The First Date

When I was in high school I wasn’t much of a dater. I talk about being awkward in most situations now, but back then the awkwardness was ratcheted up to a point where I almost couldn’t survive. What better way to showcase my complete ineptness with people than a story about the first date I ever went on?

I’d like to mention that this wasn’t my first girlfriend ever. I wasn’t that big of a loser. I had dated girls in school before, but was never old enough to drive anywhere so “dates” would be restricted to showing up and a school basketball game and sitting next to each other, or the school dance where I’d post up against a wall and get jealous of all the douchey males that would actually dance to fast songs and grind up against my girlfriend. To take a line from my hero, Bill Hicks, “Real men don’t dance. They sit, sweat and curse”.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Somehow when I was 16 I finagled my way into a date with a cute girl without completely falling apart. I don’t even really remember how it happened, but I do recall pacing my bedroom for three hours trying to work up the nerve to make the phone call.

So the day finally arrived, my first out on the town date ever. To say I was nervous is an understatement. I was an extremely shy kid at this point in my life. I hadn’t yet acquired the ability to say “fuck it” and let whatever happens happen. These days if I go on a date I’m not nervous because I figure the worst case scenario is that I hate the girl and just sit back and point out all of her flaws. That way I’m at least entertained, so it’s not a complete waste of my time.

Right off the bat this date was a disaster. I misread the directions and got completely lost. I actually even showed up at the wrong house. I’m lucky nobody was home or I may have just sliced my own throat right in front of them, out of embarrassment. I finally showed up at the right house, an hour late, and things sort of got back on track. By that I mean I said “hi” and opened the car door for her because I’m a goddamn gentleman.

The actual date itself was 95% silence. On the car ride to the restaurant we were going to I tried starting some conversations, but it was completely impossible with this girl. Every question I asked her she’d just give me “yes” and “no” answers. So, in an unintentional asshole move I turned up the radio slightly, which I didn’t realize at the time is basically a “fuck you”. I just couldn’t handle the silence anymore.

At dinner awkward got awkwarder. We said more to the goddamn waiter than we did to each other. I wish I was exaggerating that. It was just us sitting there in silence. The high point of the night was a waitress getting knocked over while she was carrying food to a table. All the dishes shattered on the ground and there was food everywhere. We laughed and laughed, and then dove directly back into the not-so-sweet abyss of complete silence. Then after dinner I figured if we were going to sit in silence anyways, why not do it in a movie theater? At least it’ll give me something to be entertained by while failing on a date.

Then comes the interesting and completely mind fucking part. The end date drop off. At this point I had already decided I wasn’t going to make any kind of end date kiss. I just didn’t see the date going well enough to even attempt such a complicated maneuver. Much to my surprise her body language was telling me that she might be into it. This completely threw me off. I started wondering what was happening. The date clearly didn’t go well and yet she seemed completely into starting something. I completely panicked. I started wondering if I was misreading the situation and how she could be into me at all after the disaster that was the first date. I started wondering if she was actually into the weak, silent type.

Needless to say I remained frozen and completely chickened out. I spent the rest of the night and the next few days mentally punching myself in the face. I guess, deep down I just wanted to regret the entire night. I must have wanted to completely fuck up my first date so I could tell myself that it only gets better from there. Well, mission accomplished.

Technorati Tags: Awkwardness, First Date

Christmas Times

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m pretty indifferent towards the holidays. When I was a kid I loved them and from the time I graduated high school up until this year I despised them. These days, however, I just don’t really care. Sure, it’s nice to see family and if there aren’t to many cousins involved I usually have a good time. What’s holding me back from actually enjoying these holidays? I don’t know, probably my ever increasing desire to make every situation as awkward as possible.

The gift giving situation alone is enough for me to never fully enjoy a holiday like Christmas. I’ve never given or received a gift that didn’t contain some level of awkwardness. Sure, the gifts I get are usually good, but I feel so much pressure to get excited. I always half expect the giver to want me to do a handstand while smiling just to show my appreciation. I’m a man, I don’t get upside-down excited about stuff unless it involves banging some hots or getting a dollar amount that means I’d never have to work again.

Giving gifts is even more stressful to me than receiving gifts. I could have this perfect idea for a gift inside my head for months and the idea remains perfect up until gift giving time. That’s generally when all these doubts come rushing in my braindome. These doubts come from two directions. One doubt is that they already have the item I’m gifting and I’ll be left with one of my least favorite errands of all times, returning an item. The other doubt comes from the fact that they might possibly hate the gift, which I’m sure a lot of people feel.

I realize this makes me sound insane and completely incapable of having fun, but I don’t care. Like I said, I don’t hate Christmas, I could really just go without some aspects of it. I’ll sit around a Christmas table with family all goddamn day, drink myself blind and be completely happy about it as long as gifts aren’t involved.

I know some of you ladies are concerned now with this new revelation. I hear the sound of some crushes on me being broken right now, so let me clear some things up. Don’t get me wrong,  Christmas with a girlfriend is terrible, especially if I have to get together with their stupid family of strangers, but the gift thing with a girlfriend is a little bit easier, so that may offset some of the awfulness. You see, with my parents we don’t get together and talk about things we want, so getting a gift for them is a complete shot in the dark. Girlfriends, on the other hand, you talk about that kind of stupid stuff, plus you’re probably spending more time with them. I could gift the shit out of a girlfriend, so fear not ladies, your crushes can remain intact.

Also, as much as I hate myself for doing this (even though I do it a lot), if you want to spread some of your sickening Christmas cheer with me, feel free. I’ll be honest, I’ve got a shit load of new bills and nonsense coming up and with my web hosting needing to be renewed in a few months I don’t know if I’ll be able to cut it. So, if you like this site and want it to stick around then either make me famous or send me donations. I’d really appreciate it along with all the people who promote me on their own websites and Twitter.

Technorati Tags: bleh, Christmas, presents