It’s Not This Guy

It all started at my friends birthday dinner. She and her husband were talking to another couple friend of theirs, whom I had just met at the dinner. All of the sudden my friend looks at the other couple and says, “You know who would be perfect for her?!”

As if a light bulb went off over all of their heads simultaneously they all looked right at me and the questions began to fire, “How old are you? Do you like sports? What do you do for fun? Do you like….”

I sat there with a deer in the headlights look trying to figure out how this birthday dinner turned into an interview. By the end of the night I had agreed, wildly against my better judgment, to go out with my married friends and their younger brother, my soon to be blind date.

Now, first dates in and of themselves are pretty stressful. Add to that the fact that you will be meeting this person for the very first time on this very first date, and a girl’s prep time becomes seriously intense. What do I wear? I want to look cute but not too nice, like I put effort in but wasn’t trying too hard. Is it better to go a little over the top or stay casual as if to say “this really isn’t a big deal, I do this all the time.” Not that you want him to think you go out ALL the time, if you catch what I’m saying.

At any rate, the point is the amount of pressure that comes with a blind date is the exact reason I have always sworn them off. I am still not sure at what point that changed, but somehow I decided blind dates were the cool thing to do. Chinese food and bowling sounds relatively non-threatening, and it was a group date, so I could easily rationalize that this wasn’t a date, really, per say.

At the Chinese food restaurant he introduces himself first, offering a handshake.

Nice; I like the assertiveness. Good move with the handshake. I don’t like the awkward stranger hug.

We sit down and of course we are strategically seated right next to each other with the other two couples around the table. There is an awkward silence. Uh-oh… I pretend to read the menu while viciously trying to think of something to say and wondering why he’s not saying anything either. I really prefer a man who can carry conversation without my prompting. Hhhmmm…

To kill the silence his older brother jumps in with this line, “Hey Amy, you know Jason was so nervous about tonight that he showered twice and changed three times.”

Right. Because that’s not awkward.

After the light hearted taunting by his big brother, Jason finally gets up the nerve to talk to me. It was more of a forced interview than a conversation though. I swear he must have written out talking points before we got there.

My favorite part was when he asked me what my major is and I said “Communications”. He pauses, looks at me funny and as if he doesn’t believe me and repeats it back as a question, “Communications?”

I’m a little confused at his confusion, “Uh, yeah.”

He needs more clarification, “Communications? Really? With an S at the end?”

His attitude caused a sudden shift in my demeanor and I knew right then I should leave, just run for the door immediately.

“Yes. Communications with an S. Why?”

“Well I also got my degree in Communication, from Long Beach State and…” The next fifteen minutes was him blabbing on and on about his greater than all else college education at a university where communication with an S and communication without an S are worlds apart in difference. He thoroughly explained that difference and questioned how my pithy little school could offer a degree in communications when it sounds like, by my lacking description, that it should be communication without the S.

He rounds off his novel rant with, “So really, it’s Communications, huh?”

I swallowed and bit my tongue, though I could feel the slicing sarcasm about to spew all over the table. If nothing else, I was extremely proud of the amount of self control I was able to exercise that evening.

And with that we moved on to the bowling alley where things continued in similar fashion.

Simple conversation was not really this guy’s forte so we delve into things like spirituality, doctrine, and philosophy, in between bowling turns that is. This guy doesn’t even know my last name yet and he’s asking me questions about Calvinism and the Reformation. Who does that?

And just to prove how incredibly off my game this guy has thrown me, I get up to bowl, swing the ball back and promptly let is slip out of my grasp. It plunks onto the floor and rolls back… right to his feet.

He graciously picks it up for me, “I think you lost something.”

Really? I have been holding back an entire fire range of sarcasm all night and this guy gets the first shot? No thank you.

I have to admit, my embarrassment in that moment halted me from saying anything at all. I just smiled, took the ball and threw a strike.

Let’s call that a night! I hurried out of there as fast as I could, not allowing for any kind of “Let’s do this again, can I have your number?” kind of crap.
So, it turns out he wasn’t Mr. Right, not the man of my dreams or my knight in shining armor. Turns out he was nothing of the sort. Not even close.

I saw him one other time after that night. It was at our friend’s poker night. There is truly nothing more awkward than to try and casually give out the “I’m just not that into you” vibe. I handled it though, with all the class and charm a sarcastic, single young lady in LA can have.

Sometimes I look back on that experience and wonder what in the world it was there for. Would I be the same for having not gone on that date? Did it form or fashion me in some way that I’m not yet aware of? It did give me a funny story to tell and something to write about, which at this point in my life is pretty much the best thing he could have given me.

They say the best thing you can do is to keep putting yourself out there. If it keeps giving me good material to write about, I suppose I will do just that.