Date with Rain Check.

She: Russian, 42 years, pretty, a daughter in College.

Her profile said that she had a strong accent. She was very kind in the email exchange; then following internet dating protocol, she called me. I understood very little about the things that she told over the phone, but we were able to arranged a meeting on Coffee Beans near her house.

That day the traffic was very light and I arrived 30 minutes earlier. I went to the market to buy flowers. I thought: What flowers will I buy? Very expensive, are not good choice for first date, girl would think that I want to buy her quickly, and I need to show that I’m not searching for a buy and dispose woman, but for establish a long customer-vendor relationship. This is not a cash sale. How do you buy something that you don’t know what really is?
For sure she will think that you aren’t interested in the real person, (What is the real person? Please stop thinking and buy the flowers.)
Then I needed to make a nice down payment flowers, no expensive, but it will show that I will take care about my compromises. After a hard decision time, I choose one single dark red flower with a long stem.

I selected a table in the Coffee Beans. She arrived. Wow. She is pretty! She seated and starts talk, Wow. It’s very hard to understand (Why my grand mother didn’t talk me in Russian?) But she is pretty and how she speaks remembered me a secret KGB Russian agent from old 007 movie.
... then she is working on the space engineering field (with calculus of something that I didn’t understand), she studied on Russia engineering and there, at that time, they didn’t have computers available and she was very bad for drawing, then she exchanged french fries for drawing services, in Russia she needed to made french fries from scratch. Wow! She knows how to do French Fries.
She told me that she was interesting on me (she was really direct) and we arrange another date for the weekend. We exchanged some nice emails, and suddenly she stopped to reply. I called her and left a message.
Three days later I received an email that she kindly said that she started a relationship with a guy that she meet outside Jdate, and she was sorry but he gets she in her toes, she was now out of Jdate. I thought… bad news, she is pretty and has the knowledge how to do french fries, but after a while… how long this new relationship will be sustained. She is not 20 years old, she is exited, but she really doesn’t know the guy. My children will visit me for vacations for a month. What is the probability that her new relationship will be a medium-long term relationship? 10%? 5%? I thought that is less than 1%. Then I replied her with congratulations for be in a relationship and I wrote in the same email the following Rain Check coupon:

---------------------------------
Date: 12/15/08
Rain Check Coupon
For a Second Date

Valid from 01/25/09
to : 01/31/09
______________________
Explaining her that one month later she will know if this new relationship is stable or not, then she would use the coupon or discard it. She called back (she had deleted her Jdate account) thanked for the coupon. The month passed very quickly. On Jan/25 I send a note to her cell that the coupon is still valid. She replied that this day is his birthday. Ok. …, then It’s not a very short term relationship. It is interesting ...then we can get quickly and without effort good life things.

But after 2 weeks I saw her profile active again in Jdate site, I wrote her, but she wrote me back: she was hurt and she doesn’t want to get any serious relationship, because she is afraid to be hurt again. For sure, she thought about and I wasn’t viewed as good candidate for her, but she was sweet. Was a good first date after all.