10 = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COVER STORY
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2003
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Blind Date
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type. All in all, I really don't think there's that much chemistry. I mean she's a nice girl. I enjoy talking to her. I just really don't know how attracted I am to her. I'm 21, and I don't think she's old enough to go to bars or anything like that. That's pretty much what I do on the weekends — kind of tour around town. So that's always kind of a problem, you know? And that's one of those things that aren't really that essential but still there in the back in my mind. Get her a fake ID, and call me in week.
Jeff: I'm not really a big fan of activities on a date. I'd much rather prefer discussing and talking and stuff like that. There's not really an attraction at this point, so if was I flirting at this point, I'd be faking it. It's a blind date, dude. This kind of stuff happens.
Jeff and Rachel decided to go bowling after dinner, which no one was too excited about to begin with. They walked into a moderately empty Royal Crest Lanes, Ninth and Iowa Streets, where they could have their pick of empty bowling lanes. They both threw gutter balls the first time around but slowly warmed up with the help of an obscure dance remix of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" playing in the background. Rachel bowled a spare in frame six, and Jeff followed with the same. He knocked down 82 pins beating Rachel's score of 45.
Jeff: She's just seems nervous, you know? Like she doesn't seem very relaxed at all, and maybe I come across that way, too. But yeah, she seems very nervous. The quirkiness is cute to a point. She's a bit too quirky. And let's be honest. She's too short.
They joked about their lack of bowling finesse. The most physical contact of the night was recorded when the two high fived in the bowling lane.
Rachel: I'm a bad bowler, to say the least. It's a great time for humbling myself I think. He's a nice guy. I don't really feel any chemistry, but it's good. He's a nice guy.
Cate: How's bowling going?
Cate: Different atmosphere?
Rachel: It's hard to be someplace where you know you're going to do horribly bad and just be like; "It doesn't matter." I'm just going to try to bowl and know that I'm going to need bumpers but not request them, you know?
The last stop of the blind date was at La Tasca, 943 Massachussetts St., which also happened to be having '80s/Ladies' night. The crowd hadn't arrived, so Jeff and Rachel sat at a table listening.
"But, yeah, she seems very nervous. The quirkiness is cute to a point.She's a bit too quirky.And let's be honest. She's too short."
Jeff Allmon Blind Dater
They both realized they knew enough about each other that they weren't interested. Jeff began watching War Games with a young Matthew Broderick on television but could only read the words at the bottom because the music was too loud. Rachel's attention was drawn to the wall's art prints, including Pablo Picasso's "Guernica," which she saw in-person in Madrid. Both gave the "I've-got-to-be-somewhere-in-the-morning" excuses to end the date.
Cate: Last impressions of Rachel?
Jeff: Too short, too quirky. I'm really not that attracted to her. She was just so nervous the whole time, like just a little jittery. Like she seems pretty easy-going about a lot of things, like really open to a lot of things, but she's really not that laid-back Yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm just not that interested, you know?
Cate: What will do if you see her again?
Jeff: I'll probably say, "Hi. How's it goin'?" Yeah, that'd probably be it. I don't know if I'd really stop and talk. Well, I'd probably stop and talk a little bit because I usually don't just walk by people. I'm a
pretty social person, but I'm not going to go out of my way. There's not going to be a second date. That's for sure.
Rachel: It sort of dwindled down at the end. Nice guy. No real chemistry. Sort of ran out of things to talk about. We started off good. The bowling was sort of sterile. It was a good idea to come to La Tasca, too bad people weren't here. Yeah, nice guy. I'm not much into Student Senate, and he is. He didn't try out for "The Vagina Monologues," which didn't surprise me.
He's really clean-cut. I normally don't date clean-cut guys. I'm going to kill myself for saying this—when he came into Watkins he knew a couple people that I would never really hang out with. Like he was friends with a couple people in my house that I don't really identify with, so from that I didn't really assume anything. ... He wasn't afraid to talk, which is a good thing. I think we both got pretty bored after awhile. No second date.
Cate: What will you do should you see him again?
Rachel: Oh, I'll probably stop and say, "Hi, how's it going," but it probably wouldn't be more than a 30-second conversation.
He drove her home to Watkins. She said goodbye under her breath as she darted for the door. He sat in his warm, cozy car watching her leave, knowing he would never go on a blind date again.
Edited by Erin Chapman and Anne Mantey
Jred Soares/Kansas Rachel signals to Jeff that she wants to stop bowling.She said she didn't want to play because bowling had been popular in her hometown and she wanted to stay away from popular pastimes.