Twelve First Date Winners

For all my talk about love gone wrong, you'll be pleased to know I've had even more go right....those stories just aren't as funny, but, to all those guys who did me right - you deserve the praise, doggone it!

I limited this to first dates and it was hard - not before, not after.  You don't realize how much "awe" happens outside the parameters of the actual first date.

To fill your sap quota for the day, here are twelve sweetie pie things that have happened on my first dates, in no particular order except chronological:

1. I met a man in Ohio the day before I returned to BYU and we had corresponded for a couple of months.  He decided to swing by Utah on his way to Arizona and visit me for a week - during which time we had our first date.  Now that is going out of your way.
2. I was walking to teach my gymnastics class and ran into one of my best friends from Ohio.  He noticed I was upset and asked me out to Cafe Rio later that day just to console me - nothing grandiose, but any man who will willingly spend time with an upset woman gets points in my book.
3. I had a recently broken foot and this angel of a man was patient enough with my crutches and medication to take me to a BYU ballroom concert and for dinner - helping me out the whole time and then coming to visit each day thereafter until I went home for the summer.  He was married four months later - ah, BYU.
4. We jumped out a second-story window.  Why?  To escape the surprise dinner we had made for the bishop and his wife without getting caught.  Exhilarating...like Indiana Jones on a date...almost...
5. Props to any man who laughs at my jokes.  Cause they are...bad...so bad they are funny.  At least that's what I tell myself.  I told one particular young man my favorite joke and he laughed for days (literally, days later he still laughed).  
6. A young man's research into what I enjoy and doing so for no other reason than he knows I will love it, simply thrills me.  This one invited me to play softball, then to get spiffed up for part two, then to watch a movie, whereafter we talked until the wee hours of the morning...several of my favoritest things.
7. Meteor shower watching on the trampoline.  Need I say more? 
8. Precious pants found out my favorite chocolates and brought me four...he was broke at the time, so it really meant quite a lot.
9. On a double blind date, we went for a drive up the canyon and I got a little motion sick, to say the least.  This poor fella just scratched my back (I am so not a back-scratch ho, but illness gets the better of me sometimes) and kept asking me if I needed anything until I felt better.  He didn't even know me and we never saw each other again, but that act was so kind.
10. A man loved my cookies so much he bought my tutorial at a fund-raising service auction - $35 for a cookie-making session with me to learn to make my cookies!  Super flattering!  
11. I was in the middle of opening week and the run of a show and this sweetheart had wanted to take me out for a couple of weeks, but we couldn't find time.  So, he came over to help me make cookies for a huge Christmas party I was hosting that weekend...and did all the dishes!
12. Again, finding things this girl loves before a first date and formulating from there?  Genius.  Cooking me a meal that I had only mentioned once weeks earlier and can almost bring me to tears because it is so thoughtful and reminds me so much of home?  Pure genius.  

Any experiences you want to share?