Dating 101

OR How Two Movies Killed Romance

Never take a girl you like to a movie on the first date. Never.

I met a girl at work. She was great at work. We laughed at all the other employees and enjoyed talks in between rushes. She was very pretty and normally I wouldn’t even introduce myself but working together got me past that. After a couple weeks I finally got up the nerve to ask her out and she enthusiastically said, “Yes!” I was so sure it would be “No.” that I’d failed to come up with a plan for what we would do. And of course the first thing she asks is, “What do you want to do?”

“Ummm. How about a movie?” I said, desperately trying to sound like I had a plan.

“Sure!” she said, “There’s a movie I want to see down at the Senate: Heavy Metal.”

I was pretty sure this was the girl I wanted to marry. I hadn’t seen it but I knew it was animated and I knew that John Candy did some of the voice work and I knew that Heavy Metal was a pretty cool magazine and it was definitely NOT a chick flick. So after work we cleaned up and I took her out to see “Heavy Metal”.

Half way through the movie she turns to me and says, “This isn’t about heavy metal at all, it’s a stupid cartoon, I thought this was like a concert film.”

Game. Set. Match. Love connection denied.

Later in the school year a new girl moved to our school. A hot, new girl. Again, normally I wouldn’t think of asking out someone at her level of hotness but I figured she was new and had no idea yet that I wasn’t cool. So I introduced myself and asked her out for Friday night and she just as enthusiastically said, “Yes!” and I had once again failed to plan for a positive answer.

“How about a movie?” Sometimes I don’t learn.

“Sure, that sounds fun.”

The movie 9 to 5 had just come out with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. I picked her up at her place, met her dad, apparently looked harmless enough that he let her go ahead and go out with me and we landed at the movie in time to get a good seat: middle row, aisle. The lights went down