Dating Disasters: #LoveWriteChat

Welcome to those who came over from Leslie Hachtel’s blog.

Today we’re discussing date disasters. I could write a book about those, but I’ll limit this post to my first. Thanks to Collette Cameron for the topic.

My dad coached several high school teams when I was younger. He tended to keep me separated from his athletes, especially when I hit adolescence. One summer, however, I needed a sports physical to play soccer at my own high school and his high school had a physician come in to do quick physicals and sign forms. This was long before the days of EKGs for heart murmurs and MRIs for concussions. They took our pulse, blood pressure, slapped us on the ass, and sent us to the field. Never being great with names and faces, I met a lot of his students and remembered none.

A few weeks later, I received a phone call from one of dad’s football players inviting me to the homecoming dance. He’d asked my dad’s permission at practice, but his name drew a blank. I said ‘yes’ anyway, because my dad said he was a nice kid, and I had nothing to do on Friday night.

When he arrived, he was a decent looking kid and, as my dad had said, nice. I would have been fun, except we both were shy and never managed to get deeper than the most simple of sentences during our conversation on the way to the dance.

If the ride was bad, the dance was worse. Maybe it was my complete inability to function in a crush of strangers, or maybe I was just too far outside my comfort zone, but I had a miserable time. I knew no one and everyone kept referring to me as the coach’s daughter.

The date ended as it had begun… awkwardly. No sparks flew and nothing even remotely romantic arose from our date. He dropped me off, and gave me a simple, sweet kiss at the door, more out of obligation than anything else, and then we said our goodbyes.

I figured I’d never see the guy again. Not so. About ten minutes later, he knocked. When I answered, he looked over my shoulder toward the kitchen. I thought he was hungry, but he wasn’t. He asked to see my dad. His car had died, and he couldn’t get it started. He and Dad spent the next hour fixing his car, laughing, and male bonding over the edge of his engine. I think he smiled more with my dad than he did with me.

Never went on another blind date again.
Move on over to Raine Balkera’s blog to read her take on dating disasters.