Date Lab: He’s new to Washington. Will she be his tour guide?

About the daters ...

Last book read ...

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(Courtesy of the daters/ ) -

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Jamie: The “Game of Thrones” series. All of them. I’m a shameless dork.

Lance: “The Hunger Games.” Don’t judge me.

Desired superpower ...

Jamie: To be happy with only four hours of sleep. I think that’s a superpower.
I can barely function on a solid eight hours.

Lance: Reading people’s minds.
You could gain insurmountable knowledge and even possibly unlock the world’s greatest secret: how women’s minds work!

Desert-island DVDs ...

Jamie:  “Swiss Family Robinson,”
“The Blue Lagoon,” “Cast Away.”
Theme night!

Lance: “The Goonies,” “The Hangover” and obviously, “Cast Away.”

Brag a little ...

Jamie: I have an interesting job, friends and family, and I travel and try new things all the time. I can drive a stick shift, cook, bake and name all the titles of every James Bond movie in chronological order.

Lance: I’m always honest; I don’t play games. If I’m into somebody, I’m going to show them. I’m very family-oriented. I’ll admit when I’m wrong, as hard as that can be. I’m witty, and I can really just have a great time doing almost anything.

About the date ...

7:30 p.m., Lincoln, downtown

Jamie: I couldn’t have been sitting down a couple of minutes before he got there. I stood up, and we went through the “Lance, Jamie, nice to meet you” thing.

Lance: It was that awkward “should we hug, should we shake?” I gave her a little hug. She’s a good-looking girl. I do like long, dark hair on a woman. I had a very good first impression.

Jamie: I thought he was handsome. He was very clean-cut. I go for tall, skinny, nerdy white guys, but given my background working in conflict zones, a military type would also be up my alley.

Lance: The very first thing she said to me was, “So, I’m guessing Afghanistan,” which caught me off guard. I thought I looked like a regular old white boy.

Jamie: He thought that I meant was he Afghan, so we straightened that out.

Lance: It turns out she had spent a lot of time in Afghanistan for her job, so she just assumed that’s how they matched us up.

Jamie: He hadn’t been to Afghanistan, but he had a military background, so we talked a little bit about that. I had a frame of reference and context for the kinds of things that he did. We got a bunch of [food] to share. We got along really well; neither of us had a problem with keeping the conversation going.

Lance: We got into discussing 1980s movies; I think we were almost having an ’80s movie quote-off. She used to work at a video store when she was younger, so she pretty much has all these movie quotes down pat. We were just laughing and having a good time.

Jamie: He told funny stories, had a sense of humor. [We had] the same vein of funny, random things that happen to you while traveling.

Lance: I’m still pretty new [to Washington], so I’m still trying to explore what the area has to offer. I told her I’ve only been to a couple of museums in D.C., one of which was the Spy Museum. She asked if I had seen the James Bond villains exhibit. That segued into her telling me of her love for James Bond and action movies in general, which I find pretty cool because most girls are into, like, “The Notebook.”