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……

Baking Adventures

So I've decided lately that I need to learn how to cook better. Specifically I need to learn how to make delectable sweet things. Because other than a mean Chocolate Zucchini Cake that I can make from scratch (which is AMAZINGLY good, if I do say so myself), I can't really bake AT ALL. So I bought this recipe book of supposedly easy recipes to make from boxed cake mixes. So after I bought it I looked through it and decided on these beautiful little Luscious Lime Angel Food Cake Rolls. They looked so wonderful, so delectable, and the recipe seemed relatively simple. Well, needless to say, when I was done, what I had created did NOT look like the picture in the book. And, while the taste was not bad, it was definitely not worth all that work. It was rather disappointing. I have to admit, when I feel creative and decide to create something, if it does not meet the expectations I had of it beforehand or does not look like what I was envisioning in my head before I started, I get really frustrated and decide never to commit such a travesty again. Such was the case with the Luscious Lime Angel Food Cake Rolls. Needless to say, I did not take pictures, and I will not be making them ever again.

Well several weeks have gone by, and I decided it was time to get out the book and try again (with a different recipe, of course). I looked through the recipes and decided on the Double Chocolate Chip Snack Cake. Now the nice thing about this recipe was that there was no picture--thus no visible pinnacle of perfection to compare my meager attempts with. So I got started, this time with the assistance of my buddy Tristan, who is one year old. He poured in the ingredients, he held the mixer while I mixed, and he helped lick everything afterwards.

Well I finally get the cake in the oven. It consisted of a chocolate batter base, which was topped with a layer of chocolate chips, which was topped with a layer of a crumbly chocolate chip/brown sugar/butter mixture, which after baking would be topped with a drizzling of white chocolate. And I have to say, after I had finished drizzling, it actually looked pretty good. And then we ate some. And miracle of miracles, it actually tasted pretty good! So for once, my baking efforts were a success. So this time my efforts were pictorially documented, and I plan on repeating them. But I have to let the chocolate high wear down first.....

The Thing That Was Not a Date

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing down these events for some time now, but I was reluctant to because, well, they are rather embarrassing for all involved, and they just really solidify the fact that I am a hopeless social reject. But after a recent discussion with some friends, I decided I just have to fully embrace this part of me and be proud that I am climbing the stairway to spinsterhood. Plus, there are a lot of other people out there who feel they are social rejects and that their lives really suck because of this. My hope is that through reading these stories they will realize their lives really aren’t that bad at all.

As a note beforehand, these stories involve boys acting really stupid, so much so that I think they would be really embarrassed by their behavior if they were to read these stories. For this reason, as well as the fact that several of these boys are indeed on facebook, the names of all boys will be changed. To make it easier to know who is supposed to be with who, each boy’s fake name will start with the same letter as the name of the girl he is supposed to be with.

Well this first story (which I refer to as The Thing That Was Not a Date, for reasons which will be revealed later on) occurred during my sophomore year of college. I was nineteen years old and quite despondent because I had not as yet gone on a single date in my life. I’d always heard that if you never dated in high school, it was okay, because once you got to college people stopped being superficial and you’d go on lots of dates. I figured that would be especially true at BYU, which has the largest population of single Mormon people looking to get married. Mormons are known for getting married younger than everyone else and also for having significantly shorter periods of dating/engagement. (My personal theory for why this is is because, A, Mormons believe marriage in the temple is necessary for their salvation, and B, there is absolutely no sex whatsoever allowed before marriage. But that is really all beside the point. I’ll get back to the story.) Anyways, I was nineteen, almost twenty, and had never been on a date. Ever. And I think my roommates felt bad for me. One of my roommates, Biz, was dating this guy who was a student at the University of Utah, whom we will name Bob. I had met Bob on a few occasions, and based on these few brief meetings, he apparently had this friend who he thought would be perfect for me. (Come to find out later that this was all based on the fact that I happened to enjoy one or two movies that this friend of his also enjoyed, which apparently means we were meant for each other.) I was excited by this, but it was all a little too awkward for me, since I had no experience with dating whatsoever, let alone going on a blind date. So Biz came up with this idea that we would have this sort of apartment group date. There were two other roommates who were interested in this, so we had to arrange who would go with whom. Biz would go with Bob, I would go with Bob’s friend, who we’ll call Lenny, and then we just needed to find dates for Megan and Sul-Hea. Sul-Hea knew this guy that she sort of liked, so she asked him. I won’t even bother to give him a fake name because he plays no part in the story whatsoever except to say that he was there. Megan didn’t have any guy in particular that she wanted to ask, so Biz arranged for one of her guy friends, a guy we’ll name Mark, to go along. We had all met Mark briefly a time or two, and he seemed nice enough. So it was supposed to be Biz and Bob, me and Lenny, Sul-Hea and her date, and Megan and Mark.

