Bad Dates—Read on if you dare

Country Dancing
This is the story of another man I landed in one of my many dance classes.  We danced, we talked.  I left the studio and never thought about it again.  One day we walked out of the dance class together, chatted until it was time to part ways, and then he asked for my number.  It was like having a light-bulb go off in my head.  Oh, hey, wait a minute, he might like me.  I think he's going to ask me on a date.

Cool.

He really liked me.  We went to a country dance club, he held my hand on the way in.  It may not sound too intense to you, but for me hand-holding is serious stuff.  We danced, we went out back to cool down because it was stuffy.  We talked.  It was not altogether an awkward date.  He dropped me off at home.

This relationship I made awkward.  I decided I didn't like him—which for me just means awkwardness is going to happen.  I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to talk to him, I avoided him for the first few classes after the date.  Um, yeah.  Botched that one.  Oops.



Ice Skating
This is one of my favorite bad date stories.  In this story I met a cute boy at a dance party, we ended up dancing together, had a great conversation, made each other laugh—and he got my number!  Whoo, go girl!

He called me and asked me out.  Side note: my thoughts tend to go all blurry and mesh together when I'm talking to guys I like (on the phone or in person), this tends to make me very giggly and I laugh at EVERYTHING they say and laugh at everything I say, even though the conversation is rarely really that clever—just FYI.

He wanted input on date ideas.  What did I want to do?  What sounded fun?

Me:

I can't decide if it is a good thing when guys ask you to brainstorm ideas for dates or not.  Is it complementary because they think you are smart and have good ideas, or is it just a cop-out so they don't have to think of good dates? I finally got my muddled thoughts together enough to laugh and say something (completely not) clever.

Me: I've never been ice-skating, but other than that I'm up for anything.

What you have to realize about this is that when I said I'd never been ice-skating I meant I did NOT want to go ice-skating (I'd been roller skating before, I knew what I was talking about).  When he heard me say I'd never been ice-skating he thought that I wanted to try the fantastic sport out.

He picked me up—while my roommate made sad faces at me because I was ditching her to go on a date.  Another group of friends was going to go do something activity like that night—but obviously dates are better than hanging out with friends.

We had dinner, we talked, we laughed.  I told him weird things that probably made him laugh in the she's kind of a little insane and if I don't laugh this will be awkward way.

Him: How's the food?

Me: I love this salad dressing.  (K—that's not tooo weird, but I couldn't stop there).  I think I just like it so much because I don't have to make it.

Him: Make it?

Me: Yah, I'm to lazy to go buy salad dressing from the store so I mix mayo and milk together and make my own salad dressings.

Great conversationalist am I.

After dinner we wet—to my horror—to an ice-skating rink.  At this point I was slightly freaked out.  I am not completely uncoordinated, but I come from a family that was not at all invested in sports.  We didn't watch sports on TV, I didn't play any sports in high-school . . . we were the kind of family that took a camper up camping with us (not a bad thing, just not a extreme sports kind of family).

My suspicions of being terrible at ice-skating were right.  As soon as we got on the ice I started falling all over the place, I couldn't stay on my feet.  I was horrified and embarrassed, but I kept trying to move around the rink.  The best mode of travel that I could think of was to cling to the wall while I went bow-legged and slowly scoot myself down the ice rink wall.

My date, being kind, and probably slightly opportunistic, kept trying to give me his arm to hang on.

Him: Come on, let go of the wall.  You can hold onto my arm and I'll help you move around.

Me: stopping in any kind of progress I was making: No!

Him: Well why don't you try letting go of the wall—and if you start falling I'll catch you.

Me: No!!!

He gave up after a while.  

What made this date even better was that my roommate and her group of friends had decided to go . . .  duh, duh duh, ice-skating that day.  We were at the same rink.  Not only was my date slowly inching his way around the rink beside me, trying to make conversation to a determined wall-flower, but my roommate would come by every ten minutes or so to make sure I wasn't dead yet. 

The true horror of the night came when I was half-way around the rink, making my slow grueling way when the ice-rink started clearing.  The ice was cut up enough that it was time to bring out the Zamboni.  I think I lost my head at first sight of it.  There were still other people on the rink—and looking back now I don't think the Zamboni probably would have run me over (bad for business)—but I was absolutely positive that the terrible rumbling monster was going to run me over.  It had taken me twenty minutes to get where I was, which meant it would take another twenty to work my way the other half of the way back to the exit door.

I was so terrified that my date and my roommate decided I was in desperate need of help.  I left the wall—a more experienced ice-skater on either side. My date held my hand—intertwined fingers and all, and my roommate just laughed at me.

I survived the Zamboni, it did not eat me that day.  I was so freaked out that I didn't notice the hand holding and we left shortly after that traumatic event. 

I was all worn out from being cold and bruised and scared out of my mind.  The conversation on the ride home was stilled, the walk to the door was worse (we couldn't even keep a conversation about the weather going, the goodbye was awkward.

The best part is that I thought the date went well enough I asked him on another date a week later (casual, movie watching and pizza making) via text—which is always a good idea.  He didn't answer my text for a day or two and when he finally did it was a hesitant acceptance.  He didn't cancel until another few days.

Never saw him again.

The End



If you think this has been good you should read about my first boyfriend.