Adventures in Dating
The end of 2008 was not a high moment in my life. I had just lost my damn job and my tumultous, volatile relationship had just come to a very permanent end.
Before I became involved again, I went on a few go-nowhere dates. This was the most memorable.
The day I turned in my uniform, I struck up conversation with a co-worker who became excited when I told her I was a writer. Turned out she was too (fell for that) and asked if we could go out later that night to compare notes, exchange techniques, all of that. Sure, why not? It’s a meal, I don’t have to cook.
Oh, what I was in for.
She comes to my house to pick me up and as a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, confesses that she’s married. She got a little ahead of herself, blah blah blah. I was a little surprised, but it wasn’t a blow or anything; I wasn’t looking to get back into a relationship. She suggested we go dutch. I agreed; I’m always up for a burger and fries.
Dinner is awkward but pleasant. Turns out she really is a writer, and we trade a little bit about our backgrounds. I omit darker details.
We pay our two separate tabs and she asks if she can come back to my place so we can continue our discussion. Have you ever seen one of those cartoons where every warning under the sun suddenly appears and blares audibly to go running in the other direction? Good.
I have a code, I keep telling myself. I’m not going to be intimate with a married woman. Period.
I keep telling that to myself when I allow her to enter my apartment. She surveys the walls, her eyes coming to rest on my Marvel poster (you know, the one that features all fo the heroes and villains, the most recognizable ones prominent at the center?). She turns to me, in all seriousness, and says; “You know, you’re going to have to get rid of that when we move in together.”
They have not yet invented the words in the English language for me to articulate what went through my head. What I said was; “Excuse me?”
She repeated her statement, just as plainly as before. I promptly called it a night. She became the first person I ever threw out of my apartment.
She tried to contact me a few times beyond that (mysteriously, I never seemed to be near the phone) and after about a week, she got the idea.
It’s a story that always gets people to raise their eyebrows, and I felt like sharing.
(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC
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