As I mentioned a long time ago, I was lucky to average about one date a year through high school and college. The date I had between my sophomore and junior college years was really nothing to write about. But I'm going to try.
The thing about this date is that it was a set up between my parents and this woman that my Dad taught with at Hermosa Elementary. Her granddaughter was in town and she wanted her to go out with me. I really didn't like the idea of being forced by my parents to go out with someone, but they were going to give me money, so I felt like I could live like a gigolo for one night out of my life. I just wasn't going to be taking off my clothes.
Of course, Mom got all worked up about this. After all, I was about to reach the age my Dad was when she married him. With that life time schedule in mind, it would be just another three years before she would become a grandmother. She was telling me all this stuff I had to make sure I did before going out, like taking a shower, washing my hair and putting on clean clothes and socks. (I came home from college one time with really stinky feet and she never forgot about that. I guess that created such a stigma that she could still smell my feet years after that incident.) She was also telling me how to behave on the date, and I was supposed take the girl wherever she wanted to go, including to see "Rambo: First Blood Part 2," if she wanted to see that movie (which I did not and have never seen in its entirety).
I didn't like how Mom set me up with a prom date three years earlier, but that was my own fault. I went into that with an attitude in that it was strictly a date for the sake of not wasting money on a tux rental. I built up a similar attitude that this wasn't going anywhere. I mean, like the prom, I was going to be nice, but I wasn't go to go out of my way to try to impress anyone.
I showed up at the house of the teacher. She let me in a I just had to wait a couple of minutes for my date to finish getting ready. I remember that she was rather pleasant-looking, with long blonde hair, but I do not remember her name.
I drove her around a little bit, up and down the main drag. We then went to Tastee Freez to get something to eat. I recall that we talked a lot our experiences in college and what we were going to do when we graduated. I also told her about all the crazy stuff that happened to me in New York City. We didn't have very many lags in the conversation. It appeared that she was taking the same approach to the date as I was. I think she also didn't like the idea of being put on the spot and getting set up with me.
I remember that when we left Tastee Freez, I turned on the ignition switch in my car. However, there was no music coming out of the radio. I realized I was in Artesia and that the local radio station stopped broadcasting at 10pm, EVEN ON SATURDAY NIGHT! I found another station. I took her back to her grandmother's house and dropped her off. I never saw her again, but I expected that.
A few years later, Mom told me she had gotten married and how she had originally hoped that I would have hit it off with her. Mom had to deal with a lot of disappointments like that over the next 20 years.
Looking back, I realize that it was one of the best dates I'd experienced, but I didn't think that at the time. I do wish I had learned a good lesson from that and figured that the best kinds of dates were those in which there were no expectations. If I had approached all potential girlfriends like that, I probably would have been more successful in the romance department. But I would keep on viewing the women who were willing to go out with me as wife candidates. That really wasn't a good way to go through life.
If I hadn't met the woman I was going to marry before I turned 40, I probably would have started approaching all my dates like that. It's a good thing I got lucky and found someone willing to fall in love with me.
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