First dates: inevitable as death and taxes. Unless, of course, you like living lonely. And don’t come with baloney about you’re perfectly content being single. You’ve made your peace with it, sure, and are comfortable keeping your company. But, don’t tell me you don’t sometimes daydream about being just as comfortable with someone wonderful keeping your company, too. It’s only natural.
What’s not natural is the pain in the butt looking for someone wonderful has proven to be, which is why you no longer knock yourself out trying to meet somebody new. Sooner or later, though, she will materialize, that gal who seriously sparks your interest, catching the hell out of your attention, which necessitates that necessary evil, the dreaded first date.
Regardless how cool, calm and collected you consider yourself to be, what drew you to this lady is the fact that something about her renders you decidedly uncool, uncalm and uncollected. Otherwise, you’d never have taken a second look. At least not a long enough one to go out on a limb and ask her to dinner as anything more than casual, idly curious tire-kicking.
Something about her — she’s pretty, smart, nice shape and the whole nine, but none of that puts a finger on it — simply flips your switch. And, so doing, tosses out the window all the mental and emotional armor experience has built up, leaving you, after all this time, once again pretty much a rookie at romance.
Relax. This is a good thing, that sensation of being vulnerable, of not being in complete control. It means you’re willing to risk your feelings, which is what so much of relationships are about. Meaningful ones, anyway. Enjoy the adrenalin-rush excitement. You jaded recluse, it’ll probably do you good, if only to get your blood going again. All that armor gets heavy to carry around and you can forget how much fun interacting can be with a potential special someone.
Okay, so, you get past that. You’ve asked her out and she — part of you can hardly believe it — accepted. At the restaurant, you help her into her seat, sit down across the table and, gazing into her eyes, hopefully don’t choke, getting so nervous you can’t (yes, it happens to the glibbest of silver-tongue devils) think of a thing to say. You’re that blown away.
Hopefully, you retain presence of mind to come up with your end of the obligatory, opening small-talk. Worst-case scenario though, you choke so hard you’re about to spit the bit. Take a deep breath, grasshopper. There’s an old Chinese proverb (or should be) that goes, “On that first date with a special woman, worry not about impressing her. If she wasn’t already impressed, she wouldn’t be there.” Or to quote that cinematic philosopher, the narrator in Hitch, “It’s no longer your job to make her like you. It’s your job not to mess it up.”
You get to the end of the evening without shooting yourself in the foot, that’ll be plenty. And, odds are, she was just as nervous as you. Women are much better poker players than we are, but they still have stakes on the table. The entire idea was merely to break the ice, get some kind of back and forth going between you and this extraordinary lady.
Look at it this way, you’ve got that first date out of the way.
Dwight Hobbes welcomes reader responses to P.O. Box 50357, Mpls., 55403.
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