Dating (go ahead and sigh). The bane of the existence of the twenty-something single male. I am notoriously bad at dating. I have a tendency to run into things with reckless abandon, completely opposite of the typical guy, who is afraid of commitment. It’s not that I don’t think things out. It’s just that I know it’s nothing a little Jack Daniels and some Randy Travis on the record player won’t fix. In fact, I can often be found on Sunday mornings out in the front yard in my bathing suit and bath robe cleaning up the emotional wreckage from the train wreck that is my dating life. It’s not a completely terrible way of doing things, it just means I spend a lot of money at the bar recovering. I’ve fumbled and stumbled my way into a few relationships that were worth a damn, but the successes aren’t nearly as funny as the failures. Today’s story: my first date ever.
For some odd reason, I’ve always somehow managed to get dates with girls that are really attractive. I still have no idea how I do that. I’m skinny and my fashion sense consists of having no fashion at all. I’m the complete antithesis of anything you’d see in Men’s Health or GQ (perhaps I just answered my own question). This doesn’t shock me quite as much now, because as you get older women start to acquire more sense. But anyway, I was a sophomore in high school and I’d just gotten my license. To me, this meant it was time to try out this dating thing. I had a job, I had money, I had a damn fine head of hair, and I had an El Camino. There were seriously only about 8 girls that you could possibly date at my high school, so I took my wares elsewhere.
I had a couple of friends that went to a big high school, Parkview, in the next county. I started hanging out with them some and one night at a little party, I met this girl named Jenny. She was fine little thing, a soccer player, and we talked for a couple of minutes. I really didn’t get to know her very well, but before she left I asked her if she wanted to go out the next week. She said yes. That part was good. Probably the easiest time I ever had asking a girl out, but then again, I had no idea how horribly bad these things could turn out.
I called her up the next week and we set something up for the following Saturday night. When Saturday arrived, I dressed like I had some sense in jeans with a button up shirt. Not too shabby. I drove over to her house to pick her up and I had to go meet her parents. I was ill-prepared for that. Her Dad was a big sumbitch, and he had a real intimidating way of talking, like a football coach or drill instructor. This was my very first rodeo and when he asked me what my intentions were with his daughter, I suppose I said “uhhhh” a bit too long before responding with “Nothing Sir, I’d just like to get to know her.” That man chilled my soul with that glare. I still curl up in the fetal position and cry a bit late at night because of it.
Somehow, by the grace of God, he let me take her out. We went to a restaurant over near her house and much to my chagrin, it was a vegetarian joint. You gotta understand, that at this point in my life I ate NO vegetables other than black eyed peas. None. I HATED them. I’ve learned to like quite a few in the years since, mostly because of this experience. She ordered and I followed with the most tolerable thing I could find on the menu. I can’t remember what it was now, but it was equivalent to not good.
We conversed a bit about common friends and such. Then about sports we played. It started off well enough, but after a piece she noticed that I’d only managed to choke down about 3 bites of my meal. I could see the disdain in her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but even at that early age, I knew I was on the ropes late in the match. In retrospect I should have just said I didn’t feel well and all probably would have been forgiven, but instead I just came across as “uncultured.” At 16. Can you believe that?
After dinner we had planned to go see a movie. Since I knew nothing at all about dating, I agreed to a chick flick. The occular rape-age that is Stepmom. Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts in the same movie? Are you f’n kidding me? I would have been happier with a good gum scraping. On the way to the theater, she started complaining about the lack of A/C in the Hell Camino (to those of you who knew the Camino in more recent years, it was pretty rough when I first got it). I knew this was going bad, but I didn’t have the sense to just drive her home and cut my losses. Besides, she was hot. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed over the years; I’ll still take a shotgun blast to the side of the face from a hot girl.
Go ahead, shoot me right square in the face.
We made it to the movie theater (oddly enough, the same one I shat my pants in) and got our tickets. I took this opportunity to hook myself up with some nachos since I was starving and I bought her a drink and some popcorn. We found some seats in the nearly empty theater and the idea crossed my mind that I might need to make a move. I’d never kissed a girl before, let alone tried make a move. This had recipe for disaster written all over it. I worked up some courage and the idea that I’d try to just hold her hand first. I slid my hand down from the armrest to where her hand was, she pulled it away. It could have just been coincidence, but that was enough for me. I tried to play it off and put my arm back on the armrest to retreat and regroup and plot my next move. I soon lost track of what was even going on in the movie and drifted off to sleep (to this day, I’ve never fallen asleep in another movie).
I woke up sometime later and the lights were on and the credits were rolling. I looked to my left and Jenny wasn’t there. “Oh shit!” I muttered to myself. I stood up and hurried back to the lobby. I didn’t see her anywhere so I waited by the restrooms for a minute or two thinking maybe she’d gone in there. She didn’t come out so I walked out to my car and there she was, sitting on the tailgate of my El Camino. “I think you should take me home.” She said. “Yeah, I, uh, guess you’re right,” I replied, rather sheepishly. I felt bad. Really bad. She stared out the window the entire ride home and I’m pretty sure that if we’d have had cellphones at the time she would have been making the shit out of some textbabies the whole way.
I dropped her off at her house and she got out and simply said “Thanks.” Her Dad was sitting on the front porch and he waved as I pulled off. Had I been older, I’d have just drowned my sorrows in some alcohol and laughed it off. But when you’re 16 and it’s your first date, you take failure hard. Oh yeah, and top that milkshake off with the scathing phone call I got the next day from my friend Bridgett who introduced us and vouched for me.
[...] Dating: Shoot Me in the Face Style – Episode one of my previous dating [...]