Name: The Scot
Introduction Platform: Tinder. I was on my solo trip to Scoltand in early-mid September, when I decided to get on Tinder to see what the guy situation might be like in Edinburgh. The Scot and I matched and I was immediately smitten as soon as we started messaging. In fact, even before we’d messaged, I’d sent a text to Athena telling her I was never coming home. Unfortunately, the timing was all wrong while I was doing my thing in Scotland, so we didn’t get to meet then - yet the messaging continued after I came back to the States via text and facetime. Through the weeks that turned into months, we decided that we HAD to meet! So, New Year’s Eve in New York City became the time and the place!
Age: 46
Relationship Status: Never married, no kids. But a several-years long serious relationship that ended a year ago, and 10 godchildren, nieces and nephews that he loves very much.
Job: Management for a large company (need to leave this fairly vague for privacy and the fact that I don’t really understand how his company works)
Lives: a few miles outside of Edinburgh proper
Length of Date: FOUR DAYS!!! Longest first date of my life!
We Did: Y’all. I’m seriously going to have to divide this into parts. We did everything and nothing - meaning, we hadn’t really made an itinerary and big plans, but we got a lot of walking and talking and making googly eyes at each other. So maybe I’ll just give you the brief versions of each day here, and then analyze the shit out of the trip later (because I MUST do some processing). That said…
•Day 1 (Sunday, December 30th): Flew to NYC. The plan was to meet under the big clock in the middle of Grand Central Station between 3:00 and 3:30pm. I knew The Scot had made it to NYC and was with his friend, but as it turns out, our texting wasn’t getting to each other (it was sporadic and not timely) - I suppose because of his UK telephone carrier. Some messages were getting delayed and some were coming through out of order. Luckily, we’d planned the time and the place. I arrived early because …well because I was so excited (!!!), plus the hotel room wasn’t quite ready when I tried to check in. So I dropped my bags and walked to GCT and waited and waited. Since he hadn’t gotten my messages there was about a 10-minute span of time that felt like forever…like, maybe he wasn’t going to show up after all!!! I walked around the clock a few times and then decided to listen to a tour guide telling his audience about the architecture of the building and the artwork on the ceiling. I was completely enthralled in the talk when I saw The Scot out of the corner of my eye. And he was smiling…and handsome…and he came up to me and said hello and hugged me and we laughed. And then we immediately kissed - a soft, slow, lingering kiss. You guys! It was a fairytale kiss! It was the kind of kiss you see in the movies. It was a dream! It lasted a couple of minutes. And after we kissed we just kind of stared at each other like two lovestruck strangers. Again, dreamlike! We decided to take our staring somewhere else, and the closest location turned out to be The Campbell Apartment Bar, where we said more hellos and held hands and I sipped a little champagne while he had a couple of beers. We also got to have some chats with a darling husband and wife who were visiting their daughter in the city and we told them that we’d just met and laughed and laughed with them. I felt wonderful to be with The Scot. I was thrilled and proud and felt butterflies the whole time. We walked to the hotel and the room was ready (was early evening by this point), so we unpacked our bags (he sang and hummed the whole time) and got our bearings in the suite - which, by the way, was very traditional and old school yet gigantic and lovely. I highly recommend The Kimberly Hotel if you need a large room (actually, BIG separate living room with kitchenette, nice big bathroom and huge bedroom, AND a balcony which I’d made sure we had for romantic evenings looking out over the city and then we never went out on it) - it’s massive for New York City. Anyway, after unpacking and another short walk - can’t remember why - we ended up at the Italian restaurant at the hotel for wine and then a small dinner. After that, back to the room where we made out and I told him I wasn’t sure about getting naked with him and then suddenly…I found myself naked! Not by pressure, mind you. I was just completely in the moment and it happened!