Well the evening for the big event arrived. I was excited because I thought I was finally moving into becoming a fully-functional adult by dating. I spent more time than I normally would getting ready and trying to make myself look nice because I wanted to make a good impression. Sul-Hea’s date met us at our apartment, I believe, and I think that Mark did too. Then we all walked over to the bowling alley in the Wilkinson Student Center, where we would meet Bob and Lenny, who were driving down from Salt Lake. We got there and waited and waited. They were a bit late, which should have been an indication of how the evening would go. But finally they got there. (I think they had come together, but in separate cars or something weird like that; I don’t really know.) I had never met this Lenny guy and had no idea what he looked like, but when I saw him walking in with Bob, I admit I was a little bit disappointed. He was kind of fat, kind of dumpy, kind of sloppy, and kind of arrogant. Now, I know how terrible and judgmental that sounds. Especially since I am fat myself. But just on a side rant, just because you have that problem, that doesn’t mean you have to let everything else go. I mean, I have that problem, but I still make an effort to at least look and act presentable. This guy didn’t. But I figured, hey, I hate it when people judge me like that, so I won’t judge him. There could be a really sweet, nice guy underneath there. So I went over where they were, where we had established ourselves on one of the bowling lanes. Lenny was told everyone’s names, including mine, but he for some strange reason which I still do not fully understand, Lenny attached himself onto Mark almost immediately. These two straight, Mormon guys had never met before, and each was supposed to be on a date with a girl there, however casual, and yet they took the two chairs together at the head of the lane and immediately became engrossed in a deep conversation. I was a little taken aback. I had never been on a date before and so I didn’t really know how it all should work, but I figured that the guy should at least say hi to you at the beginning of it. But he didn’t. He was told my name, and I said hi to him, but he gave me no response and even turned away from me. But I told myself, maybe he’s just really shy around girls and just doesn’t know how to act. I can certainly understand that. I’m freakishly shy around guys sometimes and I never know how to act (although I know enough to say hello to someone when introduced because that’s basic social protocol regardless of gender or social situation/setting). So I figured I would just try to worm my way into the conversation somehow. So I sat there, not knowing what to do, as Lenny and Mark were embroiled in this conversation. Every once in awhile I would try to act interested in what they were saying, and a few times I tried to make comments or ask Lenny a question to show my interest. Every single time, however, when I would ask him something, he would stop talking to Mark, turn to me with this annoyed look on his face like he couldn’t understand how I could be so rude as to interrupt him when he was talking to Mark, and then say abruptly, “I don’t know.” Then he would turn back to Mark and be like, “So, ANYWAY, Mark….” and act like I had committed some terrible social faux pas. After a few attempts like this I saw that this guy was a jerk and decided I’d try to just have fun, even though my face was beet red with embarrassment and I was close to tears. I joked around with Megan a lot, who was also not having a great time. True, her date wasn’t supposed to be romantic or anything, and he was there more as a favor to Biz, but he still should have at least been being friendly with her, not becoming bosom buddies with Lenny. So I tried to be polite and nice and act like I was having fun bowling, but it was difficult because my roommates were getting annoyed with me because they thought I was ignoring Lenny and not trying hard enough to talk to him. Every time one of them would whisper in my ear with annoyance that I was not trying hard enough, that I just needed to put myself out there more, I would just hiss back “I’m trying!” and try my hardest not to cry. You see, they felt that that was why guys never asked me out, when in reality it’s because guys are superficial and don’t ask out fat girls or even be friends with them most of the time out of fear of what their friends will say to them. (Sounds jaded, I know, but I have nearly a quarter century’s worth of experience on this one, and if you ask any fat girl you know, they will tell you it is true.) Well, anyways, the bowling went on like this, and I was trying to not become visibly angry over how it was playing out.

