My first date was with a fellow I met at college. Yes. Me, twenty. First date. Doesn’t seem right to me either. I was sitting on one of the old couches with questionable stains that I was trying not to think about as I struggled to do my intermediate algebra homework, when this tall skinny guy went into the bathroom which was stationed right in front of my seat. No I did not plan it that way, but as it turned out it was a very nice place to sit as even hot guys have to go to the bathroom and this assured that I would get nice glimpses of them as they made their way to the john. Unfortunately, less than savory men also had to relieve themselves, so it was just as often unattractive men I found myself peeking over my math book at. Such was the case of my encounter with my first date. Not to say that he wasn’t attractive, just not to me. Well, he went his way and did his thing and I continued to ponder over the worth of variables and radicals and all the other math jargon that can lead a college student to mental instability. When he came out of the bathroom, he suddenly turned and sat down next to me on the old couch type thingy, after asking if I could move my stuff so he could sit there. As soon as my school bag hit the ground he was talking. I can’t even recall what he talked about, but to my annoyance I found myself trapped in conversation. Couldn’t he see I was doing my homework? Still, I was polite and as charming as a socially impaired young woman like myself was capable of, and before I knew it he was asking for my number. I used my old standby of what’s your e-mail address, the plan being to conveniently lose it and then never see this fellow again. That’s when to my horror he said he didn’t have e-mail. Stupidly I had no back up plan. I found myself writing out my number to this stranger simply because I couldn’t think of a lie in time without looking obvious. One can hardly say, "wait a moment whilst I think of an excuse that doesn’t sound like an excuse." And so my fellow bid me adieu, folding the paper with an expression very much like triumph, and shoving it in his jeans pocket. I sat there for a while, dumbfounded and giggly, immersed in the knowledge that I was hot. I must have been hot, why else would this averagely cute guy ask for my number? My ego went up like a rocket and I found myself….giddy. Did I like him back? No. But he liked me, and that was one thing that I liked about this complete stranger. I mean, how bad could he be if he liked me? It was all I could do to keep from turning to the strangers all around me and saying, "I just gave a total stranger my number! Someone likes me!! What’s my dad gonna think?!!" Fortunately I had some control over myself, so I ended up grinning like an idiot instead. I’m sure I scared my share of people as I walked down the hallways with an expression that would not have looked unnatural on the Joker. All the rest of that day I thought about my guy. Obviously he was MY guy now. He had my number after all. I thought about what I’d tell my parents. I thought about what I’d tell my sisters. I thought about what I’d tell my grandchildren that I would be having with this man. And the whole time I wasn’t attracted to him. But that was a very minor and unimportant detail at the time. I was a love starved girl and finally I’d found a donut hidden under the kitchen counter. I wasn’t going to starve after all. Who cared that I hated maple bars? I had visions of him turning out to be a wonderful guy who would sweep me off my feet, magically turn out to be the same religion, have the same goals, and secretly be a very young heir to millions of dollars. Our children would be named Elizabeth, Eveline and Ponty. We would have a red porshe (convertible of course) a mansion, and be deliriously happy. My current person I was pining over would see this new man and realize what a fool he’d been. But of course I would be totally over him by then, going to Bermuda on my honeymoon. In these visions, my new guy had strangely changed appearance. His body had changed to resemble that of a young soap opera star. Any young soap opera star. His words more charming, and his face…well lets just say it was a vast improvement. There was nothing mild, or cute about this fellow. Alarmingly handsome fit much better. And so I found myself floating on a cloud the rest of the day, breaking into fits of girlish giggles and blushing constantly. What a dope I was. When I told my father, he was none too pleased, but that didn’t stop me from talking to Zach (that was his name) on the phone that night. Fortunately our awkward conversation was cut short by my father, who pretended to need the phone and then proceeded to lecture me on the dangers of strange young men who would catch me alone, chop me up into little pieces, and disburse me in various dumpsters of the greater Vancouver area. Poor daddy. Didn’t he understand? This guy LIKED me! True I would be careful, even delusional I was no fool. But it was quite obvious to me that my future husband would never try to harm me. I’d be less inclined to marry him if he did. Then the next day I was at school and ran into him again. At first I didn’t recognize him. Who was that odd looking fellow who was staring at me? Then I realized it was him. Boy, I didn’t think it was possible for someone to change so much overnight. This couldn’t have been the muscle blessed Adonis I’d talked to last night for fifteen whole minutes. This was a mildly cute in an unremarkable way, average Joe. And he recognized me. All my illusions of him crashed to the ground, and I realized this was not the man I was going to marry. My fantasies had ended. As I made conversation with him (awkward might I add), I saw that this was not going to be a Romeo and Juliet romance. Still, I kept my hope. After all, one can’t always automatically like someone