Thank Goodness I Like Coffee

For anyone who’s ever had a bad first date, here’s a story from a girl who can’t forget one in particular that she had to endure.

I’m sure everyone has a bad date story and I am unlucky enough to have one that still haunts me to this day. I’ve tried to block out this particular date, but it still creeps up on me at times and I am forced to relive it.

I had recently broken up with my boyfriend and a friend set me up on a blind date. Right there was the mistake. I had trusted her when she said the guy she knew was really great and I would like him. So I agreed to meet him one Saturday at Starbucks. A casual date, no real pressure. I should have known immediately something was weird about this guy when we walked up to each other and he wouldn’t speak. He just stared at me until I spoke first, managing a, “Hi.” He said replied with the single word of, “Hi,” then became silent again. We decided to travel inside Starbucks where he held the door open for me and paid for my drink. I like a southern gentleman, so I thought maybe my first instincts were wrong; maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

I was wrong. He stayed on the quiet side with me doing most of the talking. I talked for close to ten minutes with the usual first date questions: What do you do? Where did you grow up? Then things stopped being weird; instead, things got full-on bizarre.

Before I knew what had happened, the guy finally started to speak, to really tell me things. By the end of our date, I had learned a mountain of personal information about him that really shouldn’t have been talked about until a lot further down the relationship road. He told me he had heart problems, he’d had surgeries for it, that he had four different doctors, plus numerous other facts that I have tried to block out. I am not a hateful person, but what does a cute, single girl have to do to have a nice, normal date?

My heart of course went out to him, (no pun intended), for having health problems, but are illnesses really a good opening line when you meet a girl for the first time? Some information is best kept private until the timing is right.

At this point, I wasn’t sure what would happen next. But, I found out quickly when he decided I needed to know all of the branches of his family tree. I was glad I liked my drink because I had a lot of time to just sit, listen, let my eyes glaze over and drink. He asked for my number and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t have a cell phone because it annoyingly, yet thankfully rang while he was yammering on about his family. So, I handed over my number.

Why was that a mistake? Because he called me every single night for the next four months at eight o’clock on the dot with the same two questions: How are you and how was your day? A girl can only have so many excuses until she eventually has to lie and say she is engaged to someone.

I repeat: what does a cute, single girl have to do to have a successful date?

Posted by Grace