Dating advice: Invite yourself to his family Easter dinner before you even meet him.

On Bumble, the woman must reach out to all “matches” first, and you have 24 hours to do so after matching with someone.

I kind of had online-dating-fatigue and felt relatively indifferent about Brad’s profile and was planning to just let the match expire. It was Hour 23, and I was like, “Oh, what the hell” and reached out.

Once the woman reaches out, the man has 24 hours to respond, and then you can communicate at any pace you wish.

It was, on his end, Hour 23, and the clock was ticking.

He finally responded right before the match expired. This was a Friday night. Our communication proceeded at a lull of a pace throughout the weekend (which I kind of liked, because it screamed ‘I have a life outside of this app,’ and then *the vibe* changed on Sunday evening), and we began talking pretty consistently. He made me laugh out loud (which is my standard for exchanging phone numbers, so I asked for his).

I was texting him about my family on Monday evening, and I said something, followed by “But that is more like fourth date baggage.”

He replied, “I love it.”

I said, “That was your hint to ask me out.”

Then, the following exchange occurred:

He asked if I wanted to grab dinner that weekend, and I said I could not, because I was heading home to Ohio for Easter.

He suggested Thursday. Did not work for me. I suggested Wednesday. Did not work for him.

I jokingly said I would just come to his Easter dinner with his family, or we’d have to anxiously wait until next week. That was a risky joke to make, but SPOILER ALERT,

he actually ended up inviting me over for Easter dinner (AFTER ONE DATE) and got a "hard no" from me.

Back to the story: He said he would make Wednesday work despite having an after-work meeting with a client.

He booked us two hours of bowling, and two days later, we met!

At first, I honestly didn’t know if I liked him. I couldn’t get a good read on how the date was going, but our communication and chemistry were SO STRONG leading up to the date, that I thought, “I am just going to kiss him to see if there is anything there.” So, as he was talking, mid-sentence, I kissed him.

Sparks flew.

“Okay, I was right. There is something there.”

We spent the next three hours together – playing pool, discussing social and political topics, kissing, just having a genuinely good time. I actually CRIED in front of him, because I was getting too passionate while talking about Goodwill and our mission. Crying on a first date is so on-brand for me and would normally scare most people off, but apparently, to Brad, that was a “defining moment.”

He walked me to my car, we kissed goodbye, spent the next hour or so texting before bed, and then the next morning …. I meant to text my best friend about the date, but I texted Brad on accident.

Stay tuned for Part II, although some of you already got a shorter summary of the next series of events!