Ladies Who Lunch

I've discovered something about myself.

I don't like to eat with strangers.

Let me explain (because most of you probably have a little thought bubble floating above your heads which reads "Who does?")

I recently had to have lunch with someone for a specific purpose. We'd never met. And to my mind, since I rarely devote any time at all to accomplishing nothing more than just lunch, and certainly not an hour, I was not particularly enthused about having to do this. So, I psyched myself up for it by treating it sort of as a practice date. Without the flirting, of course. Time to dust off my non-work related conversational skills and re-engineer my automatic tendency to evaluate someone. I had to remind myself that this was not an interview. I was not trying to decide whether this person was a yes or a no depending on what he's accomplished and his fit for the organization. It was not that kind of meeting. I needed to get to know this person as a person. Just like a date.

I am not good at this.

I am admittedly a very intuitive person. I form relationships very easily and quickly and effortlessly.

When I want to. When I am not genuinely interested, not so smooth.

And this is probably why I have historically always dated people who have at first and for some time been my friends. People I've been out with socially and found that I've liked. People whose humor makes me belly laugh. People who, over time, I've found to be clever, and kind, and charming and admirably intelligent. People who gradually start to have an appeal that I can't ignore. Pretty eyes. Nice smile. Melodious voice. Nice shoulders.

People who have already passed the first rounds of interviews and are now pretty close to getting the job.

First dates with people like that are a breeze. There is no awkward Mystery Date quality when he arrives at the door. For either of us. We already know we like each other.

So when I met this stranger, who by the way, ignored a confirmation e-mail and showed up unannounced where he wasn't supposed to meet me, I was a little nervous.

And then annoyed. His cologne was overpowering. He stood a little too close when he shook my hand. He asked me to validate his parking.

I wanted to feign a grave illness or a building fire or a hostage situation.

When we were seated at the restaurant he proceeded to go on and on and on with no end in sight about "the kind of guy he is." The kind of entrepreneur. The kind of image. The kind of husband, father, coach. I stifled the urge to check my blackberry for disaster drill messages.

Every time the waiter came, he began to order for himself and then remembered I was there and let me order.

Oddly, the thing that sent me sailing over the edge of reason was something small. When the food came, and he and I both reached for the pepper at the same time, he took it. I gave him a pass thinking that maybe he'd not noticed that I had reached for it, too. But he had noticed, because when he was finished peppering his meal, he handed it across the table to me.

This meeting was not entirely social, but does that mean everyone gets to abandon conventional social graces?

The encounter was not a total loss. We professionally accomplished what we had met to get done. No harm, no foul. I kept my expressions of horror under wraps.

But for sure, if this were a date, it would not have been followed by a second one.