"Hi," I said. "I'm Alice, not Alice in Wonderland."
"Okay. Nice to meet you, Alice. I'm Vincent."
"Nice to meet you too, Vincent."
"So what's the occasion, or is this the occasion?" he said with a smile.
"My friend." I wrinkled my nose. "She thought it would make me stand out and, well..."
"Well, I guess she's smart," he said. "You're the most beautiful woman here," he said in a sincere voice.
"Oh. Thank you."
"So are you from New York or…?"
"No," I said quickly. "I'm from Florida. I moved here recently, and I'm kind of just trying to find my way in the big city, you know? What about you?"
"From Boston." He grinned. "And I've been in New York City for about two years. I’m in tech."
"Oh? What do you do in tech?"
"I'm a backend software engineer."
"Okay." I smiled. "Cool."
"I deal mainly in CSS and Python, but..." He wrinkled his nose. "Sorry, I bet that doesn't mean anything to you."
"It doesn't." I laughed. "But I'm glad to hear you like your job."
"It's fine." He shrugged. "Not what I want to do my whole life. What do you do?"
"I'm looking for a job right now."
"Oh, okay. So you're looking for a job, and you're looking for a man."
"Well, just a guy to go on some dates and see if we click, you know?"
"Sure," he said. "So have you ever dated an Asian guy before?"
"No." I shook my head. "I haven't."
"And are you open to that?" he said, his eyes crinkling at the side. I stared into his handsome face and his short black hair. He had a kind expression.
"I'm open, of course."
"Cool. I hope you weren't offended by that question."
"Not at all. Why would I be?"
"I don't know. A lot of women think you're trying to accuse them of being racist or prejudiced or something, but I know everyone has a type, and not everyone wants to date an Asian guy."
"I think someone who restricts the sort of guys they're going to date based on race or ethnicity really limits themselves," I said truthfully. "For me, as long as I'm attracted to the guy and they have a great personality, I'll give them a chance."
"Cool. I like that. A very open-minded woman."
"Yeah. I mean, I've learned the hard way that there is no judging a book by its cover. Just because someone is different from who you’ve normally dated doesn't mean anything. I'm lucky, though," I said honestly. "I grew up in quite a diverse neighborhood, so I've been around all sorts of people. It's not unusual to see people of every sort of race dating each other. Most of my friends are in mixed relationships, actually."
"Ah. Cool, cool." The bell rang and alerted us that we only had a minute left. "Well, if you're interested, I wouldn't mind going on a real date sometime. I'm Vincent, by the way." He handed me one of the little cards to remind me of his name.