- Leonard gets upset when he discovers that Penny is seeing a new guy, so he tries to trick her into going on a date with him.
- Leonard is still pining over Penny, but comes to the realization that she is out of his league when he sees her with her handsome latest date. Moving on, Leonard decides to ask out his colleague, Dr. Leslie Winkle, instead, who wants to treat this event like a sped up science experiment, with the results being more important than the process. With Leonard still thinking about Penny, Sheldon clarifies to Leonard that Penny has not rejected him since Leonard has never asked her out. But Penny's interpretation of Leonard's question makes Leonard reevaluate how to approach their "first date".—Huggo
- Leonard's mission to win Penny's heart come to a halt when he sees her with, Doug, her latest boyfriend. Feeling that his pursuits are all for nothing, he decides to pursue another path. His alternative involves trying to ask fellow physicist Leslie Winkle for a date, but she puts it in terms of a scientific experiment and postulates that the ending results (bound up in the goodnight kiss) were interesting but didn't exactly make the Earth move. Feeling down, Leonard gives Penny another try, inviting her to dinner under the impression that the other guys will be joining them. On, what is not clearly defined as "a date," she begins to realize that Leonard has feelings for her.—Jerry Roberts
- When he sees Penny kissing a man Doug in front of her apartment door, Leonard is devastated that she has "rejected" him. Leonard had created a system of taking Penny's mail on a daily basis, so he would be able to hand it over to her whenever she returned home from work and this would be his excuse to meet Penny everyday. The guys persuade him to date someone at work, so he approaches fellow scientist Leslie Winkle (Sara Gilbert). He proposes a bio-chemical experiment and Leslie figures that he is asking her out. In an experiment to strip the usual dating procedure to its essentials, she suggests fast forwarding to a kiss (which would eventually determine their sexual compatibility and their mutual desire to move forward to a sexual relationship). The whole exchange is very science oriented and hypothesis based.. She finds their kiss good but unexciting (she claims she had no arousal, which kind of perplexes Leonard, who takes this as an evaluation of his performance as a kisser), so she turns him down.
As Leonard becomes more depressed (Howard takes the guys to a salsa class with old women, where Howard goes to pick up desperate cougars when he needs a hook-up), thinking of buying a cat (hypoallergenic in view of Sheldon's asthma - though in later episodes Leonard is the one with asthma.. possible names include Einstein, Newton and Admiral Fuzzy Boots), Sheldon points out Leonard was not actually rejected by Penny as he never asked her out, so Leonard asks her out to dinner. As she misinterprets this as an invitation to hang out with all the guys for dinner at their apartment.
Before the "date" Leonard is sweating bullets. He asks Sheldon for advise, but as usual Sheldon is clueless about Leonard's nervousness and is not able to offer any useful suggestions.. Leonard is sweating so hard, that eventually he has to head back to the bathroom for another shower before his dinner with Penny.
At the dinner (at a semi-fancy restaurant), Leonard devises reasons for their absence from the date (Raj and Haword had to work, and Sheldon had a colonoscopy). Penny says the man Leonard saw was not her boyfriend: it was only casual weekend sex (for 36 hrs straight) which helps her get over relationships. Leonard, now excited, regains his confidence, but he accidentally hurts himself and Penny has to take him home (Leonard vomits on the way back, in Penny's car.. he manages to vomit mostly outside the car and it is suggested that some of the vomit lands up on a biker on the road). Thus the date with Penny comes to a premature end and Leonard is not able to pursue the matter forward due to the awkwardness of the situation.
In the end, Leonard does not find the courage to reveal his true feelings to Penny (she asks if this was a date), though she suspected what he was up to. Title reference: One of the names Leonard was considering for his cat.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content