Sometimes it’s just not even up to us. Sometimes the world has a say.
The night before my date my landlady decided to cook a turkey…at ten o’clock at night! At about three o’clock in the morning I was awoken to clanging in the kitchen and the smells of Thanksgiving dinner. Once I realized that I hadn’t slept a full year to next year’s Thanksgiving, I got up padded to the bathroom and tried to go back to sleep.
I woke up just before seven am and blurted out an “Oh sh*t!” My landlady had blown a fuse and her son had been by the night before to fix it, giving her access to her oven again, hence the midnight turkey roast. Doing such, he turned off power and I had to reset my clock. I set my alarm for five in the morning. “But Zia, you woke up at seven.” Yes, yes I did. You see it helps if you set the clock to “PM” when it’s actually “PM” and not “AM.” Lesson learned.
Running late, I shellacked on make-up, got dressed for the day and date, I wasn’t going to have time to come home between the two, and ran out the door. I felt like I might look like a clown with my make-up job, so I spent most of my car ride smudging and wiping off make-up.
Work was work.
Start heading home, hit mild traffic.
Now, my whole master plan was to arrive at the date before he did since I had no clue what he looked like and I didn’t want to walk in and stick my neck out like a giraffe and stare people down. I managed to arrive at the lounge fifteen minutes before the date. Got in, noticed the female servers were a couple of hotties and I was not in their league to complete. Ran to the bathroom to give myself one more clown-check, had to do what I could to compete with the wait staff. Found a seat by the door, back to the wall and scoped out what was there. Couple of ladies to my right, a smug couple to the left, an older guy sitting alone at a table, and a single guy at the bar. I had no fear of him being the older guy; he had a definite, “I’m not waiting on a woman,” look to him. Was a little concerned about the guy at the bar; passed him on my way back from the restroom and his tone of voice and demeanor came off as arrogant. Prayed it wasn’t him when I sent my “arrival” text. Decided to be very clear in text so I wouldn’t have to look around for him – “I’m here. Sitting by door. Red scarf.”
Worked like a charm. He walked in and out of the corner of my eye I saw him turn his head and say, “Zia.” Whew! Dodged that bullet.
He approached the table as I put my phone on silent and before his butt even hit the seat a voice in my head screamed, “No!” I have never, never, made an instantaneous decision like that before. There was nothing wrong with him, tall, dark, probably handsome to someone, but there was just some vibe and I just knew. I prayed the look didn’t come across my face. I like to hear people out and get a sense about them before dropping the gavel. In my distraction I put my cell phone on the table next to me. I always put my phone in my purse for a date. I never plan get-out-of-date calls. I’m a trooper, I stick them all out. But in this situation, I felt it was fine because I didn’t want to stay too long.
We chatted. Not much to chat about though because he wasn’t much of an emailer, so I didn’t know much about him leaving me with no pizzazzy conversation starters. He stuck to the boring generic, “what do you do?” “Where are you from?” questions. Had I not been running late I could have printed off my Pizzazz Questionnaire.
The night was dull, lots of awkward silences as we worked our way through a pot of freakin’ awesome tea. (I know how to find the good in a date even if the company is bad.) After the tea was finished, I planned a trip to the restroom and noticeably put my phone in my jacket pocket. Left my jacket at the table but cued that I was ready to leave. When I returned, we chatted for a few seconds and then I said I had to get going. He didn’t seem surprised and looked like he was ready to go too.
The kudos I have for the two of us was when we walked out and left. There were no false hope comments of, “Hey, I’ll call you later,” or “Let’s do that again sometime.” We just said nice to meet for and good night. We both knew it was not a match and went our separate ways.
New Year's Date Countdown 