I must say, this may have been the best blind date I’ve ever had. And the first time I took a blind date out with a group of friends. Let alone the first blind date welcomed into a birthday celebration! 

Nelson is 51. Another physics/math major 🙂 turned IT/engineering guy. An entrepreneur who’s had his own successful business. Lived the past 14 years in Zurich (where my birthday celebration was), originally French/Portuguese, but sort of country-less and has lived between lots of places for many years (not unlike me…). I will also say, Nelson is very attractive. And a fencer. And a polyglot. Mature but fun.

Nelson knew about the 30 dates challenge ahead of time. This clearly didn’t matter to him – nothing was awkward, there was no weird tone. If anything, I would guess he assimilated this fact into his picture-formation process of who I am, and maybe he attributed some level of self-awareness and maturity to me as a result. This is all consistent with who he was – he had amazing answers to all the questions Dora asked him, like what fears he has.

Dora? Oh yes, obviously Dora would be with me for my 40th! In fact, Nelson had been pitched that two of us were doing this challenge and that there could be two potential “hot blind dates” for him ;). Though Dora, being the incredibly supportive empathetic person she is, of course did not actually act on this option; she left the dating entirely to me. But she did manage some 1:1 time with him as an independent assessment and 3rd party point of view.

Nelson met us for our post-birthday-hike pre-birthday-dinner apero. The plan was to be just alone with friends then for dinner, but he was so amazing, and when the restaurant suddenly let us expand our reservation by 2, I happily invited him. This was one of the most gorgeous rooftop bar/dinner locations in all of Zurich. Truly an amazing day end to end, supported by great friends, and punctuated by one of my best 30d dates: on day 30 of the challenge! (Also as it was my 16th date, I believe this means, before tabulating challenge bonus points, I actually beat Dora by 1 date!!)

One AMAZING thing about doing this group-date situation (which I highly recommend to others and will try again myself), is that Dora could pick up subtle things about my body language which I myself wouldn’t notice. Like times that I was more or less engaged, or when I was physically drawn to Nelson. She could also through her independent questioning check some of my gut instincts and catch alignments or misalignments I might have missed.

Nelson was charming, inquisitive, mature, funny, worldly, oh and attractive. I would definitely give Nelson a second date. He was fun, respectful, curious (asked a LOT of very good questions), engaged and interested in my stories — coincidentally about some of the things I’m most passionate about, like his eyes just lit up when I mentioned my singing lessons — and did I mention he was attractive? As to hesitations. Well. In the end, there was a bit of a language barrier, so I just don’t know yet if the intellectual match will quite be there. Dora had a similar observation. Will need more data. And I didn’t get a chance to check his outdoorsiness. I think the list ends there. Not a bad start. Not a bad birthday. 🙂