•Day 2 (Monday, December 31 - New Year’s Eve): Woke in the giant bed, whispering good mornings to each other. Had the whole day ahead of us, so we lingered a bit and then slowly got ready to have breakfast and then go for a walk. Spent the whole day walking through Central Park, down 5th Avenue, grabbing nibbles here and there, Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park, stopping in shops to pick up snacks and champagne and whisky to celebrate our NYE, etc. Until it started to rain…and the rain never stopped! Went back to hotel to shower and rest up for our night - which consisted of snacking and then the carriage ride (which never happened, by the way. It rained SO HARD that Central Park was closed!). The carriage company ended up calling me and canceling the ride, which was just as well - we stayed in (another great reason for the HUGE hotel suite), cuddled in bed in our bathrobes, snacking, drinking beer and whisky and watching Times Square on TV and then Champagne and lovemaking at midnight. What a way to ring in 2019!
•Day 3 (Tuesday, January 1): Woke early-ish to have cuddle time (I mean, the man is a SERIOUS cuddler), then a hearty breakfast at the awesome diner on the block and then more walking (favorite thing!) on the High Line and then down to World Trade Center (I hadn’t seen the area since 2002 when there were just these horrible gaping holes in the ground), then around Wall Street and then back up Broadway all the way through Lower Manhattan, Soho, Union Square and then to meet his friend at Pete’s Tavern, which was still fully decked out for Christmas and thrilled me probably much more than it should have. Got hammered with The Scot’s friend, mainly because (a) his “friend” is the wife of Scot’s best friend and I wanted her to like me, and (b) was starving because we hadn’t really eaten anything since breakfast - oh, I take that back…we had a hot dog (and eating hot dogs became a weird theme for us on this trip). Had an interesting evening, but it was kind of blurry. Ended up back at hotel and in bed at what I think was a super early hour…7:30 maybe? So we woke up in the middle of the night and we just talked and talked. The Scot poured his heart out to me and I felt like I was really ‘getting’ him. He operates on a different level. I’ll save further comment for the delving into and picking apart the whole thing through hours and hours of analysis, I’m sure. But I looooovvvved that he opened up to me. We talked until we were overcome and had more sexy time and then fell asleep and woke and had more sexy time. Oh my…the sexy time.
•Day4 (Wednesday, January 2): Woke late. Breakfast at diner (again because we loved it so much and it is hearty - note I didn’t say “healthy”). The Scot’s friend had given us her Guggenheim membership and so we decided to walk to the museum where I immediately got vertigo upon entering the building. If you’ve been inside, you know that the architecture is curvy and not level and I don’t know if it was the combination of a slight hangover and the floor not being perfectly flat, but I couldn’t quite take it. We sat on a bench and people watched for a little bit until I thought we could get up and walk around, so we did. But The Scot said that we could leave at any time, so after about 15 minutes of walking around looking at expressionist and modern art, we split and walked around the Jackie Kennedy reservoir where we took cute selfies and then went and got MORE hot dogs in the Central Park! So to counteract all of this hot dog eating, I asked The Scot if he’d like to take in a wonderful view of the park and have a drink at the top of the Mandarin Oriental, and he agreed. Now, note that he didn’t necessarily want to do anything ‘fancy’ on this trip, but seriously, the man would have had hot dogs and/or 99 cent pizza slices for every meal if he could have (another story for another time), though note that he’s actually a super healthy guy! We went to the lobby bar and took in the view with a glass of rose (he had a Coke) and it was nice, but I could tell he was not super comfortable there. We had a bit of time to kill before we were going to meet MY friend Matt (who’s lived in NYC several years yet I haven’t seen him in years) and his boyfriend at a hip hotel bar. I was a little worried that The Scot wouldn’t like the idea of another fancy bar, so we stopped off for 99 cent pizza slices on the way - HAHA! Met Matt and Marc out and it was WONDERFUL to see them! In fact, The Scot almost seemed to enjoy himself waaaaay more than I thought he would, but I was very happy that he was having a good time. All too soon