A Series of Awkward Events, part the first

I made it a goal to write a new blog entry at least once a week, and since it’s been a week since my last entry, and since I can’t think of anything interesting to write about, I’ve decided to tell the second of my horrible dating stories, which I will also post to my facebook. Well actually I’ll only tell the first part of the story right now, since it is rather long (and because I’m already running out of dating stories, which is sad, since this is only the second one I’ve written). But I will say one thing about the remainder of these stories: while the first story involved a guy acting like a jerk, the rest of these don’t involve guys being jerks, but rather guys being extremely unbelievably awkward and dense. To the point of it being quite hilarious.

Well this story begins almost a year after the first story. I remember that it began in January or February because it involved a holiday weekend that happened sometime in there. I had moved to a new apartment in a new church congregation the preceding April or May. One of my roommates, Kim, seemed to have this mystical, magical power over the opposite sex--pretty much every guy who met her wanted to date her. (You know it’s true, Kim, but it’s all good. You finally found Mr. Right, which is more than I can say for myself.) So every guy in our apartment complex/church congregation who was not already dating someone had a huge crush on Kim (and I think a few of the guys who were dating someone had a crush on her as well).

You may wonder exactly what this had to do with me. It will make sense in a minute. But let’s get back to specifics. In December my aunt and uncle sent me a gift card to Outback Steakhouse. So I got this gift card and agonized over it. I knew only a complete loser would go and use a whole $25 Outback Steakhouse gift card by herself. And I knew that the only proper thing to do was to use it to go on a date, which was agreeable to me since I was the only twenty-year-old I knew who had never been on a date before (unless you choose to count The Thing That Was Not a Date, which I don’t). Unfortunately, I also knew that I could never work up the guts to ask any guy out on a date. Twenty years of rejection was hard to overcome. In fact, I still haven’t overcome it. But that’s neither here nor there.

So I was agonizing over this because I knew that I had to use the gift card to go out on a date but I just couldn’t ask anyone. And this is where Kim came into the story. Well let me first say that there were these two extremely weird, geeky brothers living in our apartment complex (who will hereafter be known as Kevin and Luke), and one of them (Kevin) had a huge crush on Kim and asked her out. She didn’t really want to go out with him because he was really weird and geeky, but he was a nice enough guy, and she didn’t want to be mean and hurt his feelings, so she kept putting off giving him an answer. She figured she should at least give him a chance and go out with him once and then let him down gently after that. She was telling me about this, and I got this brilliant idea. Why didn’t we go out on a double date, with me using my gift card? Then I could finally be able to say I’d gone out on a date, I’d feel the gift card’s purpose had been appropriately utilized, and Kim would not be stuck alone on a really awkward date. Kim liked the idea, but we needed someone for me to go with. We thought the most logical person was Kevin’s brother Luke. I wasn’t interested in him or anything, but we figured it could just be a casual, fun date.

Kim was acquainted with the two brothers better than I was, since they’d all been living there for awhile longer than I had. So she approached them with this idea for a double date, and they agreed to it. Kim told me that they’d agreed to it, but that Luke wanted to ask me to go with them himself. And that was just fine with me. So we were trying to figure out a date that would work for the four of us, which was proving to be rather difficult. I admit that it was all my fault. Let me explain. At this point I was known as kind of a workaholic. I was a crew supervisor at Cougar Express in the Cougareat on campus, and I worked every evening Monday through Friday closing the place up. I pretty much lived there. At the time I was really sick and missing a lot of class and getting terribly behind with my homework but forcing myself to still go to work everyday so I could still pay my rent, being unaware that I actually had Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. Being a workaholic and having CFIDS don’t really mesh, which is how I ended up on academic probation and being one more failing grade away from being kicked out of the university. After I figured out what was wrong with me and being forced to accept my limitations I was able to bring my grades up just enough to graduate after awhile, which thing I accomplished by dropping from being a full-time student to taking just two classes per semester (which was the minimum required to keep my job on campus).

