Brewski's is unusually busy tonight, as people are packed into tables and booths, as well as around the bar. Whatever is available is entirely filled, except for patio seating, but the weather is leaning towards the brisk side so I'm not up for huddling under a heat lamp while we down our cold brews and swear off stares from people shuffling about on the concourse next to the patio. I'm early as usual, and where I'd hoped to have my pick of the perfect table, I'm instead standing among throngs of people looking for a place to sit. Not a good start.

Ten minutes of waiting turns into twenty and now Katie is late. More late than what is generally accepted as "casually late," more late than what I'm comfortable with. It could be a blow-off; she did cut out early that night at Sharkeez when Sam hooked us up. I reach into my pocket and pull her out her cell number. I could call, but I don't want to come off as clingy and desperate to have a date. Besides, I'm not into the whole fix-up thing. I'm doing this as much to shut up Samantha as I am for any feelings I have for Katie. She's quite pretty, but she's no knockout.

Katie comes rushing through the door five minutes later, profusely apologizing for being late - no parking - before realizing she's in standing room only quarters.

"Gosh, I didn't know this place would be so popular on a Sunday night."

"Me either. Would you object if we took our evening elsewhere?" I ask.

"No, I don't want to wait an hour for a table. Look at that," she says, gesturing towards the bar, "we wouldn't even be able to sit and have a drink at the bar while waiting, it's totally packed."

I agree. "Let's walk down Pier and see what we can find," I suggest.

We leave the joint and head towards the beachfront, passing the usuals: Sangria, Malloys, Sharkeez. There's a Sushi joint behind us but I don't know if Katie's into that. Hennesseys is at the end of the boardwalk, may not be a bad idea. We decide to go for it and duck inside. Tables are much easier to come by and we settle into a quiet booth in the corner. We run the risk of being overlooked by the waitress but I don't mind. I want the chance to get to know Katie.

We get the pleasantries out of the way: She's been out of school for a year, she's a sales associate for a plastics company in Marina Del Rey. Boring stuff she tells me. Large contract-type sales to apartment contractors, aerospace, sometimes military. It's just to pay the bills, she really wants to be a buyer for the department stores, in charge of buying lines of clothing for the women or petite section of a store. When I say "like Rachel on Friends," she immediately bristles, probably not too flattered that I make it sound like her goal in life is to follow the career track of somebody on television.

Trying to be diplomatic I change the subject. "So how come we never met during college? You were only a year behind and in a sorority." The thing about student culture at UCSB is that frats and sororities always run around in the same circles, so you'd eventually meet at some party, bbq, beach bonfire, or other function. It's an inevitability.

"Well, in school I was sort of a recluse, a bookworm. When I lived in the dorms I stayed in my room when I wasn't in class, and when I lived in Chi house I was kinda the same way," she confessed. "I'm not sure why they even let me in. How many introverts pledges do you know that make it in?"

I laughed a well-intended laugh. "I do know what you mean. We had a guy who was just like that , Ken Cross. He was the Rhodes Scholar of the group."

Katie perked up at the mention of his name. "Oh, I know Ken! We were like kindred spirits. He graduated when I was a sophomore though. What's he up to?"

"Ken is doing quite well. He graduated a boy, went into the world and became a man. A rich man. He's living in Palos Verdes off some internet money he made. He now does part time consulting." I smiled. "He's our ATO success story."

"Cool. Well, once I got out of Santa Barbara I realized I no longer had any shields to protect me. No parents I could duck behind, no hiding out in the dorms, and the time came for me to make a conscious choice - I could either duck and hide everybody I'd ever come into contact with and be a freak - and get nowhere in life - or slowly forced myself to become extroverted, a little bit at a time. And now here we are." She smiled. If it all went down as she described, than she wasn't giving herself enough credit. That self-assuredness, that pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap mentality and go get what you want in the world is hot. Women like that in a guy, but it really goes both ways. I'm not sure women are aware of that.

"I've got one for you," Katie says, looking to turn the tables. "Why did you let Samantha set you up with me instead of telling her off?"

