You know what I really, REALLY hate?
The inevitable no-good, horrible experience of The First Date…
“So it was you all along!”
When I last left y’all, I had fell ass-backwards into what was maybe a date with my cute’n’kind af ,neighbor/church friend, “The Dimpler”. Pretty sweet, right? Well, as they say, “the night is young”, and when they say it they usual mean “don’t worry, you still have plenty of time to screw this up.” Let’s just see how this all pans out. But first…
Now, one who is already up to speed–aka, have already this post and this post–might point out that writing drug-themed-yet-romantic poetry and sending it your crush via FaceBook messages, attributing it to a mystery author that you “personally know”, subsequently spamming her with a random trivia questions (also via a FaceBook message), then “awarding” her a dinner with this made-up mystery author when she gets the question right–you might point out that this may more fall under the purview of “deception and deceit.”
You know what though? I didn’t really care, because practically speaking I was going to get an evening with her all to myself, and I wasn’t about to ask too many questions such as “who tricked who?” or “am I straight up lying to this chica?” or “wait, what if she is expecting some illicit drug use as part of this dinner date?” to kill my vibe. And also, isn’t there is a universal rule, “if the Universe drops a beautiful potential life partner in your lap, just shut up and roll with it” or something like that?
Anyways, after work on that fateful Tuesday evening in August 2007–the one in whence I accidentally discovered Nerd Plutonium–I donned my finest blue jeans and t-shirt and hopped in my sweet ’95 Camry…and drove just around the corner to The Dimpler’s apartment. I then subsequently strolled up to her door and with a surprising sense of calm, knocked on her door…
Speaking of “surprising,” I was somewhat surprised that she was somewhat surprised that I was indeed the Mystery Author. But then again, just the day before I had cleverly added to her uncertainty and confusion by stealthily delivering to her apartment a real book about poetry and physics.
Oh, right, I had totally forgotten about that. You see, I had gone over to her apartment at I time when I was pretty sure her and her roommate weren’t home, and so thought it best to just slip the book into the mail slot in their door.
When the book got slightly jammed in the slot, I knelt down to get it unjammed and to then make sure it made it safely inside. Well, wouldn’t you know it, once the book suddenly popped past whatever it was catching on, I was slightly shocked to see two pairs of very wide eyes staring back at me from across the room.
THEY WERE BOTH HOME AFTER ALL!
Sh*t. And now I’m a certified Peeping Tom. Well, this has backfired spectacularly.
“Just give us a minute!” I could hear one of them shout through the now-shut mail slot flap.
Moments later the door opened and they both greeted me with smirks on their faces.
“What’s up–“
“I DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING I SWEAR!”
“Protest too much, my lady?” quipped her roomie, henceforth to be known as A Hot Piece of Ash (or using her more convenient anagram-acronym hybrid, “the Hapa”).
“I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE HOME!”
The Hapa turned to The Dimpler, “Oh, yeah, he’s definitely protesting too much. What do you think? Should we report this perv to the church elders?”
“Oh, definitely. I’m pretty sure he caught a glimpse of my **censored** without my consent.”
My jaw about dropped to hear those words coming out of her mouth.1Okay, time for a disclaimer. Those words didn’t actually come out of her mouth. She said something more PG like “You might have seen Muffin naked.” Note that she did not use the word “my”.
“You mean our **censored**?” The Hapa corrected her.
At this point I was scrambling to extricate my jaw, which was now buried in 3 feet of their concrete porch.
“Yes, our Muffin likes to lounge about in nothing but fur…”
Now I was just confused.
“Ok, now you’re just messing with my head. Who–or what–is ‘your Muffin’? Like, we know each other from church…right? Or have I slipped into some perverse parallel universe? (Not that I’m complaining, *ahem*)”
“Muffin’s our cat, you big doof. And next time, just knock first. At least give Muffin a chance to put a bra on…”
“Ok, confession time: up until I saw you show up at my door step alone, I was about 50% sure that the Mystery Author was real and wasn’t just your alter-ego.”
We were about halfway through our dinner, and by some miracle things were going pretty smoothly. Funny story: it turned out that the Peeping Tom incident only endeared me to her. Oh, and also it probably helped that I considered the whole evening with her a freebie–the proverbial icing on the cake–a date that I had never expected to even happen. The end result being I was able to continue my “George-Costanza-philosophy-of-doing-the-opposite-of-my-instinct” and, instead of nervously and anxiously saying stupid sh*t trying to impress her, just relax and enjoy the ride.
Even though she was confiding to me that she had been confused by my “gonna-trick-you-into-a-date” strategy, I wisely decided that it was too early in the game to confess to her that I had genuinely thought she was insulting me when she told me High-ku was “good”. Too soon to release the inner cynic into the wild, know what I mean?
Anyways, yada-yada-yada, and, after a failed attempt to hang out with an Indian guy from my lab and a bunch of his friends that we randomly met on the street after dinner, and another failed attempt at finding dessert, we decided to just wind down our surprisingly pleasant-in-spite-of-me-wearing-jeans-in-August evening by wandering around our shared neighborhood and chatting.
