The date started off kind of creepy. I'd been talking to this military guy for several weeks, and he seemed to be infatuated with me (so, of course, I was eating that up!!). He lived several hours away, so when a free weekend rolled around for his work, we finally decided to meet. As usual with online dating, I always pick a public place. He suggested Wal-mart.
Yep. Wal-mart.
Strike one.
So I agreed to meet him at the store I hate more than any other store (unless I'm going there to people watch, which is a whole different story!). After weeks of phone conversations, I felt really comfortable meeting him, but I wanted a little reinforcement because I had agreed to get in his car (an online dating "no no") and ride to the restaurant for dinner. He had no idea that my friends were parked nearby watching his every move and following us to dinner.
So I'm standing outside of Wal-mart hoping he looks as cute in person as he did in his pictures, and a big van slowly rolls by. I'm thinking, "Yep, so this is how it's going to end. Online dating and I get kidnapped by some 50-year-old creeper in the Mystery Machine posing as an Army hottie on Match.com."
At the exact moment I decide to pull out my phone to call my friends, arms reach around me from behind and cover my eyes, and I do what any normal woman would do.
"What the ****?" I scream and slap the hands away, my heart nose-diving to the pavement.
He laughs.
Strike two.
Actually, that should have been strikes two and three, but I was just so happy to not be kidnapped and tossed in a van that I let it slide. Plus he had roses, which almost made up for scaring the pee out of me in the Wal-mart parking lot.
Almost.
So we went to dinner. He had no idea that the giggling girls at the booth across from ours were my best friends when he called them spoiled ditzes as they laughed ridiculously loud at who knows what (probably my facial expressions trying to pretend I didn't see their shenanigans out of the corner of my eye).
Other than the constant battle to ignore my friends, the dinner was going well. Great, in fact. He carried on intelligent conversation, asking questions about me and seeming to be genuinely interested in my answers.
Until the food came. Okay, let me explain one thing. I'm bad about interrupting people. I know it's a problem. I honestly try to refrain and wait until they get done with their story, but some people just take too dang long to spit it out when I just need to interject one tiny bit of info that will only take a second. If I don't say it in the moment, then it makes no sense later after the long-winded person finally gets to a stopping point. I'm an interrupter. I admit it. Oh well.
And he was a long-winded talker. This was fine, and we managed to communicate relatively well until he babbled on and on while I stuffed my face nodding along to his story (that made no sense, by the way). Finally, he said something that I just couldn't stop myself from responding to, so I opened my mouth to say TWO WORDS, and I'll be danged if the dumb butt didn't put his hand over my mouth in the middle of the whole restaurant.
"You can't talk when you're chewing," he scolded.
Strike three.
I almost got up from the table right then and there. My friends saw his little hand-over-mouth action, and they nearly fell out of their chairs in laughter while I, on the other hand, didn't know if I should crawl under the table in embarrassment or give him a real piece of mind.
I chose to sit there lady-like and not say another word. He finished his story. I finished my meal.
And my friends faces were sore the next day from laughing.
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