that way right off. A lot of couples didn’t start off liking each other. Why should we be any different? I was determined to give him a chance. After all, HE LIKED ME. That’s not something that could be said of many men, which automatically made this one special as he seemed to be in a class of his own. And so we talked, and when my friends I’d been waiting for arrived, I made a speedy departure, not wanting them to interact with each other because the possibility of emberrassment from either side was much too strong. And so we fled, leaving him behind in the dust while I drowned my nerves in a box of tator tots. (Those ARE boxes right? Well, you know, those cardboard boat thingies anyway.) So yes, it was indeed an interesting situation. Over the next few weeks I was to run into him several times. He was like a stalker only without the psycho murderous tendencies. Thankfully! Our conversations seemed to go easily enough. I was charming and witty and everything I really shouldn’t have been towards a man I was not attracted to. He responded in kind, only without the charming/witty part, and would often thrust a candy bar at me in a primal neanderthaalish attempt to seduce me with food, as though I needed him to provide me with it and would in my gratitude be his wife and give him strong babies who would inherit their father’s uncanny ability to capture wild snickers bars after beating them from vending machines. I must admit though, it almost worked. If it had been Milky Way instead of Snickers, I might be writing a very different story. Fortunately peanuts have never been my favorite, and so I was able to maintain a clear head and decide to hide in the library until he lost interest. My ingenious plan worked for a while but it was not to last. Eventually my fellow was to find me and demand a date which I was unable to deny for some stupid reason. Probably because I’m wretched at saying no. Except when it comes to drugs of course. Consequently I have never been asked to do drugs by anyone in my life. The one thing I was prepared for! Anyway, another reason I accepted had something to do with the fact that I was twenty and utterly dateless and that was just pathetic. At least this way I could experience ONE of the many rites of passage I should have been attending. Now, before I continue further, I think I ought to explain that I’m not a complete dog, nor am I fat. You might think that’s the only explanation for me being dateless at twenty, but actually it’s a very common ailment. It is the silent illness of young men and women everywhere and there is nothing wrong with us! We’re often very hot looking even, but for some strange reason Mother Nature has decided to stamp "Do Not Ask Out" on our foreheads. Unfortunately for me my fellow seemed to be unable to read. Either that, or he had no respect for mother nature. Either way those aren’t the kinds of people you want to be dating. Reading is a very vital skill these days, and lack of respect for mother nature usually means she runs over you with a tornado or something. Don’t want to hang out with someone bound for a meeting with a tornado! So as you can plainly see we were doomed from the start.
The night before my "big date", two of my friends came over and helped me pick out the proper first date attire. It took us two hours to come up with one of the most casual looking things I’ve ever worn in my life. Ah, the joys of being a woman! The next day we met at the college for two reasons. One, he could have been a psycho and you should never tell psycho’s where you live in my humble opinion, and two, he didn’t drive anyway! I would call him a loser for that, but I don’t drive either so I’ll keep my mouth shut. So I met him at the school and he had an absolutely stunning picnic basket, one of the most beautiful I’ve seen with black curly raffia type things that are supposed to make it pretty but somehow just make a big mess. He had fancy sub sandwiches from Safeways, chips, cupcakes, and what was most impressive, a bottle of sparkling cider. I naturally complimented him on his hunting skills and followed him to the bus stop where we rode downtown and after much searching and walking in circles, finally found a quaint little park with a gazebo which is naturally where he chose to eat, being the typical male attempting to be romantic. It wasn’t long after that we discovered he had neglected to bring anything to open the sparkling cider and so he desperately attempted to open said bottle by jabbing at it with various sharp objects until he got so frustrated he started pounding the neck of it against the gazebo, grunting and mumbling like some kind of sasquatch. Fortunately there was a repairman nearby who had the proper tools and so the bottle was opened without loss of life or limb, though by then it was thoroughly shaken up and promptly vomited it’s contents all over his arms. After lunch (which he ate most of) he proceeded to tell me wild tales of his past in which he seemed to be the most accident prone and frequently hospitalized human being I had ever heard of. One of his tales he had a toothache so bad that he claims to have swallowed "60 ibuprofen" and had to get his stomach pumped. I think it was at this point that I realized our relationship was not going to get past the picnic. First of all, I hate it when people deliberately spout "Ibuprofen", as if it makes them all medical and knowledgable when really they should just say "Advil". Medicine snobs. That’s what they are. But more than that I had the thought that this man must be a total and complete idiot. Or a liar. Both were big downsides in my opinion. If he truly had a toothache that bad he would have to be an utter nimrod to take 60 Advil (I refuse to call it ibuprofen) and expect to be ok, in which case he should have used the money to get his stomach pumped on fixing his