Bad Date Hall of Fame: Nancy

I've told this story before. I've even blogged it before. The thing to remember is that I am a nice person. Not overly so, just normal and respectful and not entirely unfortunate looking. I mean, I've had my fat and mean days just like every girl, but generally speaking I like to think of myself as nice and average. And every girl, particularly the very most average of us, has bad dates. I'm sure every guy does too. What happens is that the average manage to somehow get paired up with someone who is so far below average as to make the rest of us look positively celestial in our average-ness. (Think about how often you see the nicest guy friend you have and are probably secretly interested in go out with some probably gorgeous girl who totally manipulates and destroys all of his kindness... I know it sounds like a Taylor Swift song, but talk about below average! )

I digress. Let's recap: I'm nice. I'm normal. But since I've had the experience, so it might as well be worth its weight in storytelling. The damage has been done, I hate hate hate dating.. I'd even rather do laundry than go on a date. (And that is a something if you know how much I hate doing laundry, with that starchy feeling on your hands and the sneezing and the waiting and the folding...) I hope then that you all enjoy the fruits of my misery.

I've been known to be a lousy date. Not mean or frightening, just kind of socially dumb. Boys get that scared rabbit look at the end of the date, and sort of shove me out of the passenger side door of their car before pealing out as fast as their 1992 sedan can turn around. I used to joke about it too, and the people who know me outside of the social pressure of dating would feel bad for me and "fix me up" with people. Ah the blind date. A cultural phenomenon directly in opposition to the natural selection of the species. It is punishment for the socially odd inflicted by the well meaning but misinformed. I worked at an elementary school, and I loved my job and my co-workers. We had so much fun in that office and in that faculty lounge. I wasn't socially weird among my co-workers, who were primarily women and as accepting and kind as elementary school teachers should be. They didn't understand why I had such limited success, and it wasn't long before talk of "setting me up" got started. My friend and school secretary "Jill" asked me one day how I would feel if she set me up on a blind date with someone, and I told her that I was just fine with it as long as he didn't have a prison record. I thought I was joking, but she got very quiet for a moment and then said "I'll think of someone else then." Enter awkward silence.

Ooops. Oh well, some things should be obvious, right?

Of course this made it so that the next time she approached me with a blind date prospect I was both more hesitant to trust her judgement as well as more hesitant to make jokes or ask for specifics. I agreed to go and she passed along my phone number to Jake.

What makes someone decide that two of their friends are just right for each other? Is it simply because they are both single, and at 27 and 29, there must not be very many options left? At some point people must decide that because I am a.) a returned missionary, b.) graduated from college, or c.) over 25, I should learn to take what I can get? Oh yes, there she goes, that sad sad SINGLE girl. I bet its because her standards are too high. She wants someone who is both breathing and that has an IQ greater than a rusty bobby pin.

Oh dear, I'm on another tangent. Someone needs to keep me on target here.

Jake was 29. I was 27. That's about where the match made in heaven ended. He called the very same night that Jill gave him my number. He asked me what I studied in college, and I said music. His response should have been my first clue.

"Oh I LOVE music!" and then he launched into an un-interrupt-able spiel about his music collection. Of 80's hair bands and 90's alternative stuff. Now don't mis-judge me here. I do love most music, and there is a place in my heart even for a few of the 80's hair bands and the 90's alternative stuff. But when someone says they studied music in college, it generally does not indicate that they have a deep affinity for screaming guitars and biting heads off of helpless dachsunds. His enthusiasm for metal and the mainstream left me wondering what the heck I was getting myself into.. He kept asking me if I had heard of such and such and so and so, and he was appalled that any music person would not have. I finally managed to communicate to him that the heaviest metal I was familiar with would be the French Horn and the most mainstream vocalists were probably the King Singers. Oh well, he said. When should we go out?

Side note: If boys happen to be reading this, particularly single boys who may be asking girls out, blind date or not, you don't call without a plan. You call with a plan, and then you can either make the plan flexible or acknowledge that things aren't going to happen. But you absolutely must have a plan.

I made him come up with a plan. He arranged for 6:00 on Friday night, mini golf. Early, and not entirely creative, but it had details I could work with.

