First Date
Our first date was kind of by accident.
Sarah
Michael invited several friends to join him at an outdoor family festival in San Francisco, and I was the only one planning to go. Since I had a hair appointment on the other end of the earth (the Outer Sunset), the plan was to drive over from Oakland, stop by the Civic Center for the festival for an hour or so, and then go my hair trimmed.
It was a solid plan and I actually left the house on schedule! But then Michael overslept and accidentally stood me up for our friend date lol.
Michael
As usual during my past 5 years in the City, I invited a handful of friends who might be interested in getting together for an event. Sarah was the only person who was interested. Unfortunately, I had been getting migraines fairly regularly for about a week at that point and it slowed me down enough that I was too late to attend the community event before it ended.
Sarah
We decided to meet up later that afternoon to enjoy the rooftop of Michael’s swanky SOMA high rise, and we ended up talking for like 3 hours.
Michael
I hadn’t seen Sarah in probably 17 months at this point, so when she said she could meet up after her appointment, I was very happy to still get to see her, especially after flaking on her earlier that day. I didn’t really think about it, but this would be the first time we were going to hang out together alone.
Yeah, we were together for around 3 hours and I really enjoyed it. I walked Sarah to her car and she said she wondered if this one restaurant was still open. “They have really good crab fried rice,” she said, or something like that. I was like, “How good? Like 8 out of 10?” And she was like, “10 out of 10.” Well that sounded REALLY good to me. And I was interested in spending more time with Sarah and seeing how things went. I told Sarah I’d join her if it was open. She called and they were closing. I asked her, “How often do you get this crab fried rice?” And she was like, “Probably once a month.” I told her, “Let me know the next time you want it and I’ll join you.” I figured, I couldn’t lose either way. Either I enjoy spending more time with Sarah, or I get try to some delicious food. And I was thrilled that I wouldn’t have to wait long to see Sarah again and find out how things went.
Sarah
Whenever someone who lives in San Francisco says they are going to come visit you in the East Bay, 95% of the time they are not telling the truth! So I figured he was just being polite. And then, because I never remember anything, I forgot that he had asked. So months later when he hit me up asking if I’d ever gotten that crab fried rice, I was like oh yeah of course, several times!
Michael
So I’m not really one to pressure anyone about anything. I told Sarah I’d get the rice with her, she gets it every month, so if she wanted to spend time with me, she just had to let me know. If she didn’t, it was an easy way for her to not spend time with me. No pressure. So apparently we messaged on Facebook a bit after that, probably about things that she posted. But I see Sarah usually every year at our college reunion in October. So as October approached, I started thinking about her again, and then I remembered the rice. So now that basically 6 months had passed, I reached out to her and was like, “So have you ordered that crab fried rice dish since we hung out?” and she was like “yeah, I’m sure I have. Probably a few times.” Oh, I thought. Message received! OK, she’s not interested in hanging out more.