Work Text:
Hermione would never admit it to anyone else, but she was a little nervous. Perhaps more than a litte. Ginny, who still felt bad for Hermione after her breakup with Ron, had arranged a blind date for her. This was not the first time Ginny had tried to set up such a thing - by Hermione’s count, it was the seventeenth time, but this was the first time Hermione had agreed. She told herself stubbornly that she was only agreeing to get Ginny off her back, but she knew that she was also...lonely.
She had a career she loved as an Unspeakable, but it made dating difficult. Her work was an intrinsic part of her, but not a part she could discuss with anyone else. Ginny had refused to tell her anything about the person who was due to meet her at the coffee shop in three minutes, other than that he was a Muggle. Which was surprising in and of itself, because Hermione didn’t even know that Ginny had Muggle friends.
In the coffee shop, she wore a bright red scarf. Supposedly her date was also going to be wearing a bright red scarf, if he even showed, so they could recognise each other. It was 12:58, with two minutes to go, and she had resolved that if he wasn’t there by 1:05 she was leaving. Right as she had that thought, the door opened, bringing in the cold February air as well as a man in a red scarf. He was dressed warmly in shades of gray and navy, which made the red scarf stand out in a bold splash of color.
He made eye contact with her, and began to walk over to her two person table. Her first thought was that he had an extraordinary face. It was by no means conventionally attractive, but it caught her eye. He had a nose that was too big for his face, with very angled features. He was clean shaven, with long black hair that he let hang around his face. Hermione didn’t have much of a type, but she was relatively certain he wasn’t it.
The thing was, she had never felt that spark with anyone, that chemistry. Except for about two seconds with Ron in the heat of battle, that physical passion wasn’t something that was in her. Sure, she had had sex, with Ron and two others she had been in short relationships with. And it was...okay. It had never been exciting, though, and she wasn’t sure it would ever be. Ginny insisted she just hadn’t met the right person, which was partially why Ginny was so pushy about her meeting people. Hermione almost hoped Ginny was right, that that spark would happen someday, but at the same time it just didn’t feel like something that was in her cards.
The man stopped at her table and gave her a smile that she imagined would melt most women’s hearts.
“I hope I’m correct in presuming that you’re Ginny’s friend. I’m Dylan,” he said as he stuck out his hand to introduce himself.
“Hermione,” she replied as she shook his hand with a firm grasp, “And yes, I’m Ginny’s friend. It’s nice to meet you. She never told me...how do you two even know each other? She and I have almost all the same circle of friends.”
An astonishingly bright blush lit up on his cheeks from such a simple question. Dylan scratched the back of his head nervously. “Well...you see, we met on Tinder. She said she was looking for dates for a friend. I, ah, would have thought you knew that. And I figured there isn’t any harm from meeting up with a cute girl for coffee, right? It’s a little outside of my modus operandi, but I’m trying to get out of my comfort zone a bit.”
“I know how that is,” Hermione replied ruefully, “Dating has never been in my comfort zone.” Inwardly, she thanked her lucky stars that she was Muggle-born and had kept up with Muggle inventions, so she vaguely knew what Tinder was.
Dylan laughed, and he had one of those infectious laughs that has its own sort of magic of dispelling any lingering awkwardness. At first they talked about the weather (rainy), and then Dylan told a funny story from his childhood. Conversation turned to work - she said she worked in a boring government job, which was only partially true but was successfully uninteresting enough to avoid further questions. Dylan was a graduate student, working towards a PhD in psychology. That was enough to perk Hermione’s interest, as in her mind, anyone who did research rose considerably in her esteem. She asked him about what his research was focusing on.
“It’s surprisingly hard to explain for a simple topic,” he began. “I’m studying the intersection of sexuality and sex drive, but I don’t want to seem like a perv for talking about sex on the first date,” he chuckled self consciously.
“There are ways to talk about sex on a first date which don’t come across creepily,” Hermione pointed out, “and I think when it’s about research that lends itself to being socially acceptable. Go on,” she encouraged.
Permission given, his eyes lit up. “Well, to start, do you know anything about asexuality?”
“Not a thing,” she replied, resolving to look it up at a later date.
“Simply put, asexuality is defined as not experiencing sexual attraction. It has a wide array of different facets aside from that - some asexuals want relationships but not sex, other aces might be sex favourable, and some are both asexual and aromantic, so they choose to not be in relationships. Asexual people have just a diverse array of relationship experiences as allosexuals, which is what we call people who experience sexual attraction in what society considers to be a typical fashion. And many ace people experience other types of attraction, such as romantic and aesthetic. Does that make sense?”
Hermione nodded, feeling like something had just clicked into place in her brain. “So how does that pertain to your research?” she queried.
When he talked, Dylan’s hands gestured enthusiastically at things that really didn’t need gesturing, but strangely, Hermione found it kind of adorable. “Right. I can go on about this forever, so let me know when you get bored. My research focuses on asexuals who are sex favourable. Specifically, I’m conducting interviews looking at how they choose sexual partners. It might sound surprising, but there are aces who have casual sex. There are also aces who only choose to have sex with their romantic partners. The concept of sexual attraction is really not well understood, from what I can tell. It almost seems to be ‘either you know what it is or you don’t’ kind of deal, and no one can explain it well. My research is all qualitative, and it’s the very first of its kind to be done, so I’m not expecting conclusive results, but it’s a starting point.” With that, Dylan paused, mid gesture, and Hermione took the chance to jump in.
“So...how do people know they’re asexual?”
“A lot of people don’t figure it out for a while, or even if they do, it’s hard to tell. And society is tough on people in that sex is seen as a requirement for a healthy relationship. I didn’t realise until I was almost engaged to my first girlfriend, when I just wasn’t ever turned on. Eventually she took it personally and we broke up.”
Hermione nodded, pensively, and then abruptly changed the topic to pets, because talking about Crookshanks was her default conversation topic. Dylan had a knowing look in his eyes, like he knew exactly why she’d changed the subject, but didn’t push. He was an excellent conversational partner, and quickly they moved onto philosophical discussions.
An hour had passed, and Hermione deemed that long enough to make a gracious escape. Dylan was lovely, but she wasn’t attracted to him. At least now maybe she knew why.
Still though, she was going to murder Ginny for setting her up with someone from Tinder of all places.