on the inherent complete mystery of dating

I met up with the architect at the Red Room.
I ended up walking there from my apartment, because the bus was clearly not coming and it was a nice night, and Hyde St isn't really that sketchy in the early evening with a lot of people out. Enough excuses, it wasn't the best idea to walk through the TL alone in a skirt at night but anyway it was fine.
I was slightly nervous because I had only met him once, at a dark bar while drinking the strongest Manhattan ever made, and because I have humiliatingly little dating experience.
He was far more attractive than I remembered, I mean super cute, and I was having a great time talking to him. After a drink we walked to another bar, which was relatively empty and only emptied further. He didn't have to test his boundaries for too long before his arm was around me and he was holding the palm of my hand to look at my ring. He went in to kiss me just after we both exchanged stories about our broken bones in the months of March and April, completely out of context, which is of course fine by me.
Soon afterwards he asks if I've been to the Starlight room, and I say no, though I always see it from Union Square, with its Las Vegas circa 1978 animated lights at the top of a skyscraper. He says he's into the view. $10 apiece later we are inside and are in the minority of the non-tourist population that is not super shady, even though that in itself is debatable since we spent the vast majority of the time making out at the windowsill and speaking occasionally. Conversation grew increasingly superficial, because it's always hard to get to know someone once you're already intensely making out in a lounge that's exotic in a Hearst estate kind of way. When it emptied out he said we should probably vacate too.
We walk 3 blocks back up to his place, and he asks if I want to get a cab or come up to his place for water or beer. I say I'll come up for a little while. I'm pretty sure I broke a dating rule or something by now but I was curious to see the residence of the guy whose name, age and phone number I don't know (the latter because his new cell phone is mysteriously restricted and he can't figure out why). I drink cold Crystal Geyser out of a glass and look at his fairly stunning televisionless apartment. I have no idea if he wants me to be there or not. We start making out on the couch, he's very sweet, he takes his time before it gets to the point where I say, "I should stop you." "Okay." He pulls me in under his arm and we talk for a little while. He tells me he had fun hanging out wiht me tonight. I can't tell if he's bored, while telling me about his trip to China.
When he yawns I say I should probably let him get some sleep. Realizing I have no way to contact him, he writes down his phone number on a piece of transparent drafting paper. The craziest part - he writes his first name and last initial! What was that about? Was he afraid I'd perform an internet background check and find something? And it's a V, no less. What the hell does V stand for?
He asks if he should walk me down to a cab and I say, "You don't have to," so he doesn't. He kisses me and flashes a killer smile.
I take a cab home and knock on my roommate's door because I have to debrief with someone, and he had also helped me prep. I have zero idea if he has any interest whatsoever in doing anything but try to sleep with me. And it's not anything he said or did - that's just the thing about dating.
So my roommate is kind of baffled too at this point, since neither of us know anything about dating, and I realize that it must be hard to be an attractive guy with a good personality and a decent job in San Francisco, because where do the options end, and doesn't it just get boring and turn into a game of how quickly and frequently one can have sex with strangers?
I could go on a thousand first dates with strangers and never learn anything more than I know now about reading signs or signals or anything. All I know is in the supposed adult dating world things seem like to work inversely - first you hang out and see if you have physical chemistry and then you get to know each other better.
God, do I have a lot to learn.