I'm in Bangalore for 45 days on business and I went to this big company party. I generally had a blast at the party, dancing and boozing and generally just being silly. There was one moment (which I honestly had forgotten about until I was reminded later) where I met eyes with this very cute indian girl and I just sort of stopped and smiled and waited until she glanced away. I kind of get a kick out of doing this to people (guys and girls) even if I have no intention of talking to them. I inwardly chuckled and jumped back into the party.

Fast forward to later that night and this girl had apparently facebook stalked me and befriended me. I chatted back and forth with her and am about to go on essentially a blind date on the town.

I got a kick out of this mainly because I've seen so many posts on here where it's clearly a case of "Step 1: Be attractive" and boom here's another one. Where I hope to differentiate myself from those is with the follow through.

I'll report back and edit this post as soon as the date is over and we'll see if I can follow this up with "Step 2: Be charming and genuine".

Update: This girl is a sweetheart.

Here's the date report.

We wandered around the market district and had fairly superficial conversation, just getting comfortable in each other's presence. She was nervous. (I found out later this was literally her first date ever. Both of her ex-boyfriends literally never took her out unless it was in a group) I tried to put her at ease with not much success. What finally did the trick though was not something I can take credit for. We walked into a clothing shop and she tells me she went to school for fashion design. Her face completely lit up and she started talking exuberantly about clothes and fashion. It was wonderful listening to her speak like that. Passion is so freakin' attractive.

I told her I wanted to get a gift for my sister and she immediately starts pulling sarees off the wall and asking which colors I liked. I had her try some on and give me a bit of a fashion show. Then she helped me pick out some traditional formal Indian garb for me to wear to my coworker's wedding the next weekend. She was in her element, and I just went along for the ride. Afterwards I paid for my clothes, but the gift for my sister? She totally stole it, bought it, had it wrapped and now it is a gift to my sister from her. As I said, total sweetheart.

We grabbed dinner and hit a pub. I immediately made friends some fellas crowding the bar so I could wiggle my way in to order a drink. (By the way, it is ridiculously easy to make friends with people in Bangalore as a white guy, just sayin'). I think my date is fairly shy normally, because I could tell she was surprised and somewhat impressed that I just randomly started chatting with some dudes on a date.

Once we settled into our beers the conversation started becoming a little more serious. She asked about my tattoo on my wrist. It has a long back story which essentially boils down to the fact that I've got bipolar disorder and the tattoo prompts me to practice mindfulness (meditation) so I don't become manic or depressed. I talked about my hospitalization and the following depression and the lifestyle changes I made to turn into a happy functional person again. She raptly paid attention to all of this, and I was happy to open up about it. I told her that now I get to ask her a personal question since she had the one up on me. This began a fun little back and forth where we asked each other deep and probing questions.

I asked her what her childhood was like. She asked me my stance on homosexuality. I asked her what she wants her life to be like in 10 years. She asked me about my relationship with my parents. I asked her what her best memory in the past few years was. She asked me about my worst heartbreak...

Here I slowed down and told her my sad tale of the girl I almost married, but ultimately broke up with instead. It made me emotional to talk about it again. After I finished I met her gaze and she reached out and held my hand. It was a nice moment.

My turn for a question. I had no idea how people in India feel about public displays of affection, so I thought it time to find out. "Ok, so I'm honestly curious. How inappropriate would it be for me to lean in and give you a kiss on the cheek?" I flashed her a cheeky smile when I said this and she smiled and looked down bashfully. She glanced up and responded "I don't think that would be inappropriate at all". And with that I gave a her a very gentle kiss on her cheek. Then we kind of just stupidly smiled at each other for a second. This was turning into a good night.

I had mentioned earlier in the night that my mother taught drama, and she asked me if I had ever been on stage. As I've done before, I use this conversation thread to steer the night towards improv and eventually she challenges me to do some improvisation. I tell her to pick me a role. She gives me "assassin". I immediately sidle up real close to her conspiratorially and start whispering, "there's the target, 12 o'clock", jerking my head at this big burly guy chatting with some girls. "This guys big and he's not alone, so I'm going to need your help. A lot of lives are at stake here and if you don't think you have the guts to do whatever I tell you to do, you need to tell me now. Are you ready for this?" She giggles and nods, and I go on to describe a silly plot of getting everyone drunk and seducing the man to get him alone. It was a lot of fun and I was awarded with applause at the end of the scene.

After that bit of comic relief, we went back to the probing questions. She then asked me what I thought love was. I followed it up by asking her what she thought of her own sexuality. This turned into a long and amazing discussion about sex. She was shy at first, but as she saw that I spoke very matter-of-factly about the topics she quickly came around. Considering her previous boyfriends had all been very controlling and what appeared to me to be close-minded, I was curious as to what effect talking about the less vanilla aspects of sex would have on her. I started talking about bondage and BDSM, describing all the different ways I like to tie girls up. I talked about blindfolds and sensory deprivation. Ice cubes, dirty massages, threesomes, role play. I basically relived all the fun and interesting sexy times I've had over the years. I kept going and going because when I looked in her eyes, they looked hungry. She was getting seriously turned on.

Eventually the conversation turned to languages. She speaks 3 fluently. I'm just a dumb monoglot and only know English, but I know a bunch of one liners in other languages. I told her I know a very wise saying in Chinese. She asked what it was. I whisper very solemnly "WΗ’ yΗ’u yΔ«gΓ¨ wΓ©ixiǎo de jiji" and catch her eye. I give it a moment and continue. "It means I have an extremely tiny penis." She burst out laughing, but after a second she stopped, looked at me intently and asked, "Wait. Do you??" She was so serious that I started cracking up. I replied very deadpan "no no no. That's just a silly lie. Mine is absolutely enormous." She smacked me on the arm. "You're lying to me. Is it really small??". I squared my shoulders, looked her right in the eye and said, "I think you're just going to have to find out for yourself..." Oh. my. god. This look she gave me. I want to freakin' bottle that look. It was the sexiest look I've ever seen. It started off as surprise, and then a hint of a smile as she thought I might be joking, but then she saw I was dead serious. I could see her face go in slow motion to what can only be described as pure desire. She didn't say a word. She simply moved towards me and we embraced. We both wanted a kiss, but we were still in a crowded bar, and the moment was better suited for a warm hug. God damn that look though....

From there the night was late and we caught an auto home. As soon as the driver began driving we were alone in the back and I pulled her in for a deep kiss. Her lips were soft and eager and it was a ride that lasted far too short a time. We parted ways with a promise that I'd take her out for a German flick on her birthday next week.

Fuck this turned into a novel. Eh fuck it. I don't care. I'm writing this for posterity so years from now I can look back and read this and remember one of the best first dates of my life.

tl;dr Got the sexiest look of desire I've ever seen.