I am flying back from San Francisco today. This stay was much different than I expected.
I ended up hanging out with the Californian for several hours 2 of the 4 days I was in town. It's so interesting that I was crazy skeptical about him and his enthusiasm about me visiting, and things turned out so well. He said a few times that he was really excited I was visiting and that he would show me around and we would do all this stuff, and my reaction was: why is this boy acting like I'm visiting him?
I'm here to hang out with my BFF and do some networking.
He also offered me to sleep at his place, and every time I gave a vague answer. I thought he had ulterior motives, even though he said it would be easier to stay in the city to do sight-seeing. I never accepted the offer, but he was right about the commute from Berkeley.
Anyway, he drove me around town for hours on his motorcycle (my first time riding!) and actively sought off-the-beaten path areas to show me. He went to his apartment that first afternoon, met his roommates, he cooked dinner, we relaxed a bit and then went to check out music. The second day, he joined me and some friends from Boston for a free concert, we went to Chinatown for food and a festival, went to see new sights, and ended up at a delicious ice cream place. To finish, we drove to a spot where we had an amazing view of the entire city and watched the sunset. It was so beautiful!!
I didn't think things would go so well... presumably because I've thought him to be somewhat self-centered, but I guess my thoughts on that were colored by times when he had high stress. I also thought he might be less friendly if I reprimanded him for being touchy feely, but that didn't happen. We just kept hanging out in a fairly platonic way.
Anyway, it was great and I was pleasantly surprised. The last time we hung out, he bought a gift for me to bring back to our mutual friends (my roommates and his former roommates). He helped make the weekend a great one!