Open the door for you Mystery Date...

I hate first dates.
So much so, that I often try to avoid them at all costs... which is probably why i'm single most of the time. It's not so bad when it's "Hey, me and my buddies are going to do this, and I'd really love if you joined us !"

casual. cool. calm. collected.

But when you make a huge effort to have dinner, or have serious plans when you're not really that sure about each other (you know when you know... i know you do, you know you do. stop lying to yourself), that's just bizarre and terrifying.

I never really started dating until freshman year of college. This being the case, because when I was in high school, the only men that paid attention to me were:
A: married
B: 35
C: uh... Radio DJs

Uh.. unethical, immoral, illegal, and groooooosss. you get the jist.

When I was 19, I remember driving back to Flagstaff, Arizona my sophomore year of college. I had been pursued by this guy (#1) for three months straight that I had met shortly before I left in May to go home for the summer. In fact, he wanted to see me so much when i arrived in AZ that he pretty much demanded that he take me to Olive Garden for dinner ...eh.. yeah... not three hours after I had pulled into my apartment complex. (by the way... the correct answer here would have been to offer to bring over take out and help me unpack).

I got nervous, panicked... and invted my roomates... OH, and their friend that I had never met before. No biggie. The guy was totally cool with it, and dinner was... akward, but the attention was taken off me because of the added company, which was really my main goal.

Afterward, though, we dropped my roomies back at the apartment, and headed over to his place to watch a movie of mine. Hell, he was so into it, he even went to Walmart and bought a VCR after dinner so that we could participate in some quality alone time on the couch (pshyeah).

As soon as I sat down on his couch, I felt wierd. I felt tired from driving so much and upset because I wasn't sure I had made the right decision about going back to school at NAU. He lit some candles, presumably to "set the mood" (i.e. tacky) and I quickly decided, "Hey... I'm going to go."

Not five seconds after I had walked out the door, he was on the phone with another girl making plans.

Quality.

I should have taken it as a warning sign, but that was to be the beginning of a very interesting relationship... and now a friendship that I'm sure, despite current circumstances, will last both of our lifetimes.

Two years and a lot of strife later...

The beginning of my Senior year (third day of school), I saw this really tall, really adorable boy (#2) across the room of my communication law class. I knew the moment I saw him that he'd be around in my life for a considerable amount of time. Gut feeling. He kept catchin my eye during the entire syllabus read-off, and at the end of class, I purposely walked by him to maybe get his attention, plus i love making people a tad uncomfortable by actually making eye-contact. He very sheepishly said, "hey" and I walked out to my car smiling.

To my pleasant suprise, he was in my class again the following night. I decided I could pull the usual fraidy cat routine or do something about it. So I walked up and sat down in the chair right next to him. I told him I needed his number to borrow a book or something (all lies), not knowing we'd end up hanging out that night (under odd circumstances that involved helping out a kid in our class with moving a bike. hahaha -- i still want to know how a bicycle was fit into a two-door civic, clown-mobile style).

A few days later, my friend Suzy drove up from Phoenix and we got appauling drunk off of ONE Bellini at Oregano's. I kept talking about the boy and she kept persuading me to call him. Too scary. So she took my phone, found his name, and dialed. I got a machine and left THE worst message in the history of all messages EVER left on a machine. EVER. About a minute into it, Suzy grabbed the phone and was like, "Oh my god. hang up! HANG UP!"

I was appauled. And mortified. And pretty much screwed... until i looked at my phone and realized i had called someone else with the same name.

Victory! I was given a second chance.

"So uh.. we're going to see a show and uh... do you remember me? I was wondering if you wanted to go?"

He was all about meeting up. Total sweetheart. Boy #1 saw me walk out with him to go home to drink tea and eat cookies, per Suzy's request, and suddenly got all attentive. Boys are so stupid. Why are you only interested when we've lost interest in you (seriously... answer this for me)?

Beside the point...i still totally love that kid. Without question. Quality, grade A, top choice meat.

My point is (i know i skip around a lot)... the whole first date thing sucks. I wish you could just surpass the akward uncomfortableness and fast forward to the comfortable silences and non-chalantness that just makes things easy. Oh.. and the occasional, really cheezy movie moments (gay). I still get pretty butterfly-ish whenever i'm around boy #2, but it's not scary first date butterflies. Just... "it's really good to be around you" ones.

Regardless, i was supposed to have a first date tonite with a guy that I was already apprehensive about. I didn't really feel like going, so I decided not to. After he called me... let me count...SEVEN times today (twice from a different number), he kind of made my mind up for me...