

Laura Deal, left, 30, librarian, and Rachel Slezak, 27, math teacher. (Photo courtesy of daters/ )

Interviews by Debra Bruno

Laura Deal, 30, is a librarian who is proud to live up to the “librarian stereotype” and tends to stay in a lot. She says she doesn’t necessarily have a physical type and just wants “someone who will be nice to me.” Rachel Slezak, 27, is a math teacher with a tattoo of a fractal on one arm who says living near nightlife-rich H Street NE is “part of my identity.” She is looking for “a person who cares about what she does, has close friends but isn’t secretly in love with one of them, is pretty, and proud of her unique qualities, whatever they may be.” Both love cats. But will Laura’s love of cheese be a problem for vegan Rachel? We sent them to Fare Well, a vegan diner on H Street, to find out.

Rachel: She seemed really nice, really friendly and not a person who would bash me to The Washington Post. [She was] not taking herself too seriously.

Laura: She seemed cool. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I liked her right away. It was pretty obvious why we got matched.

Rachel: She’s from Cleveland, which is one of my favorite cities, so we talked about what there is to do in Cleveland, where to eat, where some things are. We didn’t get to the menu until the waiter had come to see us three times.

Laura: We did the usual D.C. thing [and talked about] when we first moved here. Both of us have been here for a few years now. We found out we both have cats, which is a positive!

Rachel: Work came up, but it came up organically. I love to talk about my job, so I tried to rein it in a little bit.

Laura: She teaches math and has a couple of math-based tattoos. She even used them to teach in her class. On one exam, she asked students to explain “why I have this tattoo” and drew of picture of it. They had to figure out what it means.

Rachel: Both of our families still live in Ohio, so we talked about the difference between dating in Ohio and in D.C. In Ohio, I would be married by now.

Laura: She lives on H Street, and I don’t get over there a whole lot.

Rachel: I was really excited about the restaurant. There are not that many vegan restaurants in the city.

Laura: We both like cooking. A lot of my cooking involves cheese, so I would have to adapt all of my recipes [to cook for Rachel].

Rachel: We actually had quite a long adventure. We were on the west end of H Street, so [after dinner] we went on the streetcar. We rode it to the east side and went to H Street Country Club .

Laura: We told the bartender we had been set up by Date Lab, which took like 10 minutes to explain. At the end, he gave us [each] a shot of vodka lemonade.

Rachel: The bartender thought we were waiting for our dates. I said, “No, no. We are on Date Lab right now. We are on Date Lab with each other!”

Laura: We both had the same feeling that even if it was an awkward date, it still would be fun to do.

Rachel: We were getting sleepy, so I said she could sit on my couch and wait for her [car service]. She sat on my floor and played with my cat. He’s a really mean cat, but he didn’t attack her.

Laura: I said, “I’m tired, I’m an old lady.” I got a Lyft and went home.

Rachel: I don’t know if there were sparks. It’s hard to say. I’m always wrong.

Laura: I never know how to answer that. I would say we would probably go out again.

Rate the date

Rachel: 5 [out of 5]. Whether that translates to spending time together, I don’t know.

Laura: 4. It went the best it could for a blind date. We will probably go out again. The only drawback is that I’m afraid that cheese might be more important to me than having a girlfriend.

Update

Rachel: We’ve been texting a little, but we haven’t actually met up yet. We have plans for next week — it’s a long time from now because we’re both really busy. I do think there’s genuine interest in meeting back up, though! I felt much happier after I asked if she wanted to hang out and she said she would. So that’s good!