Chapter 160: I think I can, I think I can: Top 5 Best Dates

Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the positive spin on my dating experiences thus far in my life. But before we go on I must warn you that they aren’t that great, and they aren’t that funny. Most of the pleasure just derives from the fact that good dating experiences have existed in my life. In fact they are so menial I’m debating whether or not to write about them. I know I really enjoyed them, but again, a lot of them are older so I’m fuzzy on details. I just think it’s easier to see why the 5 worst dates stand out, but not so much why the 5 best do. And I may be over looking the best date I’ve ever had, but since almost all of my good dates and bad dates share in common the fact that there is usually only one date, I’ve probably forgotten.
Okay, I’m going to stop delaying and just get on with it, just remember it won’t be as interesting.

#5 Sadie Thinks she Famous

One of my last dates of my college career was the Sadie Hawkins dance where I let my roommate set me up with a guy from her work. He was tall and I believe Russian, so he had that Russian attractiveness about him. He came over before the date and we all watched a movie and then I went to pick him up that night for the date (for those who have not experienced a dance of the Sadie Hawkins persuasion it is when a girl asks a guy, so even though we were set up by my roommate we treated it as though I asked him. We went to the grocery store I worked at (Err, had worked at, I forgot my last year I didn’t work there) and we got Craigo’s pizza and ate in the deli. Then we went to the dance, got our pictures taken and danced like crazy little heathens. Afterwards we went to get some ice-cream. While there my roommate’s date (who I had also just met that day) turned to me and said, “So, what ethnicity are you?” to which my date eagerly turns to me waiting for my answer. Err….I’m white, Caucasian. But it only enhanced my ever growing awareness that maybe people don’t think that about me (starting a couple weeks before when my roommate (who never met these boys so she wasn’t in on it) asked me if I marked the Caucasian box on things and when I said ‘yes’ she asked me ‘why?”). Add that to recently producing not so white babies with several celebrities on makemebabies.com. Anyway, I can’t remember why I had such a good time, I just know that I did, and I would have loved to go out with the guy a second time, but nothing came of it, I graduated and haven’t been to Rexburg since.

#4 I try to keep awake, I try to swim beneath but I can’t stop this narcolepsy


All of my good dates happen post-high school and my second college date was with a Southern Narcoleptic. A group of my friends and I decided to have a group date (why don’t we do those anymore?) and we all invited guys we wanted to go on a date with. So this was my very first time asking a guy out! Nerve racking! I called him up, explained that we were having a group date and asked him if he’d like to be my date (Thanks to John Bytheway, “What I Wish I Knew When I was Single”, for guidelines on the proper way to ask someone out). When he said ‘yes’ I almost threw up in my mouth, how exciting. So we plan the date, we even have a married couple helping us out; because for part of the date we were separated into boys and girls (I don’t know whose idea that was). I feel like we made videos, but that might be another date I went on where I can’t remember enough of the details to even know if it was a good or bad date. I do know that we played a game similar to the Newly Wed game, this is where our married friends came in handy. They split up and the girl asked us questions that we answered, her husband asked the guys questions and then we met back up and tried to answer what our date answered for the questions. It was actually a lot of fun, though I don’t know if it would work now. My date eerily picked what I answered for most of the question (not that he said the same, but that he knew what I said). In my immaturity I thought that meant something, in retrospect it just means I was a typical 19 year old who wasn’t a very deep individual and was apparently predictable and transparent. We started to play another game, and in the mist of it my date sneezed and threw himself on the ground. I originally thought he was being dramatic, since for me, all people have the capability to be as dramatic as I am. We all laughed but then he never got back up! We realized he was asleep. Luckily some of his roommates were there and they were able to explain that this happens all the time, so just let him be. He finally woke up and we had dessert and him and I got to talk and while it was a really fun date…nothing happened afterwards.

