Courtship Connection: One Hit, Two Misses

Given the track record of Above the Law’s lawyer-matchmaking series, some may think we should change the name of the series to the Courtship Misconnection.

In one of our first Washington, D.C. couplings, on Superbowl Sunday, a male lawyer fumbled his date with a “disarmingly feisty and unabashedly vivacious” female associate. (Beware the women who self-describe as “feisty,” says Slate.) Undeterred, I’ve continued to set up dates in the nation’s capital.

I sent two Biglaw types to Solly’s on U Street last week — a late 20s female Donkey who wanted a trunk and an early-thirties male Elephant who requested ass. If not a lawyer, she said she’d be a cage fighter, and he said he’d be a writer. I thought I had an excellent “opposites attract” formula. I was wrong.

She described the date as a “pretty lackluster affair” and he said no “love connection was made.” “You are no Patti Stanger,” female Donkey wrote me (a little bitterly). Boring dates may be even worse than disastrous ones.

Luckily, the other two dates recounted here were more entertaining. One, because it was a blind date on Valentine’s Day, and the other because it’s our first occurrence of Courtship Connection leading to a lawyer’s pants being torn off…

Yes, a couple of lawyers let me send them out on a Valentine’s date. They had so much in common: both 20-something conservatives working Big Gov jobs, who in a “would you rather” chose making Biglaw partner over testifying regularly at Senate hearings.

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And they both stuck to the three-word limit in describing themselves (with neither of them employing “hypocritical”). He said he was “smart, snarky, wise” and she said she was “sarcastic, fun, loyal.”

Alas, similarities did not lead to sparks. He said:

You’d think that a blind date on valentine’s day set up by a legal gossip blog would have innately generated some humor, but perhaps due to the strange heat wave or violent winds my date seemed completely unaware of the humor in that, or much else. In fact, upon meeting my date, all she seemed concerned about was dragging me immediately from the bar into full-on dinner.

A girl’s got to eat…

Ok, I thought to myself, I do like food.

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(See. Yet another commonality.)

However, when you realize instantly that you aren’t going to click with someone upon meeting them, it dampens the excitement of dinner, even if only slightly. That’s not to say she wasn’t an attractive girl (she was) nor that she wasn’t intelligent (she was) or pretty good at holding up two hours of awkward this-is-obviously-going-nowhere conversation (she was)…

So what’s the problem here?

… but it was painfully obvious to both of us that there was nothing there. I did, and I mean this seriously, enjoy (or, was entertained by) the end of the evening, where after walking her back to her apartment building she gave me a quick hug and ran off, and all I could do was smile. I was glad that at least the feeling was mutual and that no one’s feelings were hurt.

The venue selection was good and all things considered I had fun, but Kash, you should probably alter your calculus.

Well, it sounds like a good date to me. Maybe the pressure of Valentine’s Day prevented these two from realizing just how perfect they were for each other?

Our female Valentine’s email came in at 10:12 p.m. on February 14th:

Given the timing of this email write up, I’m sure you’ve figured out that X and I didn’t run off and elope.

That being said, I wouldn’t say that you would call this a total strike out, but it wasn’t a love connection worth sending us off on a romantic vacay for either.

Sounds second-date worthy to me!

X’s nice, smart and talkative – we had good convo over dim sum and drinks and chatted jobs/family/friends/travels/sports. All good things, but I can’t say there were fireworks a la the romantic movies. Ping Pong seats everybody fairly close to one another (like three inches to the left) and it being Valentine’s day, we were seated next to varying pairs throughout the night – the first being a pair of friends and the second a very PDA couple. Though I’m sure both could tell we were on a first date, I’d dare say we sounded to be on a good one.

Is that hopefulness I detect?

X was a true gentleman and walked me home, and though we hugged good night, there wasn’t any request for a phone number or a second date, so unless he’s smacking himself on the forehead as I type, I would guess he didn’t see fireworks either.

Good try, Kash, but Cupid just wasn’t on your side this year.

Oh my Valentine’s Day elephants, Cupid doesn’t always stab you in the face with his arrow. Sometimes it’s a gentle little prick that needs a second date for fuller penetration. If you two change your minds after reading the write-up, I’m happy to connect you via e-mail.

Meanwhile, I had better luck in this 3rd match — in part because I threw a non-lawyer into the mix.

I had only (!) three gay male lawyers sign up for Courtship Connection in D.C. — apparently, the memo didn’t get out in Dupont Circle [KH: I might change this to “Logan Circle.” Or even Nellie’s. -DL] — and two potential participants managed to get themselves into serious relationships before I could match them up. Thus I had to find a non-lawyer to step in. A hot one.

The legal half of this couple is a young government lawyer who named Elena Kagan as his favorite Supreme Court justice and said “feeling really creepy right now” when asked for three words to describe himself. Thus, I knew he was both optimistic and humorous. And Facebook-stalking revealed him to be quite a looker. So I set him up with an equally good-looking, funny, and slightly older D.C.-ite from the business world.

I sent them to Vinoteca, a wine bar on U Street on a Wednesday night. Our lawyer said of the date:

I had a pretty great time. 1) the celebrity I think my date most resembles is Hugh Grant; 2) we cruised Scruff profiles on my iPhone (www.scruffapp.com if somehow this has evaded your radar)…

The smartphone app for finding gay guys has evaded my radar, perhaps for obvious reasons (although I don’t mind hooking up with them in other ways).

…and 3) he got a little miffed about the age implication when I suggested his enormous European gay porn stash (discovered by his brothers and revealed to his mother) was on VHS.

If you’re talking about porn on the first date, that bodes well for future dates (assuming that both people are talking about porn, and not just one horndog). Said our non-lawyer:

It went well; I enjoyed the evening. I clocked it in at 3hrs 45min, so it’s not like I was looking for the exit or anything. Wine and tapas, followed by a night cap. Plenty in common and even a laugh or two. So, I believe thanks to you are in order…it was certainly nice to meet him.

It’s funny how people are effusive when they’re disappointed and restrained when impressed.

These two went out on more dates, leading the lawyer to email me the photo at right, along with the message:

ATL Courtship Connection: 1
Diesel jeans: 0

Glad some good times have been had by Courtship participants. MOAR non-lawyers needed?

Earlier: Prior installments of ATL Courtship Connection


Kash is an editor emeritus of Above the Law. She now spend her days at Forbes writing about privacy, technology and the law at The Not-So Private Parts. For a background on the creation of ATL Courtship Connection, see  “My Weird Hobby: Matchmaking Lawyers.”