I have a second date this weekend, and I’m considering sending the man home with thyme, rosemary, and lavender. Apparently, this is the point at which I need outside opinions.
Our first date was last weekend. I’m 31, we met on an app, and I went into it hoping for some interesting company for the evening. Nothing terribly ambitious. Then we clicked much better than I expected, and the whole thing turned out to be really sweet. Now there’s another date planned, which means I have something to look forward to and a small gift to overthink.
The gift is already in my house. I garden, grow vegetables and herbs, and dabble in herbalism. A few weeks ago, I did a big herb harvest before getting the garden ready for winter. As a result, I have little bundles of herbs lying around. This is not a shopping expedition brought on by one good evening with a man. It’s what happens when you have a garden and the season changes.
He likes cooking and drinking tea. That’s what made me think of giving him a couple of the bundles to take home. There’s a connection between something I enjoy doing and something he might enjoy using. A small homemade gift sounds reasonable until I remember that we’ve only been out once.
I like that it would be something I grew myself. But that’s also the part that makes me hesitate. Would he find it thoughtful? Or would he be wondering how our second meeting acquired a homemade gift? I can’t tell whether I’m being sweet or spectacularly dorky. There may be some overlap.
I’m not trying to make a grand romantic announcement. I had a good time with him, I’d like to see him again, and I happen to have rosemary. Those facts have come together at a surprisingly delicate stage of dating.
After asking for feedback, I’ve settled on a plan: I’ll have the bundles on hand and see how the date goes. If it’s another good evening, I can give them to him at the end as a little send-off. If it goes badly, he never has to know there were herbs involved.
There’s one other bit of preparation. Before the date, I plan to delete my public question about whether the gift is too much. I’m willing to let him know I grew the rosemary. I’d rather he didn’t read the deliberations that came with it.