But that’s all not really relevant to the story. Suffice it to say, at this point in time I was very sick and working all the time, and when I wasn’t working I was usually sleeping or trying to get some of my past-due homework completed. So you’d think this wouldn’t really be that much of a problem; we could just pick a date and I could ask for that day off, right? Well, it just didn’t work that way at my job. I’ll explain how it did work. There was a wall where all the stores had their own schedule board, who was working what shifts. It was posted I think three weeks in advance. If you wanted a certain day off, you highlighted your name on the schedule. Then if someone else was willing to work that shift for you, they’d write their name under yours, and then the shift was officially their responsibility. Now if it came down to like the week of the day you wanted off, and no one had signed up for your shift, then you would start calling people and asking them if they would be willing to work for you. If you were unable to find anyone, after going through all these proper channels, if you gave management at least twenty-four hours’ notice, you wouldn’t get in trouble for not showing up. But during the closing shift there were only two of us there, and I knew from many such experiences that it SUCKED when the other person didn’t show up, even if they had gone through the proper channels and weren’t in trouble for it. So I’d decided that I would never do that to any of my co-workers unless I was physically unable to come to work, like I was out of town or something. There were plenty of times I highlighted my name and no one signed up for my shift, and after calling everyone, I sucked it up and went to work anyway and missed out on the good times. It kind of irritated me, since I was ALWAYS signing up for other people’s shifts and working for them, but nobody would ever return the favor. But that doesn’t really matter here. What matters is that the best I could do was if we picked a date I could highlight my name, but most likely no one would work for me, so I’d end up going to work anyway.

But then a solution presented itself: a holiday weekend. On most holidays when there were no classes the Cougareat was closed, or it was only open if they got enough people to volunteer to come in. So there was one day that I was guaranteed not to have to work. So we decided on that day. But then Kim or Kevin (I don’t remember which) had some conflict on that day and couldn’t come. And after all this time Luke still hadn’t asked me or mentioned anything to me. Not that he hadn’t had the opportunity. I saw him all the time outside our complex, and every Sunday in church, but he completely ignored me every time he saw me. I was starting to think everyone had just decided to forget about the whole thing, but then finally one Sunday Luke came up to me after church and was like, “So, are we still on for Monday?” So I said I was. We decided that he and I would go out to Outback on that day, and then sometime later we’d have the double date when it would work for everyone. We finally got it all figured out for our date, although the conversation was painfully awkward.

So the appointed evening arrived. I tried to make myself look nice, and I was really nervous, not because I had any sort of romantic feelings for Luke whatsoever, but because I was FINALLY going out on a date. I was ready early and was nervously hanging out in the apartment, waiting for him to come get me. I am not the kind of girl to keep someone waiting; if I tell someone I will be ready to go out at a certain time, I will be there with my hair and makeup done at that set time. Or if something came up and I would be unable to be ready on time, I would call the guy and tell him that I was running late. That’s just how I roll. But guys apparently don’t really care about things like that, although they frequently complain about it. Well finally he came. He held up an R2-D2 pez dispenser and asked me what I thought of it. Now I happen to love Star Wars, so I replied that it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. He kind of awkwardly said “Well it’s yours then,” and shoved it at me. (I still have it, by the way, not because I particularly want to remember Luke or the date or all the ensuing awkwardness, but because R2-D2 is extremely cool and I am not ashamed to admit that.) So we went to his car and he drove us to Outback. I think he had already made the reservation, so we went in and were seated. He asked if I thought I should use my gift card then or on the double date that we were still planning on going on, and I said I thought it would be better to use it now because I thought it would be weird to say that Kim and Kevin HAD to go to Outback with us when I wasn’t paying for them. And we wouldn’t have to go to Outback twice that way. (Not to say that I wouldn’t enjoy going to Outback twice. I wouldn’t mind it, actually, because they have good food there. But I just wanted to leave more options open.) So we got that all settled, and it was time to order. The waiter or waitress (wait-person? I honestly don’t remember the gender) of course suggested we get the blooming onion appetizer, and Luke said, “Yeah, let’s go for the blooming onion.” I don’t think I’d ever had a blooming onion before (although I’d always thought they looked and sounded absolutely delicious), because every other time I’d ever been to Outback was when Uncle Mitch was visiting (the same uncle who sent me the card), and Uncle Mitch is famous for having an eternal hatred and intolerance for onions. So we could never get a blooming onion when we were with him. So the blooming onion comes, and I was a little disappointed. I kind of think Luke was, too. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but I don’t think it was fresh. It seemed like they must just make up a lot of blooming onions with the anticipation that most parties will get one as an appetizer, and the one we got had been sitting back there for too long. So we kind of picked at the onion until our real food came, and peppered it all with some awkward conversation. I didn’t really know what to say or how to act since this whole date thing was a new experience for me, and half of the things I said were absolutely retarded. As soon as I said them I was mentally kicking myself. Maybe Luke didn’t notice; after all, he was like that pretty much all the time himself.

