Yes, I miss the thought provoking threads too. We have had some good threads lately, which got me to thinking of how much I have been missing them. I enjoy some funny threads, but that's not the main reason i'm here. I've learned allot of great things the time that I've spent here, and it's just not the same anymore.
I'm not very OCD though, so it doesn't bother me to only read two or three threads on the front page...
For the record, I rarely end up posing in the thinking type threads for two reasons. I haven't given much if any thought to most of the threads that come up, so I generally don't have much to share. The second reason being, I don't transfer my thoughts from my brain to paper well, it takes too much time and I lost my train of thought and key phrases easily. I'm getting better, but I'm an engineer so i'm forever cursed with not being able to write well.
I've been thinking about starting a thread on forgiveness though...
As far as the date, I asked myself if I wanted to go to dinner and I accepted. haha I'm traveling by myself, and was reading an article about eating alone and it mentioned treating your date well. I thought the date concept was funny, and I did say I was still single, you just didn't see it.
Eating alone was definitely far outside of my comfort zone, but asking a girl out is even farther out of my comfort zone. Someday...
Besides, even if I did ask a girl out, knowing my luck i'd probably end up really liking her seeing as i'm 2000 miles from home.