Date Lab: What happens when your dating patterns change

About the daters ...

Dating life as a TV show ...

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Martina: Is she straight? Is she gay? Who can keep up with the revolving door of men/women? On this week’s episode, she decides to take the 44-year-old Portuguese man as her date to a family dinner, with her 55-year-old father. Good times.

Jenn: It’s like “How I Met Your Mother” except with a hot gay chick.

Interests to share ...

Martina: Love of literature and appreciation of the natural world. BEER KNOWLEDGE IS UBER SEXY, major points.

Jenn: Hanging out, going to sporting events, etc.

Your idea of funny ...

Martina: Witty banter.

Jenn: Dry humor, wildly inappropriate.

Brag a little ...

Martina: I am really fun and pretty cute (or at least my mom thinks so).

Jenn: I know how to have a good time.

Your type ...

Martina: I always date people who are math/finance/econ/engineering/physics-focused because I am so in the clouds they usually complement me well. Must be intelligent; I need to learn something from the person I am with. Sidenote: I have great sex with Leos but tend to avoid them because they are [expletive] nuts (much like me).

Jenn: Really pretty chicks. No manly looking ladies, sorry.

About the date ...

7:30 p.m., America Eats Tavern, Chinatown

Martina: I was feeling a little nervous. I wasn’t really expecting to be set up with a woman. I filled out that survey about a year ago. I have dated women before and am not opposed to it, but I guess I was a little surprised.

Jenn: I got there five or 10 minutes early. I waited about 10 minutes for Martina to show up. She’s not my usual type, so I was a little worried. I’m kinda fratty and a little preppy; I usually go for preppier girls, and she didn’t seem to be very preppy. But we sat down and started talking pretty quickly.

Martina: My immediate gut reaction was that she was cute, but whenever I did date women I dated more masculine, butchy women. I also thought she was much older than me. When I found out she was younger, I was kinda surprised. I thought she was beautiful, but I wasn’t attracted to her.

Jenn: I don’t date bisexual girls, and I guess that’s what she is. It just doesn’t make sense to me. To be honest, I kinda just wrote the whole thing off.

Martina: I’m very good at reading people, and she’s very difficult to read. Not a lot of facial gestures, not very talkative. I’m very much an extrovert, and if I can’t see a reaction on somebody’s face, I’m not sure what my next move is. So I pretty much ordered too many cocktails and got drunk and made a [fool] of myself.

Jenn: I’m not typically a quiet person, but I was quiet last night. She did most of the talking. And that’s fine, but she seemed to bring attention to our table a little more than I’m accustomed to.

Martina: She ordered a beer. I really loved DC Brau. I was pleasantly surprised, so we started talking about beer. That was a common interest of ours. I felt bad, because I kept having to step outside and check work e-mails and chain-smoke cigarettes because I was nervous.

Jenn: The food was fantastic. I got shrimp etouffee for my appetizer. Then, for my entree, I got the braised short ribs. It was really good. She got the peanut butter and jelly with foie gras and then some kind of beet dish.