I sit up and try to look more serious. "Samantha has set me up before, a long time ago. I don't need her to set me up. I don't want her to set me up. But she has this attitude that she knows what's best for you, like she's your mom or something. If I were so blunt to tell her that I never want her playing matchmaker for me she still wouldn't listen. She's convinced that what she is doing is for a greater good. So from time to time I play along, if for nothing else than to shut her up and stop bothering me. I figured 'What the hell? Let Sam introduce me to a friend of hers. It's in a public location and it's not an arranged marriage. We're all grownups here; if I don't like what's happening I can withdraw myself and that's that."

I look at her reaction as I'm telling her this. Katie looks relieved by my explanation, as if that would be her response had I asked her this same question. She's stopped the nervous tapping under the table with her foot and is starting to play with her hair every so often. Things are improving.

"I notice you had a nice built-in exit that night in case you needed an escape," I tease.

"Yeah, but I really had to go. It wasn't some made-up excuse like washing my hair. Women who say that are so lame."

"Once you gave me your phone number and I saw it didn't begin with 555, I figured this was for real," I joked.

Food came and we ate. The nice thing about Hennesseys is that it's a decent place to have a meal but not informal enough to make you realize it's just a bar with a small dining area attached. Katie finished much sooner than I - in keeping with the longstanding tradition among women on first dates, she barely touched her food - and engaged in watching me eat. I hate being watched while I eat. When she tired of watching me eat she started commenting on the people she could see walking by the window.

"I'm so glad less and less women are trying to make themselves look like Britney clones," she said as I mmphed a response between bites of my pasta. "It's like the younger ones are off Britney and onto looking like Lindsey Lohan or Hillary Duff," she continued, "and the older ones are trying to be like Angelina Jolie or Jillian Barberie."

Did she say Jillian Barberie? Are women running out of role models or something?

I wasn't paying attention to her musings. I just wanted to finish my food.

We finished up, paid the bill, and walked down the boardwalk a little more, surrounded by the clones. All the achetypes were here. The aspiring model who waits table until she's discovered; the beach bunny refusing to trade in her tomboy image for the societal norm of a woman her age; the aging surfer, with the salt-and-pepper hair and an eternal young boy feel despite an age pushing mid-50s, a man on the cusp of a mid-life crisis; the mid-20s and early-30s yuppy boys looking to flaunt their modicum of success in front of whatever woman they can briefly get to give them the time of day; the soccer mom who refuses to give in to the responsibilities and norms of motherhood, instead engaged in a state of denial that see-saws between the supergirl mentality that she can do it all on her own, and a nervous breakdown. Yep, the clones are all here. Katie points them out and I agree with her accessments, then point out that we are clones as well, Katie being the college graduate trying to define herself in an unrelenting world, while I am the scheming pseudo-playboy, always looking for the next lovely to work my wiles upon.

"Playboy?" she asks. "I don't get that from you." Good. The story is to be sold, not told.

We end the night at a dive bar called the Poop Deck that overlooks the shore. Despite its unsavory name and less than stellar appearance, the Poop Deck is a historic relic, a holdover from the WWII days when San Pedro was a mighty naval port and squids on a weekend pass would make their way up (then) uncluttered and open Pacific Coast Highway towards the sleepy village of Hermosa Beach to slug beers at the Poop Deck while ladies walked up and down the boardwalk, looking for attention in the form of gawking stares from the wide-eyed men. Nothing much has changed at Poop Deck, where by day guys come from far and wide to do the very same thing. By night Poop Deck is somewhere private to go when you don't want to be disturbed or seen by the clones parading about on Pier and Main Streets.

Splitting a pitcher of lite beer we continue to talk. For a shy intovert Katie has made a bunch of progress since leaving Santa Barbara. She's pretty, articulate, knows what she wants, has a plan, and is in no hurry to settle down. She feels no tick tick tick of an internal clock or a need to settle down. All that appeals to me. And for the first time in a long while I'm liking the thought of not having to play games or engage in mindfucking. I can shoot straight from the hip with Katie.

I walk Katie back to her car - she wasn't joking when she said at Brewski's that she couldn't find parking, it's quite a hike - and kiss her goodnight. When I turn to go she grabs my arm, spins me around and plants another kiss, this one much longer and far more passionate. Mixed with tongue. Yeah, this woman knows what she wants. I'm going to like this.