#3 When a Stranger Calls

The next date was fun, yet awkward. One evening I got a call from an unfamiliar number on my cell phone. I went against habit and answered it. I had no clue who the person on the other line was, but this guy seemed to know me. But then he started to say that we met on the bus, and being from Richmond I kept thinking of a city bus, which Rexburg doesn’t have any, so I was very confused as to how we met and how he got my number, especially because I never handed out my cell phone number to people. Finally he started to laugh and explained who he was. He was a missionary who had served in my home ward and was now obviously home from the mission and would be coming to Rexburg that weekend and got my number from my mom and asked if I wanted to go out. I said ‘yes’ of course!
He came to pick me up that night from my apartment and we walked out to his car. He said he was even going to be a gentleman and open my door for me, which he did, and once I was inside I leaned over to open his door for him, because I had seen on a movie once where this guy was watching for it, because if the girls does it then it means she likes you. Well, it was really funny in the movie because he threw his hands up in the air and yelled ‘yes!”…the funnier part was this guy did the same thing, so I asked him if he had seen that movie, and it turns out he did, though neither of us saw the whole thing and neither of us knew what movie it was. We went to his sister’s apartment and ate pizza with his sister, brother-in-law, and his mom. Then we went out to try and find something to do. It was winter so there was ice on the ground and across from his sister’s apartment there was the skating rink. He mentioned going skating, which I shot down (though probably should have tried) because I like for my feet to have direct contact with the ground. He told me that they would, just as he slipped on a patch of ice on the ground. He then agreed that maybe we shouldn’t go ice skating. We ended up driving around for a while enjoying the city views from various locations until we were finally able to meet up with one of his friends (this is why we didn’t want to do anything that took up too much time so we could go meet them). His friend and his wife met us at Dairy Queen (wait a second, that place has already made the blog before…pretty popular place in Idaho). All three of them had served their missions in VA, and then I was the native. Rather exciting. Anyway, he drove me home at the end of the night, gave me a hug which felt weird because I was having trouble not calling him Elder, and then the next time I saw him he was engaged.

I thought I was supposed to put a positive spin on this? Sorry, it’s like my childhood, I just can’t seem to do it.

#2 I’m really missing it in so many ways I anticipate us making out

Date number 2. I had a hard time decided between 1 and 2 should be 1 and which should 2. I wanted this to be number 1 but I know that it’s just because it was more recent than the other one. Have I lost you yet? Have you closed the blog because I just won’t get on with the story?

Fine then. For this date I think I asked the guy out, and I say I think because I’m not too sure how it all happened. I was bored at work one day (How unusual, I know) so I e-mailed him and told him I was thinking about making these cookies called “Out”. He’s known about the cookies because I had told him how my FHE brother in college had given me the recipe. Since I had never made the cookies before I just had a lot of fun talking about making ‘out’, so in this e-mail to him I told him that I was going to make ‘out’ this weekend since I had never done it before and I knew he’d want to make ‘out’ sometime. In my e-mail I was just bored and telling him my plans, but he wrote back and said he was in and asked if we wanted to throw in an activity and dinner and make it a date. Uh….Ok. But that left me wonder who just asked who out. I think he wins, but whatever. Even though we made plans for that Friday I wasn’t certain we were actually going to be going out until that night when he called me to tell me he was running late. He finally came and we got in the car and headed to the park to play Frisbee golf. On the way there I think he cut off an older couple who honked their horns and glared angrily at us as they past. Neither of us had seen the couple, so we could only imagine that had intended to take that way and didn’t feel we had left them enough room. I kept joking around that the couple flipped them off. Frisbee golf was fun, though I think I’m athletically inept, and then we went to dinner. I feel pretty certain that the old, angry couple was sitting next to us at the restaurant and it had taken them so long to get there because we had cut them off and forced them to take the long way. The waitress asked us when we were done if we wanted any dessert and we said ‘no’, as she was walking away my date said, “We’re gonna go make out.” He wasn’t lying, but I was still a little embarrassed since no one who could hear would have known we were talking about cookies.

