Date 7 – Ricardo

Welcome to date 7 of 26

Guy Profile

Name: Ricardo
Age: 23
Height: 5.10
Occupation: Sales Assistant
Location of date: Leicester Square, London
Date: 28/03/2012

Readers please refer to date 3 to find out how I met Ricardo.

As for those of you who have already read date 3, you may want to refer back to it to remind yourself of who Ricardo is and how our first date went.

Why a second date?

Some of you may be wondering why I went on a second date with Ricardo when the vote was for a second date with Curtis. If you are I’m glad because it shows you are paying attention to my dating life, lol. On a serious note – I decided to go on a second date with Ricardo because honestly, I felt bad, for the way I had treated him and I felt like the least I could do was to see him again.

Since date 1 I have communicated sporadically with Ricardo and right until last week I didn’t feel a way about doing so. That’s the way I have pretty much treated the other guys that I’ve been on dates with; the ones that I still keep in touch with anyway.  Whilst writing this I can’t help but hold back slightly and sigh because I feel bad thinking about my actions. Ricardo opened up to me and expressed his confusion about my actions after our date. He thought we had a good time and doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to keep in touch and want to get to know him some more.

I have to say readers, when he expressed those words to me, in his own words of course, I felt like I was kicked into reality and I felt the need to make up for my bad behaviour. I sent him a message a day or two later asking him if he was busy and unfortunately he was not in London. When he asked why, I told him: ‘I asked because I wanted to check if you would like to see a movie with me’. His response was one of frustration because every time he wanted to see me beforehand I was busy or too tired, according to him, and when I was prepared to see him he wasn’t in London.

Just like any guy who likes a girl, when he got back to London he got in touch and he made plans with me to go to the cinema and he agreed to see a movie that I wanted to see, that he wasn’t entirely interested in. The movie was: The Best Exotic Marigold hotel. The movie theatre by the way was full of OAP's (old age pensioners). A colleague of mine and I joked about the theatre being full of OAP’s because the film is about OAP’s but I didn’t really think that would be the case. To our surprise it was and Ricardo and I were the youngest people in there. It didn’t put me off but I thought it was funny to see so many OAP’s in the theatre, it’s not something I’m used to but non-the-less it didn’t affect my viewing of the film and I thought the film was good. The courage that the hotel owner in the film showed was very admirable and I liked the moral of the film.

Film review to the side, whilst watching the film Ricardo did the classical yawn stretch, where a guy stretches in the cinema and tries to put his arm around the girl that he is with. Unluckily for him my head did not allow the arm to go any lower and I shoved his arm off with my head. About 15 minutes later, he tried to lean in for a kiss and I quickly moved my body away and asked him: ‘what are you doing?’ He didn’t answer thankfully. At this point I felt awkward. Awkward because I know my response to him leaning in for a kiss can be embarrassing for a guy and also because I thought it might make things uncomfortable.

After the movie things were ok and it was as if the attempt for a kiss never even happened, phew.

As our date was on Wednesday we both headed towards the direction of home because it was getting late and we both had work the next day. On the way to my bus stop he mentioned that we should go to the theatre next and see Wicked or one of those very popular theatre plays. I went along with the conversation and gave him the impression that yeah we should, but I felt really bad because I could see that in his mind it’s only natural that we meet again because we are getting on well and apart from the fact that I’m not always easy to contact and the fact that I seem to always be busy or tired everything is going well and we are heading in the direction that couples go in before officially getting into a relationship.

Ricardo is a very nice guy and he has a lot going for him but I don’t have any romantic feelings towards him at all. I would love to be his friend but I don’t think he would like that. I think it’s best that I don’t see him anymore. I just need to pluck up the courage and let him know that I don’t feel the way I should feel for him and it’s not fair on him if I continue seeing him.

It is my understanding that in North America it is common practice to date different guys at the same time but in the UK that isn’t the case. Is it right to date more than one guy in search of finding the right guy , especially as I don’t get intimate with any of them? Or am I being a player and blog or no blog, is what I’m doing just completely wrong, especially as I may hurt people like Ricardo along the way?

Readers I want your opinions. I really do feel bad about potentially hurting Ricardo and I’m really evaluating whether I should continue this challenge or not.

Please be honest and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading My dating Year – Date 7