The First Date: David's World
History
I need to preface this story with a brief synposis of a terrible blind date I once had. It was a month before I went on the first date with Rachel. The date was with another couple who were recently married and having another young couple pawing each other on a blind date makes for some really awkward silences. I had to help out my boss at work who was out of town by going to meetings with sales people all day long. I was pretty worn out from starting early and working late and I had to drive directly to the date from work. When I showed up the girl actually brought a friend along to ‘scope me out’ or something to make sure I was alright. The restauraunt had a long wait so they decided to sit at an uncomfortably small bar table near the host’s stand. Her friend left about 2 minutes after I arrived. The food wasn’t great and waiters and customers kept bumping into me from behind (I was sitting in the aisle). The newlywed couple with us did all of the talking, hugging, kissing, petting, whatever. It was bad and I had a miserable time.
Setup
So when the offer for another blind date came up I was pretty cynical. My mom’s friends (Peggy and Ty) knew someone whose daughter was looking to date (she had just broken up with her long time boyfriend). I was at their house having dinner when Rachel’s mom called. I though it was a little strange that her mom would call and the Rachel wouldn’t but I didn’t think much of it. Her mom asked if I’d like to go on a date, I said “sure”, and she gave me Rachel’s cellphone number and said that it was dead so just leave a message. My mom’s friends had a picture of Rachel so that was passed around and I asked some questions about what kind of person she is. She was described by Ty as pretty down-to-earth and nice. That sounded good to me.
I figured I didn’t have anything to lose so I went ahead and left a message on Rachel’s voicemail. It was a bit before she returned my call but when she did I was still pretty cynical about the whole blind-date thing. So I offered to just meet for coffee. I figured that is a nice sort of thing to do with someone who I have no idea I’ll like or not. I figured if I didn’t like her I could just say that I had to go. If I did, the offer to have dinner could be made.
Our phone conversation was moderately interesting even though I wasn’t into it. She talked about how much she hated Starbuck’s Coffee (I think I started in on the Starbuck’s Hate first). So that was a start of something we both have in common. The date was set for my favorite locally owned coffee house.
At this point I’m sure the first impression I gave wasn’t the best. But sometimes I like it that way. One thing I’m really passionate about is learning. I’m always teaching myself something or another. I like to be the ‘beginner’ and start off not knowing anything and learning and getting better at something. In some sense it is the same way when you first meet a person. There is so much depth and history to a person that it is impossible to experience and convey in a short meeting. Only by spending time and learning more about another person can you see the true person. So I don’t think first impressions are important because they don’t really matter that much in a real relationship. Once you get to know a person, and fall in love with them, you’ll just laugh at the first impression. Keep reading.
The Date
I was living with my mom at the time and as I walked out the door my mom said to me, “I’m making soup tonight!” My mom does not cook very often. It is almost a once in a year event for her to cook this soup. It was a chicken and wild rice soup which was pretty good. I guess she felt like making it in case this was another bad date and I came home for dinner. I thought it was a little odd that she was cooking it the one night I’m actually doing something with my life by meeting someone new.
Anyway, I managed to arrive at the coffee shop exactly on time. The hand on my watch hit the 12 right as I stepped through the door. However I didn’t see anybody in the entire place that matched the photo! There was this old guy having some deep political discussion with another old guy, so that wasn’t her. There was someone else sitting on a couch towards the back, but she was obviously in her 50s. Also, there was a girl about my age with dark red hair sitting on the couch in the other room reading a book. The girl in the picture had blonde hair, so that couldn’t be her. Also, who brings a book and reads it on a blind date? So I figured maybe she was running late.
I grabbed a table near the door so I could see anybody else coming in and I sat. I probably sat for about 10 or 15 minutes before the girl over on the couch reading the book got up, walked over to me and said, “Are you Dave?” Indeed I was Dave that day so I replied in an affirmative fashion. Then I said, “You don’t look anything like the picture I saw.” We then talked about the book she was reading and both got coffee.
The coffee shop was closing for the day so we had to relocate. We went across the street to another coffee shop that was still open. Apparently she used to come to this place a lot when she was in high school. So we talked about that, and about how the new ownership of the shop sucked, and a little about how she likes to paint, and a little about the funny (useless) bronze rivets glued to the leather on the chairs there. Overall I think I started to like her. This Rachel person. She was cool.
After we got bored with chatting we decided we probably needed to do something else. She said she wanted to get some candy canes for her class of kids she was teaching. Target was up the street so we went to Target. We walked all around Target and it was fun because we both enjoyed ourselves. It was the first date to a department store I’ve ever had (I thought it was probably a good sign that we could actually have fun in a store).
Then it was time to decided what to do for dinner. I said we could go to a restaurant or my mom actually cooked soup and we could eat that if she wanted. I find out later that this is supposedly a very scary notion for a girl going on a date with a guy. I just saw it as inviting her over to my place (which happened to be my mom’s house) where there was some tasty food (the soup). But of course it became something else altogether. I really don’t understand what the fuss is about, but if you say “soup story” around any one of her family members they crack up laughing. Frankly I’m still baffled.
Moving on, we finally ended up deciding that we should return to the second coffee shop for dinner because they also serve food (they’re attached to a restaurant). She ordered a burger and I didn’t feel very hungry so I ordered a salad that looked like it would taste good. Once the food came though my stomach was doing flips and I had no idea why. I kind of picked at the salad, ate a walnut and maybe a dried cranberry but that was it.
After dinner we returned to our cars. I walked her to her car and asked if she would like to go on a second date (of course I wanted to!). I remembered how much she liked the Children’s Museum (see, I am one of those strange people who actually listens when I have a conversation with someone). She was about to get in her car and sort of stopped as if she was thinking about something. Finally she said that she would like to go and wrote her mom’s home phone number on my left-overs carton.
Aftermath
My stomach was really upset the rest of the night. I wasn’t hungry and felt nauseous. My mom wanted to know all of the details but I didn’t really feel like talking, I just wanted to go to bed. We went on a second date to Don Pablo’s (yeah, we like the fancy places!). After dinner we watched ‘Elf’ at the movie theater and drove around Carmel in my car looking at the houses and I drove kind fast for her (mostly because I was in the rare place in Indianapolis where there are curvy roads).
I couldn’t stop thinking about Rachel and I still can’t. I eventually realized that I was in love, and that I wasn’t actually sick. It was one of those realizations that, when it happens, you say to yourself, “Oh! Yeah of course, I see it now! Man… I’m stupid!” So I was in love with Rachel just about from the moment I met her (in reality it was probably somewhere in Target, but I’m not sure). It took me awhile to realize it, but hindsight makes it crystal clear.
In fact, the first time she asked me how I felt about her (you know, one of those testing-the-waters-of-this-relationship things) I just told her I was in love with her. I knew it and didn’t really see a need to hide that fact. Its like an immutable law of the universe or something. Kind of like, “yeah, I love you, since the moments shortly after I met you, so what do you want to talk about” sort of thing.
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