First Date

Instead of sitting in the parking lot, or milling around the front of the restaurant I killed a few minutes by driving around aimlessly. Apparently my sense of timing is perfect. As I was walking up to the place I saw Tansy getting out of her car. She looked exactly like her pictures…except for the not-smile. Everyone’s always smiling in their pictures. No one does a ‘hey this is what I look like when I’m staring at my date who might be a serial killer’ picture. (Except me. I’ve got that look on facebook but then again, I’m a visionary.) For a moment I had to wonder if it actually was her. But then the hint of a tight-lipped smile peaked around the edges of her cherub cheeks and I sauntered over to introduce myself all proper like. She made a snarky comment about beating me to the restaurant. It was the first of many snarky comments.

I feel awkward walking into a restaurant with a chick that I don’t know. You can’t hold hands, you have to keep an appropriate distance, and you can’t bite them. Because of this everyone knows you’re on a first date…or they think you’re timid.

As we walked in I held open the door for her. She made some kind of comment about that too, probably laced with a light sprinkling of sarcasm. I mostly did it so I could check out her figure as she walked by. I’m smooth like that. Tansy is short, but not as short as I’d feared. She’s one of those people who seem taller just by her personality. She had on a long, low cut dress dappled with rich earth tones. She has lovely dark skin and auburn brown hair to frame a cute face and incredible eyes. She decorates herself to accentuate these traits. Deep, dark warm colors, golden nail polish with some sort of wavy designs, and thick black eyeliner all around to draw you in and hold your gaze. I could get lost in those eyes. I have a thing for dark eyes, especially when the girl does her make up like she could be some sort of fucking super villain. I tried not to stare even though she didn’t seem timid about eye contact. Confidence? Curiosity? Or was she trying to burn me to ashes with those beautiful peepers? Daring me to delve into her mysteries.

And of course…she had breasts. I knew this from her pictures and I’d steeled myself for the encounter. But even still, I was hard pressed not to ogle her. Damn her for wearing a dress that shows off her assets. Damn her to heck. It was a well laid trap and I silently commended my adversary for her cunning. Well played Tansy girl. It was obvious she was offering me a choice. “Lose yourself in my lustrous ebony orbs or feast your eyes upon my spectacular womanhood. You’re move chump.” I felt like I was juggling on a tight rope while singing an unfamiliar Katie Perry song outside of my register.

“Ok, Monte, make small talk and try to be funny without seeming like too much of an ass. Don’t stare into her eyes too long or you’ll start to stutter. Lock gazes for a five count then casually glance away. No, goddamn it! Not the breasts pull up, pull up! Quick, take a sip of water! Where the fuck is our order!”

We ate and talked. Breaking the ice with someone can be awkward, cumbersome, annoying, but she was easy to talk to. She’s always seemed reserved over the messenger, and she still did, but we had a conversation of some sort and it was nice. And yes, she took shots at me all night but it was cute, endearing really. Afterwards we decided to do the yogurt place next door. Neither of us really wanted to eat, but eating is a comfortable, familiar, stress free way to get to know someone….and she flatly refused my offers to go suck face by the lake.

On our way to the yogurt dispensary I grabbed her hand. We’d talked, laughed, I’d eaten some of her salad, so I figured we’d reached that point in our budding relationship. I didn’t feel shy around this girl. She seemed nice and I thought we were hitting it off pretty well so I went for her hand. I didn’t think it was a big deal…until she pulled away. I was confused at first and for a brief moment we had a tug of war over her hand that I eventually lost. She even said “You’re freaking me out with that.” Boom. Headshot. I was kind of stunned. I’d obviously assumed a familiarity that was not there. This pretty little girl did not want to hold my hand? A cascade of conflicting emotions coursed through me in that instant ranging from awkward shame to unbridled amusement. Unfortunately amusement won out and I laughed. Not a mild chuckle either. I let loose with my famed mad scientist, evil super villain laugh that I’d honed over the course of a lifetime and whose sinister nature makes most people extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes I can’t help it. I just did not expect to be shot down like that and some twisted part of me was genuinely tickled to death by the entire thing.

Note to self: Don’t hint that you might be unstable by cackling like a mad man in public on the first date (jackass).

We talked more in the yogurt place. She paid which I thought was sweet. I enjoyed our conversation thoroughly. We stayed and chatted well after the frozen sweets had been consumed. At one point I killed a bug with about 3000 times more force and enthusiasm than was probably called for. To show I was manly and what not. Lots of little things blurred together, but the only thing I really remember was that the seats were extremely comfortable and I really liked this chick who more than likely had already come to the conclusion that I was insane.

At some point she said something about costumes for Halloween and I decided we should go check some out. I really didn’t have much planned for our date besides holding hands and I’d pretty much crashed and burned on that one so I was winging it at this point. Unfortunately the costume store was in the process of gearing up for Halloween so the place was a mess and there wasn’t much to look at. We wandered a bit, put on a few funny glasses, she took pictures of how stupid I looked and seemed thoroughly entertained by that.
After that I suggested we go to the Hobby Lobby next door. She said she loved the Hobby Lobby and she firmly refused to believe that I’d ever actually been inside. I guess I seemed far too manly to ever set foot in such a place. I’m afraid I sang to her about the fact that I did in fact frequent the Hobby Lobby on a regular basis. Yes I sang. I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes I randomly break into song when talking to someone. I’m pretty sure it’s a mental disorder but so far Google has let me down. Or maybe I just felt really comfortable with her and I forgot that I was supposed to hide all the odd quirky stuff till much, much later on. Whatever. I felt like singing dammit.

Hobby Lobby was closed. I rebounded off the locked glass doors face first just to make sure. I wonder how many times I embarrassed her that night? I wonder how much she hated it? We wandered back to our cars and she declared that the date was over. It was still early, but it was probably for the best. She gave me a hug. (No holding hands, but she gets to rub her scent all over me. Yeah, that’s fair.) We parted ways amicably. When I got home I tried to write but the sweet redolence of her pheromones clinging stubbornly to my cloths kept distracting me. I changed shirts. I still couldn’t write so I stuffed the offending garment under the bed. I’m sure that was part of her plan. You have been thwarted Tansy.

We’ve got another date planned but I’m not sure if she really likes me. She plays her cards really close to the chest (but I guess that’s not all that close if you factor in her bust size). We talk briefly over the messenger every night, but it’s never about anything personal. She mostly just says hi and then finds a way to insult me. Maybe she’s just really cautious. Maybe there’s some other guy out there that she’s more interested in and I’m just backup. That must be it. She’s pretty, sassy, intelligent, and she has no obvious disabilities and/or psychological problems. Yeah, the more I think about it, the less I think that second date is going to happen. Ah well, at least I got to hold her ha…oh yeah…never mind.