chivalry is not dead

i find that lately i am prone to keep personal stuff..well, personal. but in this case i can safely blog because the subject of the blog is unaware of the existence of the blog.

so last night i had a first date, and it's worth blogging about because it ranks pretty high on the firt date scale.

it started when the boy in question, whom we shall simply call 'k' showed up at my door with a dozen roses. red roses no less. now, i love flowers. i think all girls love flowers, but for whatever reason men don't typically view me as a 'flower' girl. i don't know if i just come off like i might not like them, or if men have just gotten lazy, but in fourteen years of dating, this is only the third time i have been given flowers, and the first time i have ever been given roses.

i give k mad props for this. i don't know why, but these days, men seem to reserve roses for valentine's day and anniversaries, and this clearly fell into neither category. i was impressed immediately.

after getting the flowers safely vased (is that a verb? or a word?), we were off to mini-golf. k is passionate about golfing, and i 1. love mini-golf and 2. thought this would give him the perfect opportunity to be macho. i can be pretty competitive, but knew i wouldn't even try, being fully aware of the fact that he could kick my trash. what i wasn't expecting was that even though he had the perfect opportunity to show me how good he was, instead, he wanted to make sure i felt good about myself. he played with a children's club, and worked hard to make it close, but still let me win. normally, i might be irritated by someone throwing a game, but in this case i found the gesture sweet and endearing.

i don't mean to give the impression that he was a pushover by any means. he found the perfect balance of being sweet and playful, taking great joy in teasing and messing with me, which, for some odd reason, i enjoy.

after mini-golf it was time for him to show off and he took me over to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls. frankly, i was terrified. i had no expectation of actually hitting a ball, and was fully aware of how embarrassing this could be.

but lo and behold, he was an excellent teacher, and i exceeded both our expectations. yay!

after the driving range we headed to sweetwater (man i love those rolls!) for dinner. it was an hour long wait, but the time passed quickly and conversation flowed naturally as we waited by the lake-like body of water.

eventually it was time to eat, and though a bit loud, dinner was excellent. food was good, company was good. he kept me laughing and fed--two important ingredients to any date.

following dinner we headed back to the house and popped in my latest netflix movie (poseidon-and it sucks, don't bother), before calling it a night.

he was a perfect gentleman, forewarning me early in the evening that he would smack my hand if i tried to open a door for myself. and he was in control all evening, without being the least bit controlling.

the date is blogworthy for a couple of reasons. it's nice to be reminded that chivalry is not dead, that there are still men who won't hedge around the fact that you are on a date--not 'hanging out' as mormon boys so often like to do, and who know what it is like to treat a woman well. i am a pretty modern girl--i'll go dutch on dates, i've even paid for both of us in the past (if i ask the guy out, which i used to do but don't anymore), but i can't tell you how nice it was to be spoiled.

all in all, it was a great date. i laughed a lot, i learned something new, i ate well, and was treated well. it sets the bar extremely high for future dates, now that i have been reminded that there are men who are capable of such things, and that i am a woman who deserves having them.