Let's BLOG Good Dates Gone Bad.

Plenty of fish in the sea.  For me there were 10.  All a boy had to do was throw me a line and I was in deep. Hook, line and scrunchie. 

Course I was thirteen.  The better half of the 80s spent in a convent and a plaid uniform skirt.  First day of seventh grade, I took me and my spiral perm up to the second floor of a public school building. A playground for pimply, preteen romantics and a haven for hallway hookups.  Nothing but shoe-sized Don Johnsons  and spray-teased, neon miniature Madonnas.

With three days IN and no way OUT, I was asked out on a real honest-to-goodness date.  And I agreed to that date. On account of a threat.  A threat made when two true blue buddies promised a certain boy in a certain jean jacket that I would consent.  But not until they sat on my desk.  In social studies class.  In front of a room of starey-eyed students.  Until I agreed to go on a date.  This was nothing the nuns had prepared me for.  And neither had Molly Ringwald.

What they didn’t realize was that I was already signed, sealed, and practically delivered to return to that convent.  To solemly swear to write off boys and devote myself to God and all things polyester.  

Yes, it’s true.  This was my first experience of a DATE.  With a boy that hadn’t the courage to ask me himself.  Under the condition of A. humiliation, B. getting my first ever detention and C. making it very difficult to take notes about the Civil War with two pubescent pimps on my desktop. Nevertheless, I consented, which translates to, I circled ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ or ‘maybe.’ 

From there it was a romance like no other young adult novel.  A thousand and one folded notes you’d need MacGyver to dismantle, mini-Brach’s boxes  of chocolate, and a random PG 13 movie every Saturday night. That was until the breakup.  With love lost and nothing but time in between, I had me a series of other dates. 

Let me remind you that I was no expert in Cupid’s quest for eternal love.  All I wanted to do was be left to my own self and my Michael Jackson records.  But those fish in the sea kept biting.  Turns out that sea was more of a water hole.  And the fish left me high and dry with a broken heart and two ounces of self esteem.  I shall share these Good Dates Gone Bad, with no bad intent, other than to practice the method of rating love.  Like playing The Love Connection for points.

10. After my elusive love affair with Mister Jean Jacket, I attended an all boys’ school PROM.  On a blind date.   We actually met for the first time at the limousine.  Me in my turquoise sequin gown and  ten foot bow and he in his matching turquoise tie. You would have thought we had been a couple since preschool but we had only known each other all of ten minutes before the first Electric Slide. This was a Good Date Gone Bad not because it was a blind date, but because just a few short months later,  Blind Date Boy had dumped me for my best friend.  Who didn’t own any floor length turquoise gown, but did own a twelve inch pleated cheerleading skirt.  D-

9. Next up was a date with a friend.  Sat behind me in Algebra II.  It was an early edition of When Harry Met Sally until little Sally there lit up a Chinese chicken teriyaki like it was a blowtorch on the fourth of July.  I must have been nervous and still new at the dating scene. And there I was, presented with not a corsage, but my first pu pu platter.   When I leaned that chicken stick in, that flame met Perdue and fifteen year old Harry never called me again.  I think he even changed seats in Algebra for fear of my impending Firestarter abilities. B

8. My next date was with a younger man.  No license. No car.   That was really no matter when someone looked like a young John Travolta minus the T-bird jacket.  So like Sandy, I was hopefully devoted.  Until he showed up.  In his dad’s car: a red BMW convertible.  Would have been a dream date til I discovered that said BMW had a chaperone.  HIS DAD.  B-

 7. I gave the next boy a try and all my might not to sock him to South Dakota.  He was a friend of Mister Jean Jacket and he did, after all, have his own car.  And he drove me in that car to the most high end restaurant  in town: Dairy Queen. I was enjoying my chocolate malted milkshake until he expressed that I was pretty.  Boy probably thought I’d throw that shake right out the window and blow out all my sixteen candles right then and there.  But A. he had to go and put both feet in his mouth and B. there was no boy worth my chocolate milkshake.  By the next sip, shortly after “you are pretty” and right before “don’t get me wrong” he says, “I mean you ARE pretty, but your friends, the ones on your cheerleading team, are GORGEOUS.”  C-