Let's move forward to the actual date. He was on my doorstep at 6:00. We got in his car and he began telling me about himself. I should mention here that it was early march. Chilly, and the plan was for mini golf. As we drove and I listened to him blather on about himself, a nagging part of my brain wondered if he had had the presence of mind to see if the mini golf place was open. Surely he was at least that smart? Ah no. It was still closed for the season. He drove to the next mini-golf place, same story, he drove to two more, you'll never guess, all closed. Now it is 7:30. He has, in the time it took to drive to four mini-golf locations, been bragging to me. His self-proclaimed greatest skill in life is that he knows how to do the absolute minimum work required at any job.. He prides himself on never doing more than absolutely necessary. He brags about the evidence of this skill. What evidence? Well, he has only been fired 3 times. All of his other jobs kept him on because they couldn't think of anything to fire him for. The most recent firing was from a telemarketing place, and he was OK with that because he didn't like them anyways, even if they did pay more than any of his other jobs. Wow wow wow. How do you thing of the correct and polite conversational responses to that?

I was kind of getting hopeful. Maybe since all the mini golf places were closed, he could just take me home and we could be done with the experiment in misery. I should be so lucky. He decided a movie would be a great substitute for mini golf. We began stopping at movie theatres to see what was playing and when. The first movie theatre had nothing beginning for another 45 minutes, so we went to the next theatre. And so forth. We had been driving north looking for mini golf places, now we reversed course and began checking movie theatres as we headed back south. For another hour we drove to every theatre between North Ogden and Layton. By the time we finally got to the Layton Theatre, we could have been half an hour into the movie in Ogden. We got to Layton, he chose a movie that was starting in 35 minutes, because he wanted to have time to run to the store for candy. He didn't consult me on a movie, he simply chose and bought the tickets while I waited in the car so he wouldn't have to park.

We went to the dollar store, and he bought himself 3 bags of his favorite candy and some soda. He informed me that since he didn't plan on having to pay for a movie, he didn't have enough money to get anything for me. Nice. When we got out to the parking lot, he asked me to hide his candy and soda in my bag and my coat, so he wouldn't get caught sneaking it in. I was nearly speechless at this point, and my reflex was to start playing the role of some other person. I told him I felt too dishonest about that. Now I know any of you who have been to a movie with me can attest, I bring entire meals in. There is nothing quite like sitting through a romantic comedy with chinese take out, or a classic drama with coldstone and a burger and fires. But I wanted to see him struggle, so I made him feel guilty. Lovely Passive-Aggressive me. We went back to the theatre and took our seats. The movie began, and suddenly he said "This is a Stephen King Movie, I hate scary movies".

I was aware of that. I was aware because I hate hate hate hate hate horror movies, in my brain I am thinking "way to go, jerk. It's only been advertised and in theatres for a month now. You would have to live under a rock to not have known that." Whatever. I was beyond words at this point, so I shrugged and sat there. About halfway through the movie, he leaned over to me and told me the rest of the plot. I asked him how he was so sure and he said "I love this stuff. It's always so cliche and predictable."

Blithering Idiot. What was his motivation in lying and telling me this type of movie scared him? I can only imagine, and most of what I imagine causes shudders in the deepest core of me.

About 10 minutes after his plot reveal, his cell phone rang. He hadn't turned it off. Idiot.

He answered it. In the movie theatre, while the movie was going. Blithering idiot.

It was his mom. He finished the phone conversation, and then he said to me "That was my mom. She says I have to go home and go to bed because I work at 8 tomorrow morning."
And then he got up and left .
That's right. He left the movie. He left the theatre. He left me sitting there. He left because his mom told him to. And I was relieved. I was grateful to have to call my roommate and ask her to pick me up. I was ecstatic that I didn't have to keep thinking about where to put my hands. I was thrilled to no longer have to come up with a polite "uh-huh" every 7 minutes. I was overjoyed that I didn't have to get back into his car. And most of all, I was giddy that I didn't have to go through the doorstep scene. No awkward attempt at a hug or a handshake.

And there you have it. I have, in fact, been on blind dates since this one, but they were extremely screened and in large groups and the friends who did the setting up had to be present and accountable for their choices. And I invite each of you to consider that next time the thought crosses your mind. Whether it is me or any of you other Single friends, it is only fair that we exact the same emotional punishment from you that you have inflicted upon us. I'm not bitter. I just derive the logic I use to function from past experience.