The Worst Date Ever

"I'm sorry, I can't give you a ride home. I'm going to be late catching the bus to my haircut."

"No, it's fine, I live pretty close to here, I'll just walk."

Those were the parting words on our first date, words which would normally not lead to any others. It started innocuously enough, best of intentions in the days leading up to a planned outing. It was supposed to be a quirky, charming affair, a light lunch of Taiwanese street food followed by an introduction to an herbal beverage known to mimic Xanax—an alluring suggestion for a first date for someone as wound up as I am.

A sensible person would probably not have chosen to go with their mother for a routine, if heavy, breakfast mere hours before all of this was supposed to take place, compromising both preparation time as well as appetite. Instead, I waddled from car to car, filled with breakfast burrito and pangs of regret as I realized I would have to rush through the shower I had yet to take. My clothes smelled of cooking oil, as the breakfast joint had an open-air kitchen but was, well, a breakfast joint, so I had to change those as well. I headed off at the last moment to rush through midday traffic and pick my date up late from his class after not being able to find the building his school was in.

When I finally arrived and we went off to our destination, I noticed his handsome Indian features: deep-set almond eyes, a prominent nose, full lips, and promptly began to pardon my lateness. At this point, I don’t even remember the excuses that I gave, unlikely as they were to have been fully honest. We crossed town to the main thoroughfare where the Taiwanese food and the oxygen bar were situated, across the street from each other, and as he paid for the parking, I explained that he shouldn’t bother because my parents pay for my automotive expenses anyway.

“How long should I put on here?”

“Oh, well, actually, about that. I only have about an hour and a half, because I have a haircut that I can’t reschedule. I have to catch a bus to get there and with traffic it takes forever.”

“But you have a car.”

“The bus is so much more convenient than trying to park downtown! I always take it, and I can’t reschedule this appointment.”

The hair card is usually played when trying to get out of a bad date, not at the beginning of one.

He accepted this turn of events with a shrug and we walked around the corner to get our food. It was only a few hours post-burrito, so the thought of eating more made me nauseous. I resolved to get full chicken breasts with vegetables and heavy noodles in a light sauce, a decision I made after beginning to talk about how indecisive I am as an excuse to cover for my lack of an appetite. He ordered his food and paid for both of us and we sat down to wait.

When I feel awkward or uncomfortable, one of two things happens: I either shut down and say as few syllables as I can possibly manage, or I open the manhole and let the proverbial floodgates loose. In the case of the latter, my subjects of choice range from myself to things connected to myself to myself—not because I’m a narcissist so much as it’s as if a switch gets shut off in my brain and only the most immediate points of conversation that are not the weather are capable of being released. That day was trash collection day, and my date was the recipient.

I poked and stirred at my food as I sucked as much wind as I could, telling my date about myself and what I study, what my mother is like, how intelligent my friends are, how I have no siblings (shocker), how I hated the town that we were in. He comes originally from Texas, having stayed in a Buddhist monastery in New Mexico for a while, and willingly chose Boulder as his destination of choice to attend Naropa University for his MA, facts I would learn only later and only after I had derided both town and institution for the better part of the time we were seated. We were running out of time and I couldn’t will the food to go down my esophagus, so I got a to-go box and we headed across the street to the oxygen bar.

The oxygen bar is so called because it serves, well, oxygen which is supposed to variously intoxicate, chakra align, mood intensify, and so on. It is also home to exotic chocolates and teas that come from obscure corners of the world. My date insisted that I try kava-kava, an herbal tea that mellows you out and relaxes you, sort of like a narcotic, but less intense or illegal. He asked how I wanted to try it and I played the indecisive card again, letting him decide, and we sat down on sofa-like chairs in the lounge, him resting an arm on the back of my chair and placing his hand on my shoulder.

“Oh, so I’m going to Portugal in two months.”

“Oh cool, how long are you visiting?”

“No, I mean, I’m going to do yet another study abroad thing there, this time for a full semester.”

I continued talking about studying abroad and myself and love-hating Boulder for another half an hour, when it was nearing my time to go. He insisted I finish my kava, which I dutifully did, and then we left and I informed him that I would not be giving him a ride to his house, I may be late for the bus if I do, and I can not miss that bus because it’s rush hour and I can’t reschedule my haircut. As I parked my car in the bus garage, I realized I had learned not a single new thing about him that I didn’t know from our week or so of chatting back and forth and began sending damage control text messages simultaneously apologizing for the short notice and praising the niceness of the date. His phone mysteriously died.

It would turn into a relationship of over a year.