Hello everyone:
Well, my parents’ blind date had worked like a champ, so I thought “Why not?” Be still my soul. Lightning doesn’t always strike twice in the same place. But sometimes it does. Let me tell you my story.
I was a young 20-something who was unexpectedly unmarried. A good friend (at least, I thought she was a good friend) told me about a very charming young man who she thought I would like. She kept trying to sell me on the idea of going out with the young fellow. After a month of almost daily discussion, I agreed to have dinner with him.
Oh, my goodness. He showed up at my door that evening and I thought he was the newspaper boy. That was not a good sign. He was easily five inches shorter than I was and appeared to be about 13 years old. Okay, this was challenging, but my friend had told me so many times how nice he was that I grabbed my purse and out the door we went.
Conversation was not his gift. Neither was driving. The good news was that the restaurant wasn’t far away. We ate dinner in almost complete silence, after I tried repeatedly to engage him in conversation. I finally settled on chatting with our server. She was nice but she didn’t like the guy either. When we got back to my place, I stuck out my hand to bid him farewell (forever!) when he made his move. His kiss almost damaged my dental work. When I talked to my ‘friend’ the next Monday morning, she admitted he was a friend of a friend and that she’d never actually met the guy. Seriously?
You would think I had gotten my fill of blind dates, but hope dies slowly with me. The next (and final) blind date was set up by two good friends (I figured there was safety in numbers). The night came and an older guy came knocking on my door. Again, he was substantially shorter than I am (I’m 5’6” so it’s not like I’m an Amazon or something), greatly overweight, had a wandering eye (one eye looked straight ahead while the other one looked around- I couldn’t be sure which eye was looking at me), and he had a speech impediment that made him call me “Theri.” Not exactly my type.
He spent the evening vainly trying to get me to go home with him, where he admitted his only furniture was wall-to-wall beds. Fat chance, dude. Literally.
My advice (take it, it costs nothing, and I certainly didn’t use it) is to only go out on blind dates when there is another couple that you really, really like who will come along. That way, at least you’ll have someone to talk to.
Best,
Dr. Sheri