My first dinner date

Throughout my years in high school, no one asked me out.  There was one guy who I'd had a crush on from the first grade all the way up through the end of high school, and one day senior year when my mom and I were at the mall and I saw a beautiful prom dress, my mom told me that if I asked the guy to prom, she'd get the dress for me, regardless of whether he said yes.  Unfortunately for both me and my wardrobe, I never got up the nerve to ask him and never got the dress (and didn't go to prom).  And that was the closest I came to a date in high school.

The first guy in college ever to ask me out did so via AOL Instant Messenger.  He didn't own a cell phone -- because he thought he was above them and looked down on them -- and so without any call, he showed up 30 minutes late to our first date (and my first date ever) with the excuse that he was doing his laundry -- and hardly any apology.  Beats me why I waited 30 minutes for him.  After he stood me up on our last supposed-to-be-date (yep, I was idiot enough to agree to go out with him again), he IMd me that he didn't make it because he was stuck at a garbage dump... for real....  Yes, current me would have a loooong talking-to with 18-year-old me....

One of that guy's friends also asked me out via IM.  He had never even met me.  I said no.

Another guy in college asked me out via text.  I thought this was a big step up from IMing.  For one thing, it meant the dude didn't live in front of his computer (25-year-old garbage dump dude not only seemed to live in front of his computer but also lived in his dad's basement....  So this had to be an improvement, right?).  He drove a pickup truck, played the guitar, had his own off-campus apartment, and was (I thought) pretty cool.  I said yes... but apparently so did his mom, who accompanied us on our date... to McDonalds... while talking about her son's prescription meds.

So college dating was a bust.

Move on to New York, and every date ask-out was via text or e-mail.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think there's something romantic about doing it in person or on the phone.  I'm a sucker for the guy who thinks a girl is worth risking rejection for rather than the guy who's not willing to face anything more awkward and daunting than a soulless screen showing (or not showing) the distanced reply -- perhaps because, back when I was 17 and trying (but failing) to will up the courage to ask out my 12-years-long school crush, I didn't IM and I didn't text, so my only option would have been to do it in person.  And now 21-year-old me wanted a guy who had the gumption that 17-year-old me had been lacking in that area -- because 21-year-old me realized how important that quality was.

And then I met my now-fiancé a few months after I turned 22.  I was working for him at the time on a show, and he wasn't allowed to date me... so our "dates" were in between performances, catching dinner at a sandwich shop on two-show days or wandering around record stores -- great and fun and cool and no-pressure... but still... there was never actually a planned dinner date.  Our only dinners were while wearing our dingy all-black work clothes, usually in the cramped stage management office.  And in the happy years since, partly because we operate on completely different schedules and usually eat dinner about four hours apart, somehow we never once went on a dress-up dinner date.

And so that is how it has come to pass that up until this week, I had never been to "dinner and a movie," I had never been asked out on a date by anyone actually using their voice, and I had never been able to dress up for a date.

So when my fiancé told me about a movie he wanted to see on a certain day this week, I told him that I happened to be free that night, told him about a restaurant I wanted to go to, told him that I'd never been properly asked out and had never been to dinner and a movie, and told him that he was welcome to put those pieces of information together and do what he wanted with them.

And so he asked me out on a date two days later -- in person!!  Dinner and a movie!  What a pleasant surprise!  I said yes.

So I did all the first-date things I missed out on: I blasted girl power pop music while trying on every dress I own, I picked out my matching jewelry, and I tried on all my nice shoes (the sparkly silver ones won).  And the date itself was like any first date should be -- I ordered a salad and then ate his french fries, told him that I made a mess of the bedroom getting ready so he should probably not look in that room when we got home, responded to him telling me I had a piece of lettuce in my teeth by flashing a wide grin at him, texted back and forth across the table about the too-strong perfume of the woman at the table next to us (who I have to say had a very lovely yellow blouse), and bemoaned the fact that going to a nice restaurant meant that I couldn't shoot a straw wrapper at him..... Oh... Are those not things that are normal behavior for a classy date? Hmm...

So anyway, I think I just went on my first proper date -- showing it's never too late for firsts.  Too bad my mom couldn't take a picture of us on the front porch beforehand.

And going back to the straw wrapper thing... because I really do love shooting straw wrappers... this text today from my dad makes me proud to be known for the important things in life: