2 posts tagged “dating”

Tamzen tagged me the other day to come up with eight random things about myself.  I’ve done a couple of these before, so this weekend I tried to think of some stories/events/traits that I might not have previously discussed.  As I went through them, I realized they clustered into a couple of sub-categories.

Education
1. I am a product of 12 years of Catholic school education (I never went to kindergarten, and no, I don’t know why – my school had it, I just never went.).  During that education, I saw a 3rd grader punch a nun in the stomach, a teacher dangle a 6th grade student by the ankles from a third story boys bathroom window (it was not me), and knew an ~80 year old nun (Sister Narcissus. Really.) that would smite bad children with her rather hefty cane (occasionally, that was me).  I’m sure parents today would sue the pants off the school for the last two – we just thought it was Standard Operating Procedure.

2. In my high school, there was a fairly high preponderance of students drinking (gasp!).  A couple friends and I decided one day that it would be fun to be drunk while at school, so we went over behind a nearby 7-11 and got drunk at ~7:30 a.m.  One poorly-planned aspect of this was that I had a chemistry test 1st period.  In science classes, I was the nerd that always finished first, but not that day – I was the last person to turn my test in and my teacher asked me if I was feeling okay.  I got a 94.

3. When I was in graduate school at North Carolina – I was fairly active in my Church and one year decided that I would teach CCD (religious education).  Because I was a guy, I was given 7th grade students (in the hope that they would “respect” a male teacher more) b/c these classes had been discipline problems in the past.  I never used the textbook (which always peeved my coordinator) but decided to challenge the young adults with discussions about “issues and choices” – drinking, academic cheating, gossiping, violence, consumerism, etc.  I did it for last two years I was there.  I thought it worked.

Entertainment
4. I like gambling.  I always have – cards, casinos, football bets – I’m probably pretty interested.  One of my earliest vacation memories is when I was 6-years old, my family took the Great American Road Trip vacation – New Jersey to California and back by car.  On the return we stopped in Las Vegas and stayed at what was then the brand-new Flamingo.  My mom snuck me in the back of the gambling floor and let me play the slot machines.  I think we got fussed at by security after a while, but it was pretty fun for me!  Maybe that’s where it all started.

5. I like B-movies.  You know, cheesy black-and-white horror movies.  I’m pretty sure that this is derived from often watching them on Saturday afternoons with my mom (this was back in the ~10 channels of broadcast TV days, and there was a horror movie shown on one of the UHF channels every Saturday).  My dad worked six days a week, so my mom would make us a late-lunch and we’d set out trays and eat in the living room and watch them together.  Still a pretty special memory for me.

Poor Dating Behavior
6. One of my less-proud male moments was when I went to our freshman “prom” with a girl that I didn’t really like all that much.  But you see, I had a crush on her friend (who’d suggested to me that I take the girl) and my 15-year-old mind thought that if I took the girl I didn’t like all that much that I might score points with the girl I was interested in.   The dance was fine, but afterwards I must have said something stupid to someone, because word got back to my date about my motivations and I was forced to endure the public in-the-hall crying and recriminations.

7.  One of my less-proud male moments came when I was in college when I made the dubious decision to “go steady” with two different girls concurrently.  One was a girl that lived in PA – we had gotten close when we were sophomores, but she transferred to a small school near where she lived.  So, I’d drive up to see her, while I also pursued a relationship with another girl in my class (think at-school girlfriend and away-from-school girlfriend).  Once, while PA-girl and I were walking in the mall, I casually called her by the other girl’s name.  I was then forced to endure the public in-the-mall crying and recriminations.

8.  In graduate school, I had an ex-girlfriend that waited for me in my parking lot one night, confronted me when I arrived home, and became so demonstrably angry during the ensuing argument that she punched the side of her car and broke her hand.  She was convinced that I had cheated on her when we were dating – I hadn’t, but that jealous-streak was the main reason she was my ex-girlfriend.  She is fondly referred to now as Broken Hand Girl.

Consider yourself betagged if you liked reading these at all!

What is the worst date you've ever been on?

Really?   Do we have to go there?

Alright, rewind the clock all the way back to the Spring of 1985 – Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was big and I was a sophomore in college.  I lived in a co-ed hall and I was friends with this cute pair of sorority sisters named Risa and Diane.  They had a spring dance in which they were supposed to set up one of their sisters with someone they personally knew but the sister didn’t.  R & D asked me if I wanted to take their friend Doreen to this dance.  Figuring that it would score me some points with Diane (who I was interested in), I said sure.

Now rewind a bit more to the Fall of 1983, when cuts from “Thriller” were still ruling the airwaves.  I was a freshman in an all-guys floor.  Most of us got along pretty well.  Except for one of us.  My randomly-assigned roommate Erik.  Erik was ok, but he was a loner and chose not to partake in the dubious male sub-culture that was emerging on our floor.  At first, we tried to bring Erik in, and after being ignored repeatedly, I guess you could say we sought to teach him the error of his ways… you know, “pennying” him in so that he’d be late for class, “liberating” some of the cookies from his care packages, hiding an occasional textbook and the like.  Not surprisingly, Erik moved out at the end of the semester to a different dorm.  Mission accomplished. (In retrospect, my friends and I were real jerks to him, but we were 18, our moral centers were still somewhat under construction…)

Anyway, forward back to 1985 and the day of the dance.  I send my new roommate (Roomie) to Doreen’s with flowers that have a note from me saying that I’m looking forward to meeting her that night – a nice touch (I thought) with two objectives:  1) convey a sense of excitement for the evening, and 2) have Roomie report back as to whether Doreen was hot.  She was definitely excited and pleased by the flowers, but Doreen was determined to be “o-k”.  Ah well.

Anyway, I pick her up and we go to the dance.  I thought she was nice enough.  A little dull, not very outgoing.  The evening progresses…we dance, we mingle, we chat.  It’s going fine.  During one break, we discussed our freshman year.

Doreen: Where did you live last year?
Steve:  I lived in Dickinson B.
Doreen: Oh, so did my good friend Erik <lastname>.
<Steve being not so swift>
Steve: Ooooh!  Erik was my roommate 1st semester.  How’s he doing?
<Doreen’s smile fades, her brow furrows, face reddens>
Doreen:  YOU!!
Steve: ummmm…
Doreen:  That was YOU?!?! YOU. WERE. HIS. ROOMATE!?!?
Steve:  eerrrrrr…
Doreen: YOU #$&$#!!!

At this point, Doreen throws her drink in my face (the only time that’s happened to me) and storms off leaving me the center of attention of the crowd that’s overheard and seen the escalation.  I quickly slunk away.

So … how’s that for karma?

Oh, and I never got the date with Diane, either.