Another First Date, One Million Thoughts (Fiction Short Story)

I truly wonder why I still bother to participate in the ultimate tournament of dating. Unlike other aspects of my life, I haven’t been able to crack the code that would yield a positive outcome. I have been doing this for almost 10 years and this is one area in life where experience doesn’t seem to matter. Folks claim that experience is supposed to give you an edge, a repository of wisdom, a bank of knowledge – all supposed to give you a stronger armor to shield you against the parasites ready to suck on your happiness, confidence, and contentment over cheap drinks. I have yet to reap the fruits of countlessly dating. 

But here I am purchasing a new dress for another first date, debating whether to go with a  smokey eye with red lipstick or soft glam, and visualizing the hair style that will impress this candidate. One part of me is excited at the prospect of meeting someone who might be decent, and another part of me is watching this excited side in disgust and slight contempt. She’s thinking “why are you even putting this much effort when you know there is a high chance it can end in tears, premium tears”. 

I frequently have these internal battles when it comes to dating. My inner child wants to believe that these efforts are not completely in vain, and my exhausted adult self is ready for us to retire from the game and adopt a lovely dog. Thankfully (or unfortunately), I tend to ignore the logical adult completely though I cannot make a strong case for why I continue to participate in these olympic games. I couldn’t compile a portfolio of “wonderful dating experiences” even if my life depended on it. Hence, why these internal battles continue: give up or summon the courage to keep going. 

As childish and cliche as this seems, I imagine the soundtrack of my dating experience to heavily feature That’s the Way It Is by Celine Dion. And because I believe that if “I don’t give up on my faith, then love comes to those who believe it”, I happily purchase this new dress and anxiously summon excitement. As I slightly skip out of the store while allowing the song blast through my earphones, I do see myself floating out of my body and producing the largest eye roll that has probably existed in the spirit realm. I allow myself to indulge in this childish thought that for once maybe this date will actually be pleasant or that this gentleman is as promising as his profile suggests. 

I often wonder what my motivation is for continuing down this route of meeting endless men that I believe to be sub-humans who have a quarter the intelligence of a baboon. My dating cycle goes as follows: meet someone online or in-person, talk for a bit, hope they possess basic interactive skills, make it to the date, be disappointed, find the words to encourage myself, and then get back out into the wild. As I complete the last curl on my hair, I ponder this question again. I find myself risking hair heat damage to impress somebody’s son, when the data shows that my work will be in vain or go unnoticed. 

This doesn’t stop me from beginning my soft glam make-up session. As I move to apply the brown eyeliner, I become suddenly overwhelmed with worrisome thoughts. 

What if he stands me up? He didn’t send a text confirming that we were still on this morning. Out of all the hapless events that have occurred in my dating life, being stood up has been the most demoralizing of them all. You spend many hours engaging in dexterous text messaging and sacrificing sleep that you love to “stay up late” on the phone, just to ensure that you are participating in the act of building something up before a date, and then the fellow decides that canceling the date or announcing his sudden lack of interest is too much work for him. No. Instead, he simply chooses to disappear. My mind suddenly revisits those previous feelings of uncertainty of my worthiness, anger at not being given the decency of a call or mere text, and diminished morale. 

Before I get the chance to plunder into the abyss of these past thoughts, I recall that he indeed confirmed the date the night before. I try to bring myself back to a state of excitement, but I get briefly irritated that my attempt to remain excited is stained by these past mini-traumas. 

I put my Meg the Stallion playlist in rotation to summon some much-needed confidence. As I complete the final step of my glamor session with my setting spray, I begin to wonder if his actual personality matches his texting personality. From the moment we matched, he exhibited excitement at potential meeting me. Unlike other men, he did not display any fears of vocalizing how attractive he found my profile. He didn’t provide one of those elusive compliments that showcases that he finds me attractive, but wants to evade vulnerability by pretending that he didn’t notice my physical attributes. Instead, he took the rare extra step of sending me a voice note to detail what he found attractive about my profile. While I had been demoralized by the several exchanges with other less-than candidates, I was freshly intrigued and willing to engage in a conversation with him. It didn’t take him the usual three days other men took to ask me for my number. Because of his communication through voice notes and text messages, we immediately exchanged numbers and ditched the app.

I pretended that him asking for my number didn’t mean anything, as this had been the case for many other exchanges on the apps. As part of my mental coping mechanism in dating, I decided to turn off messaging notifications for 5 hours so I wouldn’t have to confront the feeling of rejection in case he did not reach out. To my surprise, he had sent me a message ten minutes after asking for my number. I opened my message application ready to observe a message that was never sent or a message that was sent hours later. Alas, I now appeared like the flaky person I thought he’d be. I internally reprimanded myself for trying to play games. I also gave myself compassion because I have had to pick up a few bad habits to tango with these strangers. 

