One Date

The way I tally it, I've only ever been on one date in my life, and the girl had asked me out. We were  in junior college. I found her very attractive for reasons I can't remember.  She was in my Economics class. I wanted to know her name. Attendence wasn't taken verbally, and no one had a chance to socialize in class, so I  grabbed the sign-in sheet and counted back the names until I found hers. But being the socio-sexually repressed person I am, I didn't do anything with her name. Leastways talk to her. 

 I turned 19 years old. This would be a long year. After class the day after my birthday I was about to go drive to a bank and cash my birthday money from my grandparents when she stopped me. She asked me to go to lunch with her, and If I hadn't already oddly been interested in her; If it had been any other girl in the world, I would have said no. I've rejected every advance every girl has ever made. It took me a long time to even realize this. 

I will now list for you every one of those times (because Baby, there aren't that many).

In 4th grade a cute girl I really liked and talked with alot dispatched her friend to ask her if I liked her. I said no. Pretty muched killed things there.

 In 5th grade this beautiful girl I'd tease/joke with and talk to all day really obviously liked me and I was completely oblivious, it would be a chapter in itself listing all the ways she tried to get me to show any reciprocity.

In 6th grade another cute girl dispatched a friend to say she had a crush on me. I ignored the information and never talked to her. Until, well, things were much worse socially for me.

In 8th grade a gorgeous and lovely new girl to school asked me if I would go to the school dance with her. I literally laughed in her face while telling her no.

Now at this point you must be thinking A. What the hell is wrong with this guy? and/or B. What a dick.

But the story is a bit more complicated. Certainly my actions were stupid, but I didn't know this at the time. 

Jump to high school and by then I was a social wreck. I made no new good friends. I played water polo, I socialized at lunch, but otherwise I was completely withdrawn. Most teens were becoming social beings, learning their "place" in society. All I knew was that I didn't feel comfortable existing. 

I had crushes of my own. One girl I held a crush from 3rd grade until 8th grade. She was as smart, if not smarter than me (which is unsual in a human, not bragging by any means, this whole story is about how much I suck as a human. But I have a relatively high IQ, a decent memory, and enough wit to weave myself a facade of a genius. However I am often too stubborn to ever be wrong, to my own detriment). Laura was her name. By 5th grade I was infatuated with her. She asked me to "couple's skate" once at a class trip to the skating rink. I held her hand while skating in a circle, and that my friends is the most sexual contact I had with a girl until I was 23. Sexual not even being remotely the right word, more like held hands as classmates, not even friends. I meant to ask Laura to dance with me once in 6th grade, but the opportunity never arose. A couple years later Laura went off to another school and stories trailed back of her turning  into a boozey slut. While this wouldn't be the last time a girl chose liquor and cheap sex over me, the nature of school rumors must temper that claim to be being only "probably true". And I do have to give a bit of leeway in that she technically didn't choose "over me"'rather "beside me" as I was little more than a stump as far as I or she was concerned.

 After Laura left there was a void and I filled it with a couple other smart cute girls as my default "crush". A girl named Allison took top spot eventually and by default held that title throughout high school, as I really was dead inside by then. By sheer coincidence Ally's boyfriend in high school became a friend of mine. He didn't know I knew her; and he'd tell me all about his continually unsuccessful attempts to have sex with her. All he ever got by the end of sophmore year was making out and some breast play. Kind of a hallmark of what a dipshit I was (probably still am) when Ally asked me to sign her yearbook in 8th grade I wrote (this was 15 years ago, and I still remember) "I don't know you, do I?" Two years later when her boyfriend asked me the same thing, on the spot I wrote him a short story about Vikings and Viagra.  

 It wasn't until college that I began to feel some self confidence. First of all I managed to graduate high school, a daunting task considering my fucked up family life that I'll have to get into to tie all this crazy shit together. Secondly I had my own car I paid for from a job I'd been working at since I was 13. Third I was a college student, free to succeed or fail at my choosing. Finally I was pretty good looking, having been on a swim team and then getting on a good diet. I was literally self made from head to toe. Yet all that gave me just about enough confidence to only talk to a few people in the quad, and rail about politics and philosophy which I was increasingly interested in. 

 Back to this girl I liked asking me to lunch. I said ok and we start walking to her car. On the way it comes up that I had just turned 19. She proceeded to punch me in the arm 19 times. This was a ritual I was unfamiliar with, but it was also the most a girl had touched me in my life (except holding hands, which is more like one long touch).

The One Date In My Life

 We go to Chilis. I order a burger, but I was too self conscious of looking gross eating it so I let it sit there and I talked instead. But let me back this up, make it more real, she ordered the burger, I was too self conscious to even read the menu, I looked at it, but I couldn't read it. I just ordered what she did. I have good table manners, or more precisely I am capable of fine etiquitte. My French Canadian grandmother and my hyper-intelligent social butterfly mother both embedded me with the necessities of good table manners and how to not gross out a dinner date. But burgers, American to their messy core, are like a middle finger to good manners. The only proper way to handle a burger is to not. No food in hand, no shoving all my food at my mouth at once, no letting dripping ingredients spill about, no having to put down what I couldn't finish, no food on my face, and oh lord no crunchy squishy chewing sounds of a half dozen ingredients at once.

 She mercifully went to the restroom and I quickly ate most of the burger in a matter of a minute. Of course when she returned she pointed this out, and I was even more embarassed than I could have imagined. Things went only downhill from here. She insightfully pointed out that I never asked her for her name. And like a lamb to the slaughter I told her why I already knew it. Then for the love of God I tried to steer the discussion away from pointing out all the stupid shit I was doing, and proceeded to get into a tirade about gun control.  

 She never talked to me again.

While there have been times in my life that I have gone places and done things with women with which I had romantic interest/sex with/one night stand/deep feelings of love/etc. There were never 'dates' proper, that is that much lauded cultural practice of courting. I hardly think post coital meals, or snacks between girls I just met, or elaborate evenings with women I loved who entirely had no idea I was doing my absolute best to show affection could possibly count as "dates". Dates are something definable, they are in pursuit of getting to know someone, often someone practically or completely a stranger, where each can examine the other. Well borne acquaintances, and cheap meetings with lustful and brief interludes just can't fit the bill.