Date Lab: A perfect match, with a few thousand miles in between

About the daters ...

Happiest when ...

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(Courtesy of the daters/ ) -

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Danny: Road-tripping or hiking with friends somewhere far away from D.C.

Alisha: When I’m exploring a faraway place. When I’m 120 feet underwater with a scuba tank on my back. When I’m messing around in the kitchen with a glass of wine and good company.

Brag a little ...

Danny: I enjoy yard work, laundry and am free of most known infectious diseases!

Alisha: I’m highly intelligent, deeply compassionate, a great adventurer and travel partner, and have a pretty amusing sense of humor.

Your type ...

Danny: Having a sharp sense of humor is pretty much it. If she’s genuine and carries a sunny disposition, then I can’t really ask for anything more.

Alisha: I love a man with a keen intellect, pride in his accomplishments, a quick and devious wit, a constant thirst for adventure, and cool/quirky tastes (music, etc.). I gravitate toward tall, lanky, athletic guys with brown hair.

Interests to share ...

Danny: If she plays tennis at the level where she can pretty consistently serve the ball into the opposite court, that would be far beyond my highest expectations.

Alisha: Hobbies: travel, diving, hiking, skiing, music fanaticism, cooking. Outlooks: social justice, international affairs, commitment to the environment. Passions: each other.

About the date ...

7:30 p.m., 901 Restaurant, Chinatown

Danny: I finished work and went for a run, then headed over to the date. I was there for maybe a couple minutes, and then she came. Alisha’s really cute. She has a really nice smile. I felt lucky.

Alisha: He’s definitely a good-looking guy. “On the taller side, dark hair, with a runner’s build” is sort of my sweet spot, and he definitely fit that description, so yeah, he would probably be within the realm of my type. He gave me a hug, and it was very easy, not awkward at all. We just launched into conversation pretty quickly.

Danny: She’s a complete foodie and I’m the complete opposite. Once I realized she was an expert and I just usually go for whatever contains something fried, I forced her to order all the food. We got a lot of appetizers and entrees. She ordered wine and asked for a decanter. I didn’t realize you could do that.

Alisha: He was really engaged in me picking out dishes he might like and ingredients he hadn’t heard of. He was a really good sport about it at a restaurant that might have otherwise had kind of an intimidating menu.

Danny:Pretty early on, we figured out that we did somewhat similar work. I interview refugees to be resettled in the United States; she does international development. We talked about Iraq, because we both worked there. We worked in different regions, so it was really interesting to hear about her experience and compare it to mine. I would hear about stuff from the refugees I would talk to ... whereas she was working with city councils. Rural Iraq, southern Iraq, what life is like, what the politicians are like ... the rise of Moqtada al-Sadr is not normal first-date conversation, but it was great.

Alisha: We found out we had a mutual acquaintance [in Iraq] and just traded stories about our time there. It was fun to talk about my work there with someone who really gets it. I do international development work, humanitarian aid-type stuff. He was really engaged in hearing about my experiences and asking questions; the back and forth was great.