When we told Willie Gray and Renee Coley that we were setting them up for a blind date on Valentine's Day, the two of them felt the same thing: pressure.
Willie decided that the best way to treat their first date was as if it were taking place on any other day. Renee, meanwhile, told herself: “At least this year, I have something to do.”
She showed up to Compass Rose — a restaurant off 14th Street NW featuring international shared plates — 15 minutes early so she could compose herself, text her girlfriends (who were anxiously awaiting updates) and get the first look at the man she’d be spending the evening with.
When she got there, the host told her that Willie was already waiting for her at the bar. As she followed the host, she scanned the room. It wasn’t immediately obvious which man was her date. But as soon as she saw Willie, she found herself hoping it would be him. “He was very attractive,” she said. Willie was pleased with what he saw, too: “I thought she was beautiful,” he said. “It couldn’t have been a better blind-date pick.”
Our photographer showed up a few minutes later and asked the pair to pose as if they were slow dancing. “I’m sort of not into having strangers in my space that soon,” Renee said later, but when Willie went to dip her, she surprised them both by leaning back and kicking her leg up in the air. They laughed, breaking the tension. Renee forgot about texting her girlfriends.
Compass Rose’s theme for dinner was “A Night in Tokyo — Get Lost in Translation.” Over sparkling rosé and seasonal sashimi, the two got to know each other. “Renee mentioned that she’s a foodie,” Willie said, “and I brought up that I liked to cook.” Willie wondered if he could replicate the food they were eating at the restaurant at home. “We’d talk about the seasonings and everything. ... I like that he’s open to trying new things,” Renee said.
They also talked about Renee’s recent travels — she was in Morocco and Egypt over the holidays — and discussed what they’re looking for in a relationship. “We talked about marriage,” Willie said. “I was like, I don’t know if I want to get married again. And she was like, I kind of feel the same way.” They talked about other forms that long-term relationships could take: committed partnerships that don’t necessarily require living together, or completely merging lives. “I never thought about that, that anyone would want to do that,” Willie said. “That was another plus, that I was like, ‘Okay, she’s thought about this.’ ”
They wondered a bit about why they were matched and figured it had something to do with the fact that Renee said in her application that she didn’t want a couch potato. (Willie goes to the gym several times a week.) But over the course of the evening, the connection only grew stronger. “We had constant eye contact,” Willie said.
If real life were like the movie “Lost in Translation,” this date would have gone on all night. But this isn’t Tokyo, it’s Washington, and our heroine isn’t 17-year-old Scarlett Johansson but grown-up Renee, who gets up every day at 4:30 a.m. for work. It was pushing 9:30 p.m., and the date had been going for almost three hours.
Before they left the restaurant, the pair traded numbers and friended each other on Facebook. Then Willie walked Renee to her car. The two embraced, and Willie asked Renee to text him when she got home.
She texted him. He texted back. The day after that, and the day after that, too.
Asked to rate the date on a scale of 0 to 5, with 5 being the best date ever, Willie didn’t hesitate: “I’m going to go ahead and give it the 5,” he said. “I don’t think we could improve that much on a blind date.”
Renee also rated the date a 5. I debated whether or not to tell her that Willie felt the same way, but then I realized I didn’t have to: Willie was texting her during our interview.
Both of them thanked Date Lab for playing matchmaker, and we were very glad to help make some Valentine’s Day magic happen. Willie and Renee, if you do decide to take things further, please let us know. No pressure!
Rate the date
Willie: 5 [out of 5].
Renee: 5.
Update
Willie texted about a month after their date to say they are officially a couple.
Marin Cogan is a writer, senior producer and co-host for “Pop-Up Magazine.”