I think a funny thing happens when you don’t get married in your twenties. After your 100th bad date, warm idealism is cooled into realism. You’re forced to face the world on your own, but that results in getting to choose how you want to take part in it. I’ve always wanted to get married, settle down in a house in the suburbs, and watch my statically average 2.5 children and two dogs play in my white picket-fenced yard. When that didn’t happen on the schedule I had made for myself as a teenager, I had to make other choices… or so I thought. I think I choose to harden myself, get a tough skin and not let anyone in. That way, I couldn’t get hurt. Jessica had other plans.

There was a restaurant I considered upscale near my one bedroom apartment; it was not worth getting food there just to bring it home to eat in the company of just my dog, although she is a very attentive dinner guest, and it seems sad to me to eat there alone. Luckily for me, the internet is a resourceful matchmaker and a young lady with whom I had been flirting could squeeze it into her busy schedule to experience the restaurant with me. Enter Jessica.

I had arrived a bit early, mainly because I was hungry and lived minutes away from the place. In short, I had nothing better to do than to become a human reservation for this popular restaurant. However, I am enough of a gentlemen to at least meet a lady at the door when she comes in, so I was there when Jess first entered. She straightened her striped sweater as she walked in and her wedged boots clicked softly against the tile floor as she walked over to greet me. Jess looked like a woman with a career, not just a job, and she looked like she belonged among the finer things in life that the restaurant tried to simulate. Originally, the idea was to have dinner, say good night, and go home to my canine roommate and our scheduled movie date. That was the first way the night didn’t go to plan.

Jess was the embodiment of humble confidence, and still is. She spoke with poise and listened attentively. That’s rarer than you think. She made me feel heard and comfortable. But it was her smile that lured me in. She smiled wide and genuinely. She smiled like an old friend does on your back porch after hearing an inside joke, not at all like someone who was just being polite or trying to impress their date. Apparently, I also wasn’t trying to be very impressive because I invited her out to a dive bar down the street. Really, it was just an excuse to walk with her for a bit and maybe hold her hand. It worked.

The dive bar was, and still is as of our last visit, as seedy as you can image. It was a world away from the culinary pretentiousness and artisan whiskey cocktails we had left. Although we sat at the only table with chairs and needed to yell over the boisterous clatter of the men playing pool not 5 feet from us, we loved that bar because it brought us together. Our legs unashamedly brushed against one another as we asked our now practiced probing questions to see the truth of the other person, all the while making jovial observations about our fellow patrons. One such patron, Eric, said we looked like we had been a couple for a while, and upon discovering it was our first date, declared it an occasion for Jello shots, a nightly special at that bar and thus a common occasion.

Now loaded with the confidence that an expensive hamburger, a glass of whiskey that was meant to show off my ability to drink manly drinks, and a free Jello shot, I thought I was doing pretty well. As we walked back to the restaurant’s parking lot and our cars, I blathered on about my every passing thought and observation, and Jess gave a few of her award-winning smiles. When we got back to the cars, I was as sure of a good night kiss as I was sure the Sun would rise the next day. The date ended, however, unexpectedly, much like how it began. My best moves to seal the deal were met with an awkward hug and a hurried goodbye.

That’s what got me. I didn’t get a good night kiss of the first date. Despite having a great time, laughing like I rarely, if ever, have with a stranger, and the free drinks that apparently came with the relationship, if Jess hadn’t missed my cues, not interrupted my lean in as an attempt at a hug, and kissed me, I probably won’t be writing this. I probably would have thought it was a great date that ended as expected, but I would have found a reason to distance myself. I would have found a way to keep my guard up and not get hurt. Luckily, that’s not how it worked out. We went on a second date, I opened up, she bought me pizza and arcade tokens, and she figured out my last name and the rest of my contact information. At that point, I couldn’t escape. Once she got her hook in, any good Iowa girl knows not to fight her catch, but to be patient, let it tire itself out, and reel it in with a big smile.