As I decide whether to also launch my new shoes or wear something old, I assure myself that a part of his personality has to match the man he presented himself to be through our messaging over the past week. I hope it does because I can’t help myself – I am attached to his good morning greetings, his interest in my work, and his questions that show his emotional intelligence. I have already gotten attached to the prospect of our compatibility. I already know that if this date ends badly, I will have to go through the painstaking process of self-soothing and self-reassurance. As I select a matching purse for my outfit, I wince at the thought of this being another failed date. I  truly hate the process of preparing for a date. It’s a constant tussle between naively being excited and pessimistically anticipating the worst. My brain feels like a disco with 100 flashing lights – the lights represent excitement, sadness, anxiousness, and hope and they are all flashing at once. 

After taking 30 minutes to calm myself down through breathing exercises, I enter my car and proceed to the date. I contemplated using a ride-sharing service. However, that plan does not work when you are desperately trying to escape a failing date. After you’ve given a sassy and pointed speech about how awful the date has been, you storm out thinking that is the last you will have to see of them. But then you are stuck standing outside together in awkward silence because the car is still 8 minutes away. I now reserve ride sharing services for third dates, when I am sure I will not need an abrupt exit plan. 

I arrive at the location 10 minutes earlier than we planned, as I usually do. I’d love to imagine myself as this nonchalant dater who approaches each date with a c’est la vie attitude, but I fail at even pretending. I am here early because I am excited. I am afraid to admit to myself that I am excited, because it will be easier to pretend I wasn’t in case the date is another disgraceful outing. I take the time to practice some mindful breathing exercises to calm my nerves. Some of my married friends think my pre-date rituals are dramatic. They don’t voice these opinions but the expressions on their faces when I describe these motions scream “this feels like a lot”. Little do they know how dating has evolved since our early 20s. 

I open my eyes after the last inhale/exhale session and see my date making his way to the restaurant entrance. I find myself indulging in how attractive he appears. His stroll to the entrance is captured in slow motion for me to savor later on. He is surprisingly better looking than his profile pictures and appears to have developed a connected beard-mustache arrangement on his face – a lethal and crippling beauty combination. I watch him inform the hostess about the reservation, instead of making my way to meet him. I realize that I have now spent 5 minutes gaping at this man. My admiration of his looks quickly transforms into another anxious thought: what if he is too attractive to want to be in a relationship right now? Another witless thought threatening to rob me of potentially enjoying this date. 

The thought succeeds in planting doubt in my mind, but it doesn’t stop me from finally stepping out of my car and into the date. I walk into the restaurant with so much nervous energy that I secretly worry about losing feelings in my limbs and falling down unexpectedly. Thankfully, I seem to do a great job masking those worries because he stood up and granted me the warmest hug as soon as I approached our table. 

This smile was quite disarming – so disarming that I immediately hosted a fast mental burial for all the discouraging thoughts that held my brain hostage for the past 24 hours. Feeding off his artless eagerness at my arrival, I decide to tap into the part of me that is hopeful about love again and it pays off. The date lasts for 5 hours and for the first time, I find myself on one of those dates where the couple gets haughtily informed that the restaurant is closed. While my date finds the waiter annoying, I am gleeful on the inside. Insanely cheerful even. My day went from fretting about being stood up to enjoying a surreal date where my guard is nowhere to be found. 

On the drive home, I drift into reliving the very long kiss repeatedly. I replay my not-so-subtle delight at the time and location of the next date being scheduled 10 minutes after he releases my lips. Oh, the relief of being rescued from the anxious routine of playing will he ghost me or not? 

I stroll -almost skipping- into my home and laugh at the slight mess I created earlier when trying to put an ensemble together. I pause to take account of the emotional rollercoaster I embarked on in preparation for this date. In the middle of my recollection, I receive a text message from my date: 

“Hey! I hope you made it home safely. I am so excited to have met you in person after all our insightful texts. I am so glad our in-person energy surpassed the great text conversations. I can’t wait to do this again and again.” 

I re-read the message at least 5 more times before returning to my previous thought about my near-manic anxiety before the date and I can’t help but laugh at myself. I laugh, not because I was so anxious at the date, but because it really does take one good date to erase some past memories. It appears taking the risk was well worth the gamble.

Note from Author: This piece is fictional.