Run to Conclusions

Story Sent in by Melissa:

On my first date with Jeff, we met in a park near a cluster of downtown shops and restaurants. We had planned for a walk, then lunch, then a comedy show. We had communicated mostly through email over the prior two weeks.

The first thing I noticed in person was that he walked at least two steps ahead of me. When I hastened to catch up, he sped up, himself.

"Are we in a race?" I asked him.

"No. It's just my way," he replied, "Unless you want to race."

"Do you think we could walk alongside each other? It would make it easier to talk to you."

"Sure, let's try it."

He tried it for exactly three seconds before reverting back to jetting ahead. I tried to catch up again, but he sped up, faster and faster until he was at a low run. I stopped trying to catch up, but he kept on going.

"I'll meet you at the restaurant," he said, "I have to get us a table, anyway."

At issue was that he never told me to which restaurant we were going. I called him up and asked him. He told me and I met him there. It was nearly deserted inside, and when I sat down across from him, I said, "There wasn't much of a need to run here, was there?"

"There was every reason to run!" he said, "Menu time!" and opened up his menu. A moment later, he put it down and asked me, "Know what you want yet?"

I had barely scanned down the appetizer list. I said, "Can we slow it down just a bit? What's the rush?"

He didn't say anything to that, and I took my time with the menu. We ordered our lunches, they arrived at the table, and his was gone in less than two minutes. As I worked through mine, I caught him glancing at his watches (he had two on) a few times.

"Why two watches?" I asked him.

He explained, "One is the real time, the other is the time it should be."

"Should be?"

"Yeah. It makes me more efficient."

That made no sense to me, and he shortly thereafter flagged down the waitress for the check, which he paid, and I thanked him.

We walked out together, and he asked me, "We still have some time before the comedy show... want to race?"

I was in no sort of footwear for such a thing, and I told him, "I'm not exactly in jogging shoes."

"So go barefoot. I'll go barefoot, too."

"No."

"Fine."

We went to the comedy show, and in contrast to the rest of the date, I had a blast. Jeff, however, was mopey the entire time, didn't laugh at anything, and when it was finally over, he gave me a quick peck on the cheek and said, "See you soon!" before jogging off. That was, I thought, the last that I'd hear of him.

He called me two days later to ask me out again. He had two tickets to a crafts fair. Normally I'd have jumped at the chance, but I informed him that I didn't think that we were a good match. He moaned, groaned, then agreed, and so that was that.