all the time because we have practically zero boundaries) to make sure I hadn't texted the wrong number. She confirmed I hadn't. Then I counselled myself to be patient. Instead of a hot chocolate, I had a gin & tonic and watched Jeopardy with my roommate. We shouted things at Alex Trebek until Gio texted me back to let me know what time to meet him at the pub. I started to pace. My roommate made (deserved and) relentless fun of me.

I changed shirts, grabbed my coat, ditched my purse (because I won’t actually need 4 notebooks, will I?) and walked down the hill, past the office to the pub.

I was early, the girls told me to be early because last time I totally failed to recognize Constantine and it’s better to be the failee than the failure. Apparently. Plus I walk crazy-fast when I’m nervous, and it was downhill. I found an empty table and watched the final minute of the hockey game, which turned out to be an exciting one. Elise was my server, and when she eventually came over to my table, she checked how many other people I was expecting to join me. I made a joke, “Just one, unless something goes oddly wrong. Or maybe right.” She laughed indulgently, like I was her inappropriate Uncle Milton. I gave her my credit card to start a tab, ordered Jamesons with rocks and a glass of water and settled in to watch the game and pretend to ignore the door.

Gio was late. He texted to let me know, which was nice. He’d offered to walk his previous date to her car and she had parked in Narnia. When he arrived, he came around the table to hug me. I panicked again. He stepped on my toes and I may have said, “Ok, hugging is a thing,” out loud. Oops.

He hadn’t had time to take his jacket off before Elise was back. He asked what I was drinking, and then answered his own question at the same time that Elise and I told him. She laughed her ass off like it was an Abbott and Costello routine. (I suspect that good-looking guys get automatic laughs regardless of how funny they actually are.) He ordered a double, and I ordered another single, after some thought.

We talked about first dates and family and movies and hockey and his Easter plans. The lights got darker, the music got louder and the people around us were starting to dance.

After one more round, Gio paid Elise and we ditched the suddenly clubby pub for a quieter locale. We tried a sports bar across the street, but if anything, it was louder than the first place. Abort!

Back across the street and down grimy stairs with a gob of spit on the fifth step down that I wanted to warn Giovanni about stepping in, but there was no pause long enough in the conversation to do so. The dive bar we wound up in was all pool tables and peculiar people. We sat at the bar, Gio switched to beer and I went back to the gin & tonic that had started my night. His perch had a better vantage point for people watching, but everything I saw brought a wry smile to my face. One of the most abysmal pool games was taking place at the table nearest us and we quietly made fun of them. When Giovanni left to use the bathroom, I texted my mum about a guy with dreadlocks who was rocking 80s style grandpa glasses that looked exactly like a pair she had in her costume closet.

We talked and drank for ages, I probably embarrassed myself a dozen or so times. I got judged for being one of those people who give responses to Jeopardy clues in full question format. I learned about two more jobs that Gio had, but can only remember one now that I’m sober. He has worked a bizarre and impressive variety of jobs and I’ve been keeping a list. But if I'd had my notebook with me, I wouldn't have forgotten what one was, I'd have just added it to my list. Damn Past Emily and her shortsightedness! 

We talked hockey with a random dude in a Leafs jersey, and I got the bartender’s phone

number so that we could call him to see if they are ever playing Canadiens games with sound during playoffs. I scrawled the bartender's number on the back of my handwritten receipt with a sticky pen from behind the bar, because, again, no notebooks. Foolish mortal! First guy’s phone number I’ve gotten on my own during Lent, and it’s not for a date. Probably why I’m single. *Shot!*

I paid our tab at the dive bar, which was way cheaper, and we made our way upstairs and outside. We walked for half a block in (for him) the wrong direction. He realized it and we stopped. We were in the middle of a drive-thru driveway, and he maneuvered me out of the way of traffic, because I had zero concept of what was going on. I was too busy wondering why he had walked so far the wrong way in the first place, and whether he intended to walk me home up the hill. Once out of traffic, I made a joke that he didn’t immediately get and then razzed him about it. He gave me a high five, which felt less awkward than the hug, but oddly disappointing (especially odd since I’m a big fan of high fives). To prove that I got the message, I told him, “Good night, friend,” And walked home feeling buzzed and exhausted.