(sorry for the missing reports, I will fill them in later, when I get around to editing them)
I have been so busy with all these dates and work that I have not found the time yet to edit and post the date reports. I have been putting it off for a while because I also felt that the reports were getting repetitive. I figured I needed a way to spice them up. I intend to do this but it would require more editing, so for now just enjoy this one!
This time my date picked me up at home and we went to the restaurant together by bike. It was very sunny out there, resulting in a nice relaxing ride. I had selected an Indian restaurant for this date and we managed to get lovely seats outside.
My date just came out of a relationship and wanted to start dancing again. She used to love it but gave up the hobby because of an insecure boyfriend. I tell her I can reintroduce her to the local dance scene and we discuss the hobby for a while. Our conversation is casual and relaxed as we talk about relationships and dating in general. We also have a few mutual acquaintances and we end up talking about the project. She has a good sense of humor and I am loving the chat.
I had a hectic week at work, I had called in sick the day before and still have not fully recovered. Obviously this one day turned out to be a crisis day where everything goes wrong. I spent the rest of the week fixing it despite still feeling under the weather. Being here with her now is a nice change of pace.
We decide to go for drinks after. It turns out you start to become predictable when you keep a blog of the dates you have had. When I tell her I wrote a story for #wijoverdrijvenniet she mentions she has read it. It is hard to stay witty and original when you have already bundled your thoughts and opinions on something for all to read.
As I go to pay for drinks, I realize I do not have enough cash on me. My date passes me a 50 euro note and heads to the ladies room while I pay. The woman standing in line behind me notices the exchange, she smiles at me and says “convenient!”. I have a very limited window to come up with a witty reply so I go with “That’s because I am simply _amazing_ in bed”. That manages to crack her and her partner up: at least my confidence hasn’t suffered because of my ill health.
We start walking to a cash machine so I can repay the drinks. While enjoying the weather we chat some more and my date starts teasing me. She knows she has the upper hand because she knows a whole lot more about me than I do about her: she reads my blog. It starts to dawn on me that her “shy good girl” look is mostly an act. She is quite confident, especially for someone who recently suffered a breakup. I am intrigued.
We decide to go dancing. I try and introduce her to a bunch of guys I know so she will have a lot of opportunities to dance. It works out pretty well: when we dance she can follow me quite easily and we have a pretty good connection on the dance floor. I am really glad I asked her to come and she is a lot of fun to dance with. We end up staying until closing time and we make plans to go dancing more often. Another awesome date!
Food: Nepali and Indian restaurant Namaste. (around 20€ for the food pictured). Lovely restaurant, cheap, quick service. We had some very nice dishes with Nan. 
The 30 date challenge 
More than 10 x eating in an ordinary restaurant
+ more than 10 x talking about relationships and work
+ more than 10 x having drinks afterwards
= does not sound very challenging to me…
… but more like: “I did this and it works, so let me keep doing it the same way for forever.”
This project is a challenge, right? Above that, the rules say “I can not repeat the same activity”.
A “date” is not only eating together in a restaurant 🙂 of course every evening would have been different because you dated different women, but still the pattern is the same.
I guess when one date is over, you should improve the next by trying to do different things than the last one, even if it was a perfect date. Be foolish sometimes, if it does not work, no harm; if it does, even better! This challenge is an ideal playground for trying out new things.
Nonetheless, I reckon you did a great job finding and convincing people to share an evening together.
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We have been through this before. The date itself is not the challenging bit. It is not intended to be. You seem to be missing that point.
The challenge is to keep meeting new people by putting myself out there, finding people that I do not know yet, selecting the ones that seem like they would be an interesting date and then convincing them to go out on that date with me.
It requires a lot of time and energy every single week. It requires try new things, finding new hobbies, seeking out new social groups and introducing yourself to a lot of new people. I have been doing this consistently for the last couple of months and I am halfway through the challenge. This is what the project is about and I consider myself lucky that I managed to get this far.
In addition my dates are people, not numbers. Most importantly they are first dates. It is plain common sense to take a person I do not know yet to a relatively cheap activity in a public place for a low pressure evening. The dates themselves are different because the people are different. I realise that my blog might seem repetitive because of it, but I am not doing it for the cool blog stories.
Of course I do try to keep in touch with these people after the date, and if I make plans with them they involve other activities. I ran nearly half a marathon with a former date. I am going to a concert tonight with someone. I planned a photo shoot and a sauna visit. Those are just from the top of my head. I just don’t post about them because they are not the topic of this blog.
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You might want to remove one line from the challenge description though.
– I can not repeat the same activity
You repeat the same activity for the purpose of the blog every time. If you intend to do dinner dates with drinks afterwards, that is fine, but that one line in the rules description implies something very different. And even if you consider “going to a different restaurant or bar” enough of a change, you have at least visitted the same cocktail bars a few time already.
Though I think it would have been cool to see some actual different dates (rockclimbing, ice skating, a half marathon, a concert), if this is the format that works for you, go for it. But then you should probably remove that one line from your list of rules 🙂
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Good point. I was planning on writing an update when I hit the 15 date mark, but things are kind of busy now. I intend to alter that rule. I added it as an afterthought and it is getting a bit counterproductive.
I have been trying to do different cuisines with every restaurant visit, maybe I should have made that more clear.
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