A Saturday night in downtown Columbus I was by myself looking for something to do. A couple of my friends had invited me over, but I just wasn't up to it. I sat down on a bench and was kind of just waiting for something to happen. Just then, down the street I heard music going on at a rooftop bar near by. I thought to myself, might as well go check it out, got nothing better to do. I sat at the bar and spoke with the bartender and a couple of Marines. After the Marines left and I went to the bathroom I returned to the bar to see Paula sitting there alone at the end of the bar. I sat back down and noticed that she was alone, we made eye contact a couple of times and I thought to myself, wow she's gorgeous, I have to speak to her. I got up the courage to approach her and we spent the whole night talking until about 1 am. We talked about everything you could think of when you first meet a new person from what we did for work, to where we were from and even some of our personal goals. I got her number as we were leaving the bar and she kissed me on the cheek good night. At that moment I didn't realize it was just a "friendly kiss" (part of her cultural tradition), and I knew I had found a quality woman... I was determined to date her! Mark Perez