... Except It Wasn't Even a Date, So Why Am I Complaining?

Me? Not a big dater. First kiss: with a boy (who may very well be a felon now) I was sporadically “going with” (it was the late ‘80s), outside my house at midday, on a dare, at twelve. First boyfriend: a boy in my church youth group, whom I had to chase for a summer first, at seventeen. There were no dates that I can recall before JBar and I became a couple—we just … became a couple. And there were no dates at all, with anyone, between first kiss and first boyfriend (no other kisses, either, so this is getting depressing. Let’s move on).

I may have mentioned (a time or two or twenty-five) that I was once hopeless over a boy (he’ll never be a man, or even a guy, in my book) who shared my birthday. He was the first person I’d met in my life who carried that dubious honor—it only made me swoon for him more. We were together a lot in the theatre building for classes and shows, and he was two years my junior. And so charming and beautiful and mischievous and (for most of my unrequitedness for him) taken with a silly little Twit Barbie of a girl (she’ll never be a woman, or even a chick, in my book) with whom he had the standard college break-up-make-up drama. We had kissed, once, around Homecoming, but not much else happened all of Fall Term outside of the electricity that sparked between us whenever we were together. Oh, yeah—he called me once over Christmas Break, and sent me a card after I sent him one. Big doin’s.

After Formal Recruitment that year, during one of the longer break-up times w/Twit Barbie, it became clear that his roommate had a thing for one of my roommates. My roommate wasn’t quite sure she was interested in his roommate, but she knew how much I felt for P. and so a double-date was arranged, mostly by the roommates. Hey! Let’s all four go out to dinner at the new Mexican place in Upper M. … on the birthday! Genius! Yay! A double-date! P. and I had been flirting and bickering and deeply conversing and whatevering for months now, and he had always known how much I liked him; I was so excited that he must finally like me back.

I still remember exactly what I was wearing and how nervous I was as K. and I waited for the boys (if anyone else in the world will always be a boy, it’s P.’s roommate) to pick us up. From the moment they pulled into the sorority-house parking lot, we both knew something was … off. J. was being way too nice to me (he was usually only nice to K. and a sarcastic prick to the rest of the universe), and P. was way too chatty and giggly. K. sat up front w/J. and spent a lot of the drive looking around her seat at me with “What the heck is going on here?” glances, while I shot back my best “He’s freaking me out but I think he might hold my hand any second now so I think it’ll be OK” eyebrow raise. (He didn’t, by the way.)

By the time we got to the Mexican restaurant, I had figured it out. P. was drunk. As in six-pack-of-Bud-Light-by-himself-in-the-space-of-thirty-minutes drunk. And at the dinner table he proceeded to turn from the kind of drunk where everything’s fun and funny and happy and "Ooh, isn’t this the best salsa you’ve ever had?" to the kind of drunk where screaming “Hey, garcon! I mean, chico!” and snapping your fingers after the server is not only acceptable but everyone else in the restaurant should make sure to see and hear you do it. The rumor was that this Mexican restaurant served alcohol but didn’t check ID (very important to collegiates who live on a dry campus and the now-obvious reason we went there)—the reality was that the restaurant didn’t yet have its liquor license. Así que ningunas cervezas. Happy birthday???

I had it so bad for this boy that after he yelled at the server a second time and after K. and I went to the bathroom and she could only say, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, are you OK?” while I stared at myself in the mirror, focusing on my flaming cheeks—I don’t know that I’ve ever actually been so mortified, really—and after he almost passed out onto the table before our food even arrived … after all of that, I had it so bad for him that I think I went into mild shock over his actions. I went numb. I don’t remember anything else about that night. I really don’t. Not a single thing. It’s like our food arrived and I was instantly transported into the future.

And then days later, still walking around like a bit of a zombie, I heard that he didn’t know I thought it had actually been a date and that he hadn’t thought it was a date. I continued to like him (a little less unrequitedly) for almost an entire calendar year after that.

Yay for dating! Who else is glad we Wonder Women never, ever, ever have to do it again?