After dinner we went to my house and we made ‘out’. It was so funny though and I wonder if he’s ever made cookies before. I read on the directions to whip or beat the ingredients together and he pulled out a rubber spatula…and he looked so proud of himself. But I started to laugh because the spatula was no match for cookie dough. He had me laughing most of the time we were in the kitchen for various baking blunders. He said he would tell people that I laughed at him while we were making ‘out’. Then we were going to stop balling up the dough and I was going to put the rest away in the fridge for some other time and so I went to wash my hands and then he said we should just finish them then. So I rolled my eyes and told him that I was going to tell people that he made me stop and wash my hands in the middle of making ‘out’. (If anyone would like the recipe for “Out” just let me know.)

#1 Slalom, baby.

First of all, I would like to thank all of the great, good, and average dates for competing for the top 5. While some of you didn’t make the list don’t be offended, you didn’t miss by much, had these five dates never happened, you would be in the second string. For those of you who are currently in my five, don’t let it go to your head, trust me on this one.
For number one I picked the one and only date where I was fully medicated. I played hockey in college, it was intramural and it was floor hockey (as stated earlier I like my feet to have direct contact with the ground). However, our last game of the season I broke my foot. I had already made tentative plans with a friend to go on a double date, but I had not called up my date yet. So after I hobbled up three flights of stairs with the assistance of some of the boys on my hockey team I lay on the couch with my foot propped up and the telephone in hand. I panicked that my foot was broken, but since I had never broken anything I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like. After my roommates reassured me that it wasn’t broken because their incessant poking of said foot would really hurt if it was, I shooed them out of the room and called my potential date for Friday night. I was nervous because he was a good friend, I mean, I liked him as more than a friend, but he didn’t know that. We talked on the phone for a bit, and I finally spit out what was going down that weekend. I explained nothing of my foot to him, afraid that he would use it as an out if he had to. If he wanted to say ‘no’ he was going to have to do without me being injured as an excuse. He said ‘yes’ (just to release the tension, I knew you were wondering if he would or not). The next morning I still couldn’t walk on my foot, so off to the student health center it was, then after discovering that my foot was in fact broken I was sent to a “real doctor” and he set my foot, causing for the first time, actual pain related to a broken foot. I kind of hated that man after that moment. He set me up in some kind of not-a-cast, gave me some crutches, and gave me a prescription for painkillers. I ran into my future date later that afternoon and he noticed the crutches and broken foot. But we were still on for Friday.
He drove of course, and I got to ride in his cop car (no long a cop car, just used to be one). We met up with my friend, waited and waited for the third girl to show up (she did way late in the date, she must have double booked) so I got to watch as my friend went on a date with two guys.
Maybe I should warn you real quick, some people get loopy on pain medication, I however am always loopy so the opposite effect took place. Sometimes I spaced out staring at the wall, sometimes I tear up.
We played skittle poker, which I’m guessing is like actual poker but the chips are skittles instead. Then we went to Taco Bell. I don’t eat much Taco Bell, in fact I think this was my first and last time. But my date insisted on paying for me even though I had asked him. We went back to my friend’s apartment to eat and then watch the classic, Ice Age.
My friend and her date had gotten a little warm so they decided to crack the window open, my date and I were sitting under the window. We were watching the movie and one of us turned to say something to the other and we realized we could see our breath! We were given a blanket and told to such it up since everyone else was warm. At the end of the movie I pretended to cry due to all the tenderness happening in the closing scenes. But then suddenly I really was crying! So I asked for a tissue and that’s when everyone realized I was just kidding anymore. But I quickly threw out that I was on pain medication. I don’t think they really believed it, but they pretended to while I was there. How did this one turn out? We became best friends for the remainder of my college years, but other than that, nothing.

So there you have it, you’ve now read the top 5 worst and the top 5 best. I know they weren’t much but it gave me something to do for a couple of days.