Well finally we finished bowling, which meant we would move on to phase two of the group date--walking over to the Creamery for some ice cream and more scintillating conversation. As soon as we got out the doors Lenny attached himself to Mark’s side so they could walk together and continue their conversation (if they had linked elbows together I would not have been surprised). I thought this was kind of rude, since Lenny was supposed to be walking to the Creamery with me, not Mark. My roommates kept pushing me and shoving me, trying to get me to walk with Lenny. But every time I would remain firm in my footings, because two things had become very obvious to me: one, that Lenny did not want to walk with me, and two, that there was literally no room on the sidewalk beside Lenny because he and Mark were taking up the entire berth of the sidewalk. So finally I slowed and walked with Megan, and we started our own loud conversation in German about how we were not having a good time and how this evening really sucked. We got to the Creamery and got in line. And needless to say, I paid for my own ice cream, since Lenny got in line way ahead of me, paid for his own, and then went and sat with Mark. So I bought something (even though I was not in the mood and had no appetite to eat it) and we all sat around eating. I tried to look happy and act like I was having a great time, but inside I was fuming.

Afterwards someone had the idea to continue this wonderful evening in our apartment lobby. It would apparently be fun to watch a movie or play a game or something, and when it was revealed that I happened to own Cranium, it was decided that we would all go and play Cranium. We got back to the lobby and I went inside and got the game. I think Sul-Hea’s date decided to head home around this time, or they might have even left after bowling; I don’t remember, but I don’t remember them being there for Cranium because it wouldn’t be that fun for them, considering she was from Korea and spoke hardly any English and he was from Mexico and spoke hardly any English. So anyways, it was decided that we would play with three teams of two. Any normal human being would assume that each of these teams would consist of the couples, but immediately Lenny shouted out “I want to be on Mark’s team!” So Lenny and Mark were on a team together, Megan and I formed a team, and Biz and Bob were a team. Lenny and Mark continued their conversation throughout the game. I don’t even remember if we finished the game or not. I think I’ve tried to block as much of the evening as possible from my memory, but obviously on the whole was unsuccessful. Well at some point, either during the game or afterwards, Mark stood and announced that he had to go. Lenny literally jumped up from the couch and was like, “Hey, you know what, I have my car, I can give you a ride.” So Mark said good-bye to everyone and they left, side-by-side, still embroiled in this deep conversation they were having.

And like that, it was over. I put the game back in the box and went inside our apartment. Megan went in, too, and I think Biz and Bob lingered outside for a few minutes and then he went home. I don’t remember what we all did afterwards. I was pretty disgusted myself and probably just wanted to go veg somewhere. But it was either later that evening, or else like the next day, I went to use Biz’s computer (she had told me I could use it whenever I wanted to, as long as she wasn’t using it or didn’t need to use it). Usually when I would get on I would just minimize whatever applications she had running without looking at them because they were none of my business and do whatever I needed to do. However, this time when I went on and went to minimize the messenger conversation she had been having, my own name popped out of the screen at me. Now, to this day I feel really guilty about this, and Biz, if you read this and decide you don’t want to be my friend anymore, I totally understand. And I swear that this was the only time in my life I have ever done anything like this. But they were talking about me, and I had to know what they said. So I looked. What I saw was basically Mark remarking how he’d probably be in the doghouse for awhile for concocting this horrible evening, and then both of them agreeing that the reason it didn’t work out between Lenny and me was because we were just way too much alike. I was shocked when I saw that. I thought the reason it hadn’t worked out was because Lenny was a jerk and had no social skills whatsoever. (No hello? No good-bye? What’s up with that?) Then I thought, maybe I am a jerk. If they think that he and I are alike, I must be a jerk, too. I don’t want to be a jerk! I was distressed by the possibility that I had ever behaved so horribly to anyone as he had behaved to me. So I went into Megan’s room and closed the door and asked her flat out if this was true, if I was like that to other people, because I didn’t intend to be or want to be. I thought I must be unaware of the problem, and desperately wanted to fix it if I indeed was like that. Megan told me that, no, she didn’t think I was like that, and that her perception was that Lenny had had some preconceived notion of what I would be like in his head, and when he saw me I didn’t physically fit that description, so he decided to ignore me. This made me feel better, at least about myself, anyway.

So after all this, I decided that this really must not have been a date after all. It was supposed to be. I went there with the understanding that it would be. But in order for it to be a date there are some things which are necessary: saying hello, introducing yourself, being at least civil to the person you’re supposed to be there with, and saying good-bye at the end. None of those things occurred. So I am telling myself that there was some miscommunication that occurred somewhere. I went there under the impression that it was a group date, but he went there under the impression that he was just going to be hanging out with some people. Which would sort of explain his rude behavior. But if he didn’t know it was supposed to be a date, it couldn’t really be considered a date, right? In any event, I refer to it as The Thing That Was Not a Date, and I do not include it in my lifetime tally of the total number of dates I have gone on. Yes, I have an official tally. And it is shockingly low. But you’ll have to read several more of these sad, pathetic stories to find out exactly what that number currently is.