How did you meet? Tinder

Name: Evan

Height: (much) shorter than me

Age: In 30s (can't remember)

Occupation: photographer

Good quotes from date(s):

I'm dating someone else who lives on your street.

I don't like to call these 'dates'.

Why is he still single? Divorced, enjoying being back in the dating pool

Did he pay for the date? yes

Did he contact you after the date? A quick text to tell me he's taking a Tinder break, and if I want to keep in touch to email him

How many dates did you go on? Were we even on date?

Would you recommend to a friend? Doubtful

Comments:

One of Tinder's many benefits is the quick and easy "right-now" date. Evan and I matched on a Monday during the day and met up that same night. My new date strategy had been to tell the guy about this blog (except for 91). This might be because I'm almost done with the project and I have desire for openness. Anyway, I told Evan.

So it was my fault that our date got completely meta right away. He was super interested in 100fd. Too interested. As a result, much of the night's conversation centered around this blog, my dates, was he just a test subject, what would I write about him, yadda yadda. I got bored immediately and wished I were on a date where we didn't talk about dating.

But I soon learned that I wasn't on a date because Evan did not consider it one. Dates mean romance, he said, and since there was none of that on online dates he considered them "meet-ups".

Well, jeez, with an attitude like that...

To be honest, the minute I saw Evan I knew I was not attracted to him, and so he was right that our particular date/meet-up was not romantic, but I challenge his overall assumption.

Online dating platforms are only tools to facilitate people meeting face-to-face. When I put on make-up and a cute outfit and leave my very comfortable couch on a chilly Monday night to go on a date, it's because dates still have the potential for magic. And magic leads to romance, which leads to relationships and love.

"Meet-ups" are for people who are afraid that a random night with a stranger brought about by a silly smartphone app could lead to something real.

I much prefer dates.

...with the show, Downton Abbey. It's not just for the gays and old gals! It's for youngish ladies like me who like old-timey period pieces about the way life used to be - if you lived in England (where I've actually never been, by the way).

At first, I shied away from this show because of all the hype on online. You see, I don't fall for hype. I waited a full two years to see the movie "Dirty Dancing" after it came out; I was the last of my friends to get a CD player because I loved mix-tapes and secretly thought something better would come along (mini-discs?); and I refused to join Facebook for years until people told me point blank that I was never going to be invited to anything ever again because, "Facebook event pages are where it's at."

Not so secretly though, I enjoy being the last to do things because I'd like to think (and I'd like others to think) that I'm too busy and cool to enjoy mainstream shows, films, and music. I'm spending my free time discovering underground cultural oddities that you know nothing about, and when some of those things become mainstream I'm that windbag saying, "Oh that show/film/band? I saw/heard it last year! It's really good/bad."

However, when you're home on a cold, cold winter Sunday* with an injured wrist and don't have cable but know that the first season of Downton Abbey can be played continuously on Netflix** you chose the hype. And I'm glad I did.

The first season opens in 1912 and ends on the cusp of World War I. Downton Abbey is the name of a large manor in the Yorkshire countryside inhabited by the Crawley family headed by Lord and Lady Grantham (their official titles). They only have three daughters meaning that the they will lose the house and titles eventually to a distant male cousin, Matthew - because those are the archaic rules of aristocracy never to be put asunder.

Naturally, a manor needs many servants (headed by the Butler Mr. Carson and the Housekeeper Mrs. Hughes) to service the benevolent but spoiled aristocrats who don't actually do anything. They give dinners, walk around the gardens and try to get the daughters married off. There are stories of love and loss among the family and among the servants who are like family.

I want to visit this manor and exist in this time for a short while. I want to dress up for dinner each night wearing almost every one of the dresses the ladies wear (minus the corsets). I want to be alive in a place where romance comes in carefully handwritten letters with ink stains; where time alone with a man had to be stolen, and sharing a kiss guaranteed a marriage proposal the next day.

Just for a few days...just for a moment - When ladies were treated like ladies by men who were men.

*Add homemade Hot Toddys to this and you will understand what heaven is like

**Thank you PBS.org for allowing me to watch season 2 online

SPOILER: If you want to see what these actors look like in modern times, click here. Or don't - Just pretend everyone is real and exists only in the early 20th century.