- It was fun and it was cool,
and I feel like we were this close to each other
when we first met.
- As soon as I opened my eyes,
I was like delightfully surprised.
I was like, what a nice young man
and my second thought was,
he's totally out of his element right now.
- My name is Eric and this is my story.
She made if feel more comfortable.
I feel like somebody else could of made it feel
a lot more awkward.
- And like I don't know, it just felt,
I felt instantly like peers with him, as it started.
Do you think I am a spy?
- Maybe with the glasses.
- Oh that's fair.
- Do they even have lenses in them?
- Yes but they're just so clean.
I feel like so many of the questions we agreed on,
so it was like,
we almost had time to explore our commonalities
but then like what makes us different
or like a not faulty to each other.
When I was 12 I didn't see my dad
until I was 21.
At the time it was so hard and traumatic.
- My parents got divorced a long time ago,
but then my mom actually passed away back in 2009,
so I have fond memories of her.
- Yeah.
- I mean there was definitely some
deep stuff that we talked about
for first meeting somebody, but I wanted to know more about,
who she was and at that moment I was like,
I think we'll have a good time doing whatever.
- So as like we left from meeting,
that day we'd exchange numbers
and I was kinda like, are we gonna like text in between?
We planned out a date three weeks from then,
but it's like, who's gonna be the first one
to like break this weird ice?
And like two hours later, he just sent me like a text,
like, "Hey how is whatever you're going to?"
- And within those three weeks, we had a lot of uh
conversing through text messages.
- We pretty much talked every day.
Sent each other dumb pictures.
- Sometimes you text people and just the vibe
just isn't there through text,
and sometimes it is and it was.
- So it was kind of progressing,
like it would sort of would like a
normal person that you meet.
All right, so today is me and Eric's uh real date.
It's been about three weeks since we met,
we've been talking on the phone, texting,
sending each other dumb pictures.
Um so yeah, it will be nice to hang out in real life.
We're gonna go on some adventures together,
so we'll see what happens.
We met down where he lives, which is about
three hours from me, so I got ready at a gas station before,
I got to his house, 'cause I looked like a mess.
- I was expecting the date to be fun.
I mean, we obviously we went uh and
threw clay which I know she's very
artsy and said she had never done that before
so I thought that was uh fun and
that she would really enjoy it
which I believe that she did.
- Met at his house which was great,
'cause he got to show me all the different stuff
he's working on, meet his dog um
and then he made reservations for us to make pottery.
- We made it here, we're on our date.
Hopefully it goes well and I don't crash.
- Yeah, we both found out we were homecoming
slash prom royalty, in our formative years so,
- Yeah.
- Y'know the bloodlines are good here.
- Looking at the King and Queen.
- That's right.
So we spent a while at this pottery studio
learning how to like throw clay and make pot
on these spinning wheels.
I'd never done it before but I still felt
like overly confident in my creative ability.
So the whole time I'm like trying to center it.
Everytime I look over, he's like creating like works of art.
It was like in Martha Stewart where they like put
the pan in the oven and they take out like a
fully cooked cake like every time I would look over
so, the pottery thing was super fun it was like
nice to kind of like sit next to him where we could
just like be silent, work on something.
But then like Chad or he would like show me,
"Okay, do this."
So that was like such a cool way to get to know somebody.
- And when we were actually planning the actual date,
she said she was going to pull a prank on me.
- We went out to dinner. When I made the reservation,
I said it was our five year anniversary and they made
brought us a dessert for that.
- She told them it was our five year anniversary.
So they kept coming up and telling us congratulations and
I can't remember exactly what the waitress asked us
but it was like, "What do you like about her?"
And I was like, "Whaa?"
I can't remember exactly what they asked me
but it was right up my alley being goofy and
doing stuff like that and then,
- And then walked his dog in the field
or in the mountains, I guess.
- And we took Lilou, my dog on a walk down by my house.
Good girl! Good girl!
I don't know it was probably a seven hour date or
something like that.
It was a long date for a first date and not in
front of cameras.
- So it was kind of one of those things where like
we spent hours together and you're both kind of
doing okay we're walking back to the house uh
are we gonna hug or maybe kiss like
where everyone's just like saying dumb stuff.
I don't know if you can see but
we're walking by Simi Valley's uh water feature.
And I couldn't tell if he was like interested
cause it had been very like buddy buddy the whole time.
Um, but then he did kiss me as we were like hugging bye.
- We said goodbye, we shared a little kiss.
But it was good it was enjoyable
and she's easy to talk to um, very nice girl.
Um, yeah I enjoyed it.
- By the end of the day it just seemed like
a super comfortable like easy going dynamic.
So yeah I left feeling like um,
Oh! There's anything here to explore like
I feel confident in doing that.
- And we kept in touch uh for a little bit and
it's just hard her living so far away um
it was right around the fourth of July
and I was out of town,
she was far away and it was tough to
end up making a second date happen.
- We don't have anything calendared at this point
but I'm down in L.A a lot. So maybe on one of those
trips we'll see each other.
- We have talked through text.
Um, it's fizzled out a little bit
and that we weren't texting pretty much everyday
but being so far away and then being busy...
- I feel like we're probably both at the point in our lives
where we're looking for like a serious long term
relationship so I think I know for me
that almost makes me more cautious and
like less likely to go on another date
unless the other person's really really interested.
I don't know, I I would think probably we'll
hang out another time or two and
then if we feel like there's, y'know a deeper
chemistry then maybe who knows what'll happen.
- For me it's just she was too far.
I already do a ton of driving at work
and for me then on a Friday afternoon to
drive another three and a half hours,
three hours, however much it ends up being
just to see her for who knows how long
depending on schedules and then driving another
three to three and a half hours back,
I just couldn't do it.
I think we'd be more as friends cause I think
she's super cool. Um, and I think she might
think that about me too we kind of talked about
it through text um, but y'know she didn't do
anything to make me angry. I didn't do anything
to make her angry, it just fizzled out and
today's day and age there's a lot of stuff
that I know people probably don't want to hear
but later down the road everyone just gets heartbroken.
So when's our date?
- What are you doing right now?
- Uh, I'd rather everything come out right in
the open right from the beginning so
that's kind of how I walked into
tell my story and that's how uh
how I'll walk out of it also.
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