Chemistry

Recently, some friends and I were discussing our worst first dates. It occurred to me that I don't actually have a worst first date story--I've never been on a really bad first date. Now don't get me wrong, they haven't all been fantastic, but the worst I can say is that the guy was nice but we didn't really connect. No horror stories. Nothing more awkward than running out of things to say and neither of us being that interested in what the other person wanted to talk about.

In fact, as I expand the pool to consider all the dates I've ever been on, very few of them have been bad. I can actually only think of two, and both of those were totally my fault.

This is not to say that every date I've been on has led to happily-ever-after. That's not true--certainly not in the long-term, and not even in the stort-term. (Obviously, or I wouldn't still be going on damn dates.) It's just to say that chemistry and attraction are funny things. It's funny and strange and a little mysterious how you can go on a date, and have it be a perfectly good date, with someone who is smart and funny and attractive, and not feel even remotely inclined to hang out with them again. And the fact that possessing good qualities like being smart and funny and attractive doesn't necessarily equal attraction and chemistry makes it even more mysterious when it suddenly does.

I once dated a guy who was getting his PhD by studying online dating. More specifically, he was studying how (or really, if. Or why) online attraction translated into real life attraction. We met online, and the chemistry we had in real life was both immediate and intense. But that was a total crapshoot--who the hell knows why? He was trying to discover if there was a way to determine a couple's real-life success based on how they had interacted online, or what had intially attracted them to each other online. I often wonder if he realizes that that's the 10 million dollar question of dating--is there a way to know that this other person and I are going to hit it off and work out in the long-run?

For now, there's no way to know. For now, we're left with the mystery of why we sometimes don't work with the smart, attractive guy but totally hit it off with the one who's clearly a trainwreck. For now, it's a little bit like trying on jeans. The number on the tag says that the jeans should work, but you still have to try on a hell of a lot of pairs to find one that really fits.