First Dates and Last Dates

Unfortunately, sometimes they are one and the same. Especially if you wear this shirt on the date:


I have romance on the brain this week, possibly because I attended my first Jewish wedding on Sunday and love was definitely in the air. The bride and groom, both friends of mine, are a perfect match and their courtship was effortless. Which just reminded me of how difficult and rare that is, to find someone you click with enough to make it past the first date.

My current boyfriend and I like to play a little hypothetical game where we take turns finishing the sentence, "What would you have done if on our first date I had [insert horrible, bizarre thing here]?" i.e. what would have been a true deal-breaker? We've filled in the blank with everything from "shown up wearing a t-shirt with your face silk-screened on it" to "told you I had a rare nerve disorder that makes me stick out my tongue every 30 seconds." It's a fun game, especially on car trips or waiting in line at amusement parks.

The only time someone actually did something on a date with me that pretty much ended the date then and there was on St. Patrick's Day in 2004. My roommate Allysha set me up with a guy she had met at the bar where she worked and insisted that we would hit it off. This guy, let's call him Jordan, showed up and to Allysha's credit, he was attractive. We started talking and he asked me where I was from. I told him "Missouri."

His face lit up. "Oh!" he said, "Let me show you something. If you're from Missouri, you'll love this."

And then he proudly showed me his cell phone, which had a Confederate flag plastic cover on it.

I laughed nervously. "Um, is that supposed to be ironic?"

He gave me a serious look. "No," he said. "It's not like that."

To this day, I'm not sure what he meant. There are two options: a) he meant "it's not like that" as in, he was racist and truly believes the South shall rise again or b) he didn't know what "ironic" meant.

I didn't stick around to find out. I think I faked a stomachache and got into the nearest taxi. Though later, when I told this story to friends, we all agreed that him not knowing the meaning of "ironic" might have been more of a deal-breaker than him being racist.

Tonight on the T, I saw a couple that appeared to be on a first and, sadly, last date. They were discussing taste in films and when the girl confessed to absolutely loving the most recent Indiana Jones movie, the guy visibly flinched. Poor girl. For her sake, I hope there are plenty of bad-movie-loving fish in the sea.