Jami's How Not To Date Guide, Part 1

In this post, I talk about first dates. I mentioned just a few, and again, by suggestion from EDW, who apparently controls me telepathically from her desk in NJ, here are the Five Worst First Dates I Went On: Counting down from . . .

Number 5 - Only Bring One Date, Next Time

Normally, I would steer away from calling two seventh graders going anywhere as a "date" but I am going to include this one as it had what may have been the most egregious error of any first day I've been on.

Imagine the nerdiest guy in your junior high. The one who wore the sports strap thing on his glasses all day everyday, even though you knew he's never chosen to play a sport in his life. The one who even has the dorkiest name you've ever heard. Got it? Hold that picture in your mind.

He walked up to me in front of my homeroom class, in front of twenty-seven other seventh graders and asked me to the dance. Months before, I'd asked a guy to the Sadie Hawkins Dance and he'd not only turned me down, but laughed in my face. So, you know, I was a little sensitive to the courage it takes to ask someone out and the pain of rejection. And dude, in front of all those other kids. He didn't need me to turn him down. I said, "I'll have to ask my parents if I am allowed" planning to turn him down privately later, but they'd still all know. My friend Julie suggested I just go - how bad could it be? I wasn't going to go steady with him, just this one dance. In a fit of goodwill, thinking it might even help his "rep" I'd walked into HIS homeroom the next morning and said I'd be glad to.

We didn't go there together. His parents lived on the other side of the district and his mother wasn't going to "drive all over creation" to pick up his date. Julie, her date, and I met him there. I don't remember what he wore, but I remember thinking, when I first saw him, that it wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Maybe it would be okay. Until he introduced me to the woman behind him. His mother. Whom he called "Mother". Bad sign. I've seen Psycho.

Did she leave then, satisfied that she'd met his first (and possibly last ever) date? Silly you, of course not. Since he was going to the dance, she'd arranged to be a chaperone. Of course, she isn't going to go stand with the other chaperones, she wants to stand and talk with us. Comfortable. Fun. Really. My date went and got us BOTH punch. Julie and her date melted into the throng of Junior High nervous energy leaving the three of us sipping punch and making short awkward attempts at conversation. Then, the first slow song.

"Would you like to dance?" He asked . . . . . . his mother.

Yes. It's true. They went off to the dance floor and waltzed around (no lie). I gawked at them, wondering if this could be a prank. The song ended, the music picked up, and I figured at this point Mother would wander off the dance floor and I could maybe at least dance with the boy a bit. But as I start toward them, they start to Jitterbug. I am still not joking. They looked like they were having a ball, so I found a group of my friends and joined them, trying, as hard as I could, not to look at "my" date - swinging his mom around the dance floor. He did ask me to dance later in the night. I did one slow dance, told him that I'd had a very nice time, but not to ask me out ever again. He didn't.

Number 4 - I Didn't Know We Were On a Date

My senior prom. Not a horrid, awful, embarrassing date, but bad like when you order your favorite meal and it's cooked wrong, but you have to eat it. I didn't have a date, so I'd asked a male friend who was a sophomore. I knew we had fun hanging out, he was in the same group of friends I was in and I figured, no romantic pressure. We have some fun, dance, talk, he puts his arm around me a couple times, but I don't think much of it. Then, we're on the dance floor, slow dancing and he kisses me. Ewwwwww! I push him away. "What are you DOING??" Him: "This." And he does it, again. Me: "Uh, no, I um. No."

So now, you know, it's a little awkward. I excuse myself to the bathroom. I splash some water on my face, which is really red. Redo the make-up. Convince myself that we all do dumb things, so I'll go back out and pretend nothing happened and give him the chance to save face. WRONG! I go back out, sit with him in a booth with some of our friends and he puts his arm around my shoulder and tries to cop a feel. In front of my friends!!! I drag him off to have a private talk where it comes out that if I asked him to prom, clearly I was interested in making out with him. But I'd asked him as a friend, I remind him. Sure, but he assumed I just said that to not seem like a slut. Hmm. No. So now we're stuck together all night (they don't let you out of prom early, even if you're limo is there and you can prove you're not going to drive drunk or otherwise). Fun. Later, just to put the icing on the cake, I find out he'd gotten back together with his girlfriend days before we'd gone to the prom. He'd slept with her the night before. He hadn't mentioned that to me or vice versa. Nice, hunh? Number 3: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Or Does She? This is one I mentioned in the first date post, but here's the whole story. A guy I worked with asked me out several times. He'd been in a long-term relationship, even moved from another city to live with her and she'd dumped him, broken his heart, blah blah blah. I heard all about it at work. The first several times, I'd turned him down. He was nice enough, not bad looking, but not really my type, plus who wants to be the rebound girl? Finally, I gave in. Just a coffee-date though. He planned to pick me up after work one day. He picks me up, and then mentions that he had a mix tape for me, but - uh oh! he forgot it in his apartment. Can we go get it? He just lives a couple blocks from work and it's on the way to where we're going. Sure, I say, why not? You know why not. Because I'm a sucker, but hey, at least he wasn't an axe murderer, right? I've never been that trusting again. It's so unlike me. Of course, 10 people saw me leave with him, it'd be hard for him to say something like "I never saw her". . . . anyway . . . We get to his place and he suggests I come up and he'll find the tape, whatever. As soon as I walk into his apartment I see - fresh flowers on the mantel. Do you know any single straight guys with flowers on the mantel? No. Of course. There are pictures of him with a girl scattered about. On the wall. One of them on the beach together is on the end table. "Is this Alice?" I say (not her real name, which I forget). "Yeah" he puts on his sad face, "I haven't been able to take them down." Hmmm. But he hates her. She destroyed his heart. He's rummaging around for the tape, and can't seem to find where he put it. He offers me a Coke while I wait. I sit on the couch, stupidly waiting while he rummages some more and then sits down next to me. He makes a very awkward move on me and I jump up. I ask where the bathroom is, and when I go in it, there is Girl Stuff everywhere. Two toothbrushes (who leaves her boyfriend without taking her toothbrush?), perfume, curling iron, hair gel, make up, floral scented moisturizer. Decorative soaps, I kid you not. I go back out and say something like "Alice still lives here." He works hard to come up with a few good lies. I demand to be taken home and I swear to you, he suggests a quick roll in the hay - won't it be exciting knowing his girlfriend could walk in and catch us??? No. No, it won't be. Because it's not going to happen. He didn't even get a good-bye handshake. Tune in tomorrow for 2 and possibly 1. Though that is a loooooong story that might need its own post.