M&M had to leave to go home and The Scot and I decided to stay at this gorgeous rooftop bar for a couple more drinks…where we proceeded to have a miscommunication. So…The Scot is beyond wonderful, right? He’s a people pleaser and absolutely affectionate and is seriously one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. But every once in a while, he’d turn to me and look deeply into my eyes and ask me, “What’s wrong?” And I would say something like, “Everything’s wonderful” or the like…but after a few drinks and I was kind of like, NOTHING’S WRONG, WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING ME??? I just got a little annoyed. Yes, we will analyze, but I just brought it up because it turned into kind of a big deal. See, it was our last night together and I think we were both thinking about how we were going to feel when all of this was over. We had to have some discussion on how this was intense for both of us and we were starting to freak out a little bit. I think we overcame it quite well, but we were also both kind of hammered (again) at the end. Back to hotel where he figured out that he’d lost his credit card somewhere along the way during the day (good thing it was our last night) and had to make phone calls to cancel and had to call his sister because his mum was in the hospital for her severe asthma and all hell seemed to break loose that evening. We did get it all sorted, but it felt a bit like drama that I didn’t need to be part of and it was weird. Went to bed and he made the moves, but I wasn’t super into it and we fell asleep until we both woke in the middle of the night and WAS into it by then and he gave me 4,539 orgasms.
•Day 5 (Last Day! Thursday, January 3): Woke to more cuddling that led to LOTS more sex and we didn’t get up until super late and there would only be time for us to go to breakfast (on the rooftop this time…VERY nice) and then pack and check out of the hotel. It was actually a lovely way to spend a half day…our last morning together before I checked us out of the hotel and called my Uber at noon. He had a few hours to kill before heading off to his flight, but we had a wonderful morning together, and I left pretty abruptly so that neither one of us had a chance to get sappy. We were successful in that. We said our goodbyes outside the hotel and I blew him kisses as the car drove away.
He Looked: Exactly as handsome as he did in his photos and our FaceTimes. He’s a very sharp dresser - very stylish and hip or dapper, depending on the situation. Loved him in his denim and sweaters - jackets, coats, etc. He looked amazing. But I will tell you this - he told me he was 5’10” and he’s not. That was my biggest question - would I actually be taller than him? I think we are exactly the same height at 5’8”, and there’s nothing wrong with that because I wore flats the WHOLE time (I brought 2 pairs of heels and never got them out of the closet). Had I been wearing heels I’d have been quite a bit taller. My gay friends described him as James Bond, and I wouldn’t disagree.
I Looked: Well, I overpacked, so I never wore anything sparkly for NYE and mostly wore workout leggings and running shoes during the day because of all the walking, and tall flat boots, sweaters and my big faux fur coat in the evenings because of the cold.
Convo: Everything. It was good stuff. And it was said with a sexy Scottish accent. One thing I will note here, though. It was absolutely JARRING for some reason to hear dirty talk in a Scottish accent!!
High Point: Dudes, ALL of it! It had everything: anticipation, excitement, fear, lust, concern, a little heated spice, etc. etc. etc.
Low Point: I’m still mulling all of this over. I know there will be analysis galore, but there were times when I told myself I could fall in love with this guy and other times when I was like, he is SO not my boyfriend. So the low point has to be that I didn’t walk away with any clarity…but are you supposed to on a first date anyway??
How It Ended: Per above. My quick exit in an Uber!
Chances Are: Well, I would say 100% because he keeps telling me he’s going to visit me in [my city] in February, but I will believe it when I see the screenshot of his flight itinerary.
Date Rating: This one is SUPER hard to rate because it was sooooooo different. I can’t rate this one like I do others. I’d absolutely give it a THUMBS UP!! I’d do it again in a SECOND. This experience is one of a lifetime, and I’ll be forever grateful that he came to New York to meet me.
More to follow, but I’m glad I’m getting this part out today!
xox,
GS
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