“Welp, seeing as how it’s almost 2 in the morning, why don’t I escort you to your door and call it a night?” I suggested like a true, confident, gentleman would.
…
What I had thought was a natural pause in the conversation (finally!), I soon realized that she had something on her mind, but was having trouble finding the right words for.
“Oh…ok. So I see you have something to say?”
If she was about to give me the axe, her intentions were sure hid pretty well behind that huge genuine, single-dimpled smile on her face.
“Yeah…um…well, first I want to say that I have really, really enjoyed this evening. Thanks so much for dinner and great conversation.”
“Sure–it was my pleasure indeed! But clearly you weren’t trying to figure out how to that. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Okay…so, as you know, I just recently broke up with a long-time boyfriend, and well, I just thought I would need to take a break from dating for awhile.”
“Cool…cool…”
“Also, I feel that the Universe2At the time, the exact term she used was “the Jesus”. is steering me towards being a missionary overseas, and well…you’re a physicist.”
“Oh. Okay, well th–“
“…but…this night went differently than I had expected, and now I’m not sure of anything.”
Well, that was a plot twist.
At this point I noted to myself that, historically speaking, now would be the time I would normally argue with her and perhaps convince her that those were hair-brained notions and she should most definitely become my girlfriend (or at least go on a second date with me).
Or, as Seinfeld would say to his arch-nemesis, “Hello, Instinct”:
Obviously, my a-hole Instinct hadn’t exactly served me well in the past–time for a new tack.
“Well, sorry I won’t be able to help you out with that. I mean, c’mon, I’m not exactly unbiased here, and I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t trust any ‘advice’ I could offer you.”
“Huh?!?” Clearly this was not the response she expected.
“Yeah, the best I can suggest is you find some older, wiser woman from church that you trust, and see what advice they might have for rebound-dating a domestic heathen scientist like myself. Oh, and take all the time you need…”
“Oh. Okie-dokie. That sounds like a pretty solid plan…thanks?”
“Sure thing, Kiddo. Now how about I walk you home? It’s not safe for a sweet young thang like yourself to be walking around by yourself at 4 in the morning.”
As we got to her door (where I could have sworn I saw The Hapa peeping out through their mail slot), she paused and subtly leaned in towards me–a move that was promptly met with a side hug from me.
“Yeah…so, I would love to give you a kiss goodnight, but I feel the Universe3Again, a more philosophically flexible euphemism for “the Jesus”. wants me to wait until my wedding day for that very special ‘first kiss’…”
“Well?!? How did those unorthodox methods work out for you!?! First, you welcome her back to town in your way-too-flattering bike tights, then you lean quite hard into illegal substances when looking for inspiration for poems you send her but won’t even claim as your own, after which you completely fabricate another persona to whom you give writing credits, followed up by a trivia contest that she didn’t even consent to participate in, meanwhile you decided engaging in a bit of light voyeurism would be a sure way to seduce her, and of course you had to follow up your “contest”4No, this is not a reference to “The Contest” episode of Seinfeld. by awarding her a trick prize that entrapped her with you for an evening. If that wasn’t bad enough, you go tell her ‘don’t even think about dating me unless you get a clear non-me sign from the Universe’, and–the icing on the cake–refuse to kiss her until she likes it enough she puts a ring on it.”
Let me just respond with: and yadda-yadda-yadda…now every Sunday morning I get to enjoy The Dimpler’s freshly-baked muffins, if you know what I mean…
…
…
…and by that I mean that The Dimpler is now the be-ringed Boss Lady with whom I have a standing weekend, um, “arrangement.”
…
…
…and in this “arrangement,” I get up with the kids on Saturday mornings and make breakfast so The Dimpler/Boss Lady gets to relax for a few sacred hours, and then she returns the favor Sunday mornings. Though, instead of muffins, I typically make pancakes or waffles.
It’s pretty much the sweetest arrangement known to mankind5Wait…what did you think I meant? You ----- pervert.…
The point of the story, Young Nerdlings, is that if you follow the exact opposite of your instincts, along with listening to the Universe for the occasional bit of divine inspiration, one day you, too, could find yourself in a mutually beneficial baked-breakfast-goods-on-the-weekend relationship with a fine lad or lass waaaaaaay out of your league.
Or who knows? Maybe it’s just my instinct that is faulty and you should go with what your gut tells you instead. What do I care? It’s your funeral…that this person will be planning if all goes well and you die before them at a ripe and mature old age.
P.S. The Dimpler, if you’re reading this (LOL): Happy 15th First Date-versary!
P.S.S. Kinda Fun Fact: I found out later that from the outset of our ‘date’ her one and only goal was to preemptively give me the axe. Had I known that I had one shot at changing her mind, I would have most definitely utterly and completely bungled everything. Sometimes that well-known PSA from the childhood of every 80s baby should instead say: “The Less You Know…”
Content created on 14 August 2022 (Sunday)
Footnotes & References:
Happy belated date-versary, babe!!!!