Fabric Softener Guy: Have you had your Snuggle today?

Fabric Softener Guy and I had an excellent rapport in e-mail, exchanging interesting anecdotes and asking each other random questions, which I love. We decided to meet up for happy hour after work one day. As I was walking out the door, a co-worker offered to give me a ride to meet him so I wouldn’t have to Metro. While we were on the way to the arranged meeting point, he called and changed the location.

FSG: *sigh* Do you know where Siné is?
Me: Where? How do you spell that?
FSG: *sigh* S-I-N-E
Me: (To the coworker driving me) Do you know where Siné is?
FSG: I know where it is. *sigh* I’m asking you.

I was a little put off by his tone on the phone (and all the sighing. What’s up with that?), and complications arose when my phone died and I had to call him back from the co-worker’s phone. I wasn’t even there, and already the date wasn’t looking promising. But this time, I was leaving after an hour. No matter what. I’d told my roommate to call the police if I didn’t return at a predetermined time, and that allowed me one hour in FSG’s presence before I had to trip off to the Metro and get my booty home.

When the coworker dropped me off, I spotted him and immediately made a mental note to kick my own ass a little when I had the time. I’m already 5’8” (and a half, if you want to get technical) and I’d worn some stacked wedges to work that day. I hadn’t though to ask FSG his height, and I stood towering over him as we made our hellos. Siné was packed, and we ended up going somewhere else, which turned out to be the first good thing about the date.

The second good thing about the date was him relating -- in an entertaining manner (bonus points) -- the story of how he pissed off a diplomat that day by telling the guy the truth (double bonus points!). Our online rapport transferred easily into the waking world (he likes to bitch just as much as I do), and we had no trouble talking with one another about a variety of topics. Before I knew it, I was already late getting home. Since my phone was completely dead, I had to ask to use his to call the roommate and let her know I hadn’t been abducted and would be later than planned. He laughed when I asked for it and informed me that the best way to put a limit on my dates was to meet near an area with some shopping, have my friend shop while I’m on the date and meet her afterward. “That’s why I picked this place, actually. There are lots of things nearby.” (I made a mental note, but I haven’t yet used this technique. Seems like a good one though.)

Some tidbits from the date that stick out in my memory follow.

Fabric Softener Guy’s moniker is derived from the following exchange:

FSG: Fabric softener is very important.
Me: I really never used it until recently. Sometimes I forget to even put it in there.
FSG: (Deadpan) Well, at least you’re in the process of being converted. I can’t date girls who don’t use fabric softener. I can’t even be friends with people who don’t.
Me: (Laughs) What?? What does someone else using fabric softener have to do with you being friends with them? (Laughs some more)
FSG: Well, let’s say you and I start dating, and somewhere, sometime down the road you do my laundry for me. And you don’t use fabric softener. That’s it; we’re over. I’m a sensitive guy. I have to have fabric softener.
Me: (Stops laughing) What makes you assume that I’d be doing your laundry even if we were dating?
FSG: It could happen.
Me: No. It wouldn’t.
FSG: (Changes subject)

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I’m a klutz, and I’ve learned to handle most of my embarrassing missteps with a grace I (obviously) lack in everything else. I’m not sure how to interpret it, but about half an hour into the date, I knocked our salt shaker off the table and it shattered on the floor, spilling salt everywhere. The people at the table next to us immediately handed me their salt shaker, and I tossed some salt over my left shoulder, mainly to appease them. The people at the other table got a big kick out of it. FSG didn’t seem to notice anything that’d happened.

______________

FSG: I’m the guy every girl wants to be friends with. I don’t want any more female friends.
Me: Fair enough.

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FSG: I’m ready to find someone I can think about settling down with. I’m not looking to get married right now, but I’m thinking about that kind of thing.
…
Me: I don’t really want to get married.
FSG: If you don’t want to get married, you shouldn’t be dating.
Me: What makes you say that? People can date without the ultimate goal of marriage.
FSG: No. Why do you even want to date if you don’t want to marry?
Me: To find companionship. Meet people. Have something to do.
FSG: No. You shouldn’t be dating.

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FSG: I got these shoes at Marshall’s.
Me: Ooh. I love Marshall’s. (Hey, I’m a bargain queen. Quit being snobby bitches unless you’re going to buy me a designer wardrobe.)
FSG: You just won yourself a second date.

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Okay, now, before you think that all sounds terrible (which, I’m sure it does) and wonder why I hung around at all, let me just say, this was not a bad date. In fact, it was a good one. I just didn’t bore you with the inane pieces of the conversation in which we were perfectly agreeable, which was the majority of the night, I assure you. Why would you want to read that?

Anyhow, FSG and I still talk (bitch is more like it) on occasion. We never had that second date officially (although we have hung out since). We each got bogged down at work and with our own social lives for a while (this guy goes on more first dates than I do) before we caught back up with one another. In the interim, he’d done a 180 from both his I’m-ready-to-settle-down stance and his I-can’t-handle-one-more-friend-girl stance. He’s out on the party scene, playing the field, and he said we should be friends (this time, it’s definitely because of The Resolution, which is fine with me.

I don’t know if I could keep up the fabric softener routine much longer anyway.