Remarkable dates: Date from Hell (pt 1)

[Again, I want to preamble that I have no animosity toward these individuals. Time and distance has diminshed my memory for the details, but essentially nothing went as expected. Courtney might seem to blame, but I’m sure she sees the same about me. ..or, maybe not.]

That spring, both Courtney and I discovered that we were credits short for graduation. She would take summer school, I would have to take classes in the fall. As Courtney and I were sharing our excitement that “someone else” would be here over the summer, we also found that we had a common interest in Manheim Steamroller. They were coming to town that summer. I asked her if she’d like to go with me, she said yes. Mind you, this was a month or more before tickets went on sale.

[chuckling] Okay, realize this was to be a real boy/girl date with a girl I was enamored with. As I said before, I didn’t do too many boy/girl dates, so this was a proving ground for me. This was to be a textbook date, showing once and for all that “yes, I can do dates up right!” And, to prove myself for Courtney…well, God was blessing me richly, wasn’t he. [grins]

Before the tickets went on sale, I discussed with Courtney where she wanted to sit. We agreed to sit close to the stage. I found out her roommate Mitch had been invited to go, too, with other friend(s). I asked if she wanted me to buy her friend’s ticket when I went to buy ours. Just to save her the hassle. No, but thanks.

I buy the tickets. The radio stations, etc, have blocks of the best seats, but there are still decent seats under the canopy. We are committed. Two weeks to go.

The next day, it begins….”My roomates friend/date/whatever backed out on her, so she’s not going. So I can’t go, either. It wouldn’t be fair to her now.” Does she already have her ticket? No. Are you sure you don’t want to go, Courtney? Yes. Okay, well, bummer, I’m sorry we wont be going together….

Okay, I was a little in shock. The obvious didn’t come to me til later. After I thought about the tickets. Still, it was a compromise of my perfect plan.

“Courtney, why doesn’t she just come with us? She can get a festival ticket, and at least she will come and go with us. And maybe there will be a seat near ours still open. Worse to worst, we could go out and sit with her in the grass.” (“Wasting the money for the good seats,” I kept to myself.) Two days later, Mitch couldn’t/didn’t get tickets. But she wanted Courtney to go anyway. The date was back on.

As a young man, one of the regular criticisms I heard about young men dating, is that the men never took charge. They made their date plan and initiate everything. Striving for a balance between responsible planning and autocracy, I offered Courtney an option on the evening…. Early dinner, with time to goof before the long drive to the concert, or later dinner, then straight to the concert. I also asked if she prefered formal-casual, or casual/shorts. Lastly, I offered an option on restaurants: Spagetti Company if we go early, because they don’t take reservations or SomeotherplaceIcantremembernow, because they do take reservations, but somethingelse.

She chose shorts, early meal, and the other restaurant (it was seafood, I think). Good.

Two days before, she called and said she wanted to go formal/casual, and wanted to go later dinner. [this is me rolling my eyes] I reminded her that we would have no time to goof, and she said that was fine, she thought it might be awkward for her roommate. [shrug] Okay. There went my plans to do cold-stone ice cream and go for a walk before the concert.

The day before: one of their friends had a spare ticket. Mitch could go. Is it okay if she goes with us? [rolling eyes again] Yes.

Meanwhile, I began work on my car. It was an 80 T-bird coupe, black with maroon interior. It wasn’t new by any means, but she could still leave rubber on the start, and she had pretty good paint. Unfortunately, I live in my car. So I spent all my free-time the week before vacumming, shampooing the seats, cleaning the glass… The last thing I did was wash and wax it the Saturday morning before the date. Good idea, bad execution. At least I anticipated that I wouldn’t get done, so I started waxing the passenger side and hood first. [chuckling]. I rushed home, cleaned myself up, and rolled up right on time (this is a miracle in itself).

[continued next entry]