The night started out promisingly. Bryant, 33, arrived at Emmy Squared Pizza in Shaw early and was sitting at the bar when he noticed a guy he figured was his date. “Oh, he’s cute,” said the bartender he had been chatting with. “Yeah, he is,” Bryant responded. When his suspicions were confirmed, Bryant’s attraction to Jared, 26, was immediate. The feeling was mutual. Jared recalled walking in and thinking, “Oh this is a pleasant surprise,” when he set eyes on Bryant.

Before meeting, and knowing only Bryant’s first name, Jared attempted to beat the Date Lab system by trying to identify his blind date. He figured there were only so many Bryants in D.C. and found one on Instagram with whom he shared some friends. But it turned out he had the wrong Bryant. Perhaps it was just as well. This Bryant, Jared said, “has a very good physique, which is something that I tend to find attractive in men.” So let’s get some pizza in that bod, shall we?

After the awkwardness of posing as strangers for their Date Lab photos, there was … more awkwardness. Jared noticed fairly quickly that Bryant is a “man of few words.” As Bryant explained, “I’m just not a big fan of small talk.” But that did not daunt Jared. “My job is recruiting, I can make the conversation and I can talk a lot,” he told me. At one point Jared asked, “If you were a movie what would it be?” Bryant, a reporter, answered, “Don’t Look Up,” the 2021 Netflix satire that finds a comet hurtling toward Earth to a largely indifferent response on the ground. “And then he was like, ‘Oh, because you’re always trying to warn people about things that are happening and they don’t listen?’ ” Bryant said. Yes, exactly. Bryant appreciated Jared’s perceptiveness.

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As they settled in and the cocktails flowed, Bryant found himself getting more comfortable. They had “superficial stuff” in common, though diverging tastes in media. Bryant likes sci-fi TV shows, whereas Jared is big on LGBTQ content. Jared likes serious theater productions such as “The Color Purple,” while Bryant prefers more satirical stuff like “The Book of Mormon.” Their respective orders were so-close-yet-so-far metaphors. They both got pizza (duh), but very different pizzas: Bryant had the Good Paulie (caramelized onions, sausage, smoked Gouda), while Jared had the Emmy (banana peppers, red onion, ranch, side red sauce).

When they talked dating history, Bryant mentioned he had dated a guy who wasn’t his type. Jared inquired as to what that type is. Bryant told him men with darker complexions and fit bodies. “Maybe not necessarily me in particular, but at least that archetype I fit,” Jared reasoned. Jared shared with Bryant that he had experienced sexual racism in Tampa, where he lived before moving to D.C. about a year and a half ago — men who made qualifying statements like calling him “cute for a Black guy.”

“I thought the way he handled that was very graceful,” Bryant said about the comments Jared had encountered. “I’m White, obviously, so that’s not something I can really relate to.” Jared said that Bryant’s preference for darker complexions did make him wonder if Bryant fetishizes men of color, but “unpacking that is a longer-term conversation.” He continued, “The thought crossed my mind, but it didn’t scare me, per se." (“I consider fetishization to be reducing someone to attraction based solely on their race ... basically objectifying them or not seeing them as a person,” Bryant later told me. “And this is something that I’ve always really, really tried to avoid at all costs.”)

After about 2½ hours at Emmy Squared, Jared asked Bryant if he wanted to get a drink elsewhere. He thought this was a way of testing Bryant’s interest in him. Bryant had already hit his self-imposed three-drink maximum, but he agreed to accompany Jared to the nearby gay bar the Dirty Goose “because I did genuinely enjoy his company and the conversation.” He resolved to sip sparkling water.

They were at the bar for 30 minutes or so. “I was nice and tipsy,” Jared said. Bryant was “on my way to drunk.” After more conversation, Jared got the sense that Bryant was ready to wrap things up. He asked Bryant if he’d be interested in hanging out again and whether they should exchange contact information. “And then he was like, ‘I gotta be honest, I’m feeling more of a friendship vibe from this,’ ” Jared told me. “And I was like, ‘I could see that. That’s cool with me.’ ” Jared had no hard feelings — he went into the date viewing it as low-stakes.

“I liked him, but unfortunately I didn’t feel any sort of romantic spark,” said Bryant. They exchanged Instagram handles instead of phone numbers. Most Date Lab participants when pressed have a difficult time verbalizing why the spark didn’t manifest. Not so for Bryant, who provided a list of bullet points. He pointed to their seven-year age difference, Jared’s interest in the bar scene (“which I haven’t really been into in a few years”) and Jared’s suggestion that he may not be settled in D.C. for good. “In aggregate it all added up to me not seeing any sort of long-term potential,” Bryant said. That’s not exactly a happily-ever-after ending, but it is a decided one.

They ran into each other at the gym and messaged on social media, but no second date.

Rich Juzwiak is a writer in New York.

Editor’s note: Because of privacy and safety concerns, Date Lab allows participants to be identified only by their first names.

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