So our dinner was finally over. We had the remains of the blooming onion put in a doggie bag and we went to pay. I handed them my gift card, and it was actually a few dollars short. Luke was nice enough to pay the difference. (Like I said, the guys in the rest of these stories weren’t jerks like the guy in the first story was.) So then he said he thought we’d go to Fat Cats. In my mind I was thinking, “Yay! Bowling!” Although I suck royally at bowling (even taking a bowling class in college didn’t help my score), I actually really enjoy it. It’s the one sport I like participating in. I’d always thought bowling would be a really fun date, especially with a group of people. It’s about the only activity where you can be absolutely terrible and sucky and still have fun. So on the way there I mentioned something about bowling, and Luke kind of sat there awkwardly and then blurted out, “Oh, I hadn’t planned on going bowling. I thought we’d just play pool.” So I sat there awkwardly said that that would be fun, too, even though I was no good at pool. So we went to Fat Cats and I tried my best at pool. He said he wasn’t that good, either. I don’t think Luke really understood the true depth of my suckiness at pool. Well he did shortly into it, and think he tried to be nice and play a little worse and “let” me get some extra points (which didn’t really help anyway, because I’m pretty much hopeless there). Even with him trying to make me feel good I still lost both games, and was embarrassed at my complete lack of skills.

So after a few games of pool we decided to call it a night. We drove back to the apartment complex, and I was wondering how the date would end. As has been established, I had never done this before, although I’d heard my fair share of discussions of how dates should end. I should say here that Mormon dates usually end on a much tamer note than dates among the general population; most Mormon girls won’t even kiss on the first date, let alone do anything else (keep in mind that there’s no sex until marriage), and I’d heard the general consensus that if you didn’t kiss, you should shake hands or hug or high-five or something like that (except for a few people I knew, who were into the whole NCMO [pronounced nicmo] thing, which stands for non-committal makeout for anyone who is unfamiliar with the term; I personally do not agree with NCMOs). I was pretty sure that Luke was not romantically attracted to me in any way, as I was not to him, so I was positive that even a peck on the cheek was out of the question. I figured a handshake or something like that would be in order, though. So anyways, we pulled into the parking lot, and I tried to give him the blooming onion. He firmly insisted that I take the blooming onion, despite my feeble protests. So I finally relent and pick up the white foam box containing the blooming onion, and we get out of the car. I was wondering how this whole handshake and/or high-five would go down and thinking that the blooming onion in my hands would make things difficult, when Luke just said, “Well, see you,” and he turned and walked away towards his own apartment. So I was standing there in the parking lot alone, all dressed up but with no one to keep me company except a blooming onion. No handshake/high-five/hug or anything. Just me and a blooming onion.

So I walked back to my apartment alone with my pitiful half-eaten blooming onion. I went in and shoved the blooming onion in the fridge. I think a few of my roommates were home and wanted to know how it went. I was pretty tight-lipped out of my own personal embarrassment and awkwardness, and just said vaguely that it was fun and offered everyone some blooming onion. (Which I don’t think anyone took me up on; if I remember correctly at some point the blooming onion finally went to its grave in our garbage can after enjoying a long life in the back of our refrigerator.) So I went into my room, really happy that finally I’d gone out on a date, but also not-so-happy because I’d have to go out with him again. But a bargain’s a bargain, and I was not going to back out on the double date that we’d been planning. So we all set to work trying to figure out a date that would work, even though neither Kim nor I really wanted to do it anymore. But that is the end of part one of this story. And you think that was awkward? Well, the REAL awkwardness with Luke has not even yet BEGUN to occur……