6. For the next whirl-of-a-wind romance, I went all worldly.  A young girl needs some culture in her life. So I dated a boy from French class.  He was older, funny, and mysterious. But it’s not so funny when he has to play Knight Rider in his 1975 Ford pinto.  That car was like ten years old and still cranked one hundred and one.  Miles per hour that is.  Grand Prix Guy took me down back roads, highways, freeways and to and from Teenage Hell in that pinto.  I don’t even know if we ended up at a destination for our date other than the infirmary.  All I know is I wasn’t having me another ride with the Chauffeur from the Underworld and he dumped me next day.  He had a new date by 6^th period. D- as in thought I might Die a Virgin.

5. By date #5 I experimented with spirituality.  He was a born-again Christian, whatever that meant, with a conscience complex.  One minute he’d be rounding first base in the back seat and by second inning he was signing the cross.  My heart beating fast, my super strength aquanet bangs all awry, he made me feel like a regular Mary Magdelene. Last date with him was a youth group meeting.  Brings me home and announces, “we need to cool this off til we get married.”  This chic, despite her firestarter powers, didn’t need her flame blown out just yet, so we ended it.  And I went back to being less holylike.  O for How Loved Thine Aren’t. 

4. My summer fling. Point Sebago.  It was seven days of summer sun, summer fun, and Beach Blanket Bingo with the summer fling.  Poor kid never had me alone.  Even on the tennis court.  It was a family reunion every time he served.  And you’d think me annihilating him with my racket would be humiliating enough.  Imagine his mother marching down to that court snatching her son up before fifteen love.  He penpaled me for two years til Mom quit buying stamps. B

3. You know that date, that one date you wished you should have, could have, would have? That was this here one.  He was the soccer captain which meant I had hit the Big Time at Ridgemont High.  Too bad for him I wasn’t ‘fast times.’ A senior, a player, and could pass for a Tony Danza weighing in at 67 pounds.  Tony didn’t even BRING me to a DATE.  He brought me HOME.  And everyone was gone except for the Tony Jr., his little brother with his little notepad and #2.  Taking notes on how to score an assist off the field.  Turned out Tony hadn’t realized I majored in defense at the convent.  For the first and only hour of our date, which took place in his bedroom, I succeeded in twelve blocks, two penalties, and bought myself two tickets home.  He promised me a real date next time but then had his assistant captain break up with me on the phone.  Never spoke to Tony again but at Sports Award Night I believe I was named Best Defensive Player.  F

2. As if Tony’s sixty minute date wasn’t disastrous enough, the next Romeo got five minutes.  A friend of a friend’s friend approaches me at my locker.  Right between Astronomy and British Literature.  Asks me for a date.  This Good Date never had a chance to get bad because #1, the one and only, shows up at said locker and tells this kid to ‘Beat It.’  Not only was #1 playing one of my favorite songs he was prepared to retire my fishing pole.   I never saw that friend of a friend’s friend again since he ran away that day and we never did have that date. But perhaps it’s better that way having never really been friends with the friend of that friend.  No grade here.  Just an Inexcused.

1.  The one and only.  It was 1987. And I was single as a dollar bill. Kid had his own car.  Kid had A JOB. Kid had a five o’clock shadow and an Adidas sweatshirt in MANsize Double X.  Met me by a chain-linked fence after the state championship game.  The very game I had to cheer on Captain Ten-Handed Tony and bad dates 1-6 were all in attendance.  Approached me after the game and asked me not just for a date but for the rest of my life. 

I was done sea fishing that day.   I had survived 10 Good Dates Gone Bad and #1 would pick up all the pieces. That kid had me hooked, lined, and forever his.  A+

half-a-mom