ruddy tooth! Plus, what kind of idiot takes that many advil unless he has a death wish? Suicidal tendencies are not attractive by the way, another downside. Overall I decided he was probably just a liar, which is of course one of the most unattractive qualities of all. So here I had an idiotic medicine snob liar with possible suicidal tendencies who was bragging about being stupid enough to take 60 advil at once. Nope. Not my kinda guy at all. Things only got downhill from there. We walked from the park to the waterfront by the river, after crossing many lanes of scary traffic during which he dropped the cupcakes on the highway and then picked them up and put them back! He was later to eat said cupcakes and find me weird when I politely declined. My gosh! Are men really that daft! I bet he was the type to not wash his hands after going to the bathroom either with that kind of attitude. I mean it should be common knowledge that you don’t eat highway cupcakes! Well, we at last got to the riverfront where he walked barefoot and I wisely kept my shoes on as there was gravel and splinters and wood and all manner of nasty things to step on that would likely end with someone in the emergency room and a big nasty saw amputating their severely infected limb while they also got disenfected for the bubonic plague. We were on the shore of the Columbia river after all. Then he started flicking sand at me, which I greatly resented. I threatened to rip his arm off and beat him to death with it, but he somehow didn’t get the hint and wouldn’t stop. Stupid head! I have to say, the quickest way to make me your blood enemy is to throw sand at me. You automatically deserve death in my book, and I’ll do my best to deliver it. Unfortunately the skinny thing was fast, so I didn’t get to become a murderer as I’d hoped. He continued with the sand flinging and then proceeded to wrestle me, which freaked the crap out of me. "Oh great, he’s going to rape and kill me and shove my body in the Columbia!" I thought to myself. After a while I realized he was actually trying to have fun and play, which of course only made me mad. So I twisted his arm behind him and shoved my heel "playfully" into his back. We stopped playing after that, though the fool was still happy as a clam, completely ignorant to the fact that I’d nearly busted him up. It was the most irritating thing ever. I was lucky though that he did most of the talking as I really felt the less communicating with him the better for my part. Usually I prefer equal chances to talk in a relationship, but as I considered this fellow to be on his way out so to speak, I figured I’d let him get his kicks in. I’m very kind that way aren’t I? So I listened to him for hours, chatting away about his ideas and books and his friends (the latter of which I began to wonder if were cute) when at last I declared it was time to return. We took the bus back to the college, at which point he started poking me and grinning as if he was the cutest thing since Curious George. All it did was enflame me unto murderous proportions. Poking is one of my VERY big pet peeves, and as it says in the scriptures of Heidi, "Thou shalt not poke lest though be branded with a thousand flaming swords and pinched between the fingers of a giant until thy head shall fall from they body a thousand feet and land in a pile of steaming poo. Yea verily yea." Ok, so that didn’t happen to him, but he did get several wicked elbow jabs, meant to immobilize and possibly maim him. Then the dumb stick was stupid enough to think I was playing and he proceeded to elbow me back! Hard too. It turned into a very nasty and vicious elbow war, many casualties too, and they all seemed on my side. He was laughing gleefully as if it was the funnest game he had ever participated in while I proceeded to bruise my flesh in an attempt to impale him with my elbow. I literally had bruises by the time I was done. I had to turn my face to the window to hide my tears of defeat, for I had not only lost, but my enemy had fun whilst he beat me to a pulp. Yes, my enemy had truly humiliated me. It was a sad ride home as I realized that this man seemed to have had a wonderful time and had absolutely no hint that it was over already. Poor thing, never saw it coming. As we waited for my parents ever comforting red van to show up, he smiled at me with a goofy expression that I should have forseen as a warning to imminent danger. "I’m going to kiss your hand."He informed me in what I think was supposed to be a gallant voice. I looked at him blankly, trying to figure out what he just said. Surely he couldn’t have meant what it sounded like! And then suddenly, there it was! He grabbed my hand, brought it up to his lips, and kissed it! It felt cold and wet and slimy and it was all I could do not to run inside and wash my hands. He let it go with a half lidded expression that I think was supposed to be suave but really came out as kind of a cross between a wannabe Cassinova and a village idiot. Heavy on the idiot. Yes, it was at that moment that I realized I was the most offended and that I never wanted to look upon his countenance again. Of course that meant mom and dad offered him a ride home and I had to endure another poking session with him in the car. Such is the way of the fates. Needless to say it was only a week or so later before I was clutching my green power ranger of luck and dumping him via phone, mumbling and babbling about how I would prefer it if we didn’t see each other any more while he pretended to be fine with it. Yes, at last the drama was over. The poking, the ibuprofin, the hiding in the library! My elbows could even start to heal! Oh yes, I was free and clear and I could eat Milky Ways instead of Snickers and I could walk the college without fear! FREEDOM!! Life was good! Life was beautiful!… And then I met John.