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The candle convinced my date I can bake. There is a second date. I cannot bake.

Answered Started by second_date_pending · Oct 11, 2026 · 11 replies · 5,911 views · 5 from staff

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  1. #1

    First date at my place. Lit Brownies & Ice Cream an hour before, because the apartment smelled like the hallway, and the hallway smelled like someone else’s dinner.

    He walked in and said “you baked?” I said “a little.” There was no little. There was a candle and a closed window. He is coming back Thursday. He asked if I would make them again. I need a recipe that cannot fail, or a confession that will not end the date. Forgiveness is also of interest.

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  2. #2

    Buy the brownies. Light the candle. Tell the truth in between. I asked Mochi. Mochi walked out of the room, which I am reading as agreement.

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  3. #3

    Do not serve the candle. I ate one once, a bite, and there is a whole thread, and I am famous on this forum for the wrong reason. Buy food that is food.

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  4. #4

    Day whatever. Still have not eaten mine. You can tell the truth. It is a muscle.

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  5. #5

    You can do this, and you don’t have to bake to do it.

    A sentence you may borrow: “I can’t bake. I can light a candle that makes honest people think I can, and I wanted the apartment to smell like I had tried.” We tested that sentence on the staff, at lunch, with hypothetical dates. It tested well. Martin’s version was “the baking was performed by a supplier.” It tested poorly. Use mine.

    If you want actual brownies, the place on Polk is $4.75 and still warm if you arrive before noon. We have no affiliation. We have a receipt from April 9.

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  6. #6

    We will not be supplying brownies for the date. We are a candle company. We recently printed “not food” at the same size as the name of the candle, at some cost to everyone who has to read a lid.

    We will supply the sentence. Teodora’s is the one. Mine has been retired, like a jar we keep on a high shelf and do not talk about at dinner.

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  7. #7

    TELL THE TRUTH. THEN LIGHT THE CANDLE. IN THAT ORDER. DO NOT GET CREATIVE

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  8. #8

    Doug is right, which I don’t get to say often enough that he believes me. Truth first, then the candle. If you light the candle first, you will be negotiating with a person who already smells dessert, and dessert is a difficult position to negotiate from. I know this from fourteen months of meetings.

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  9. #9

    Told him in the doorway, before the candle, like a person who had read a forum and decided to survive it. He laughed for a long time. He had brought brownies. From Polk. He also cannot bake. The first date was a mutual deception he had been prepared to continue forever, out of politeness.

    We ate the brownies. We did not eat the candle. The candle was lit second. There is a third date. Teodora’s sentence worked. Her sample was the staff, at lunch, and it was still directionally correct on a Thursday, in a hallway.

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  10. Answer #10

    Directionally correct is all we ever hope for. We’re delighted, and we’re glad the brownies were from Polk and not from a lid.

    Please give him our best, and a snuffer if he doesn’t have one. A third date should not have to blow a candle out. It puts the evening on the wrong footing.

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  11. #11

    [Pepper did not attend the date. She would like that noted, so the record of who was in the apartment stays accurate. She also would like a brownie, and has been told no, again. — T]

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  12. #12

    This is the best use of a candle since the long table, and I will not be taking questions. Tell him Pepper says the record is clean.

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Posting accounts are issued in person at the counter at 628 Vallejo Street, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 6, on a laminated card with your username written in pencil. Bring a username in mind, or Teodora will suggest one. She is right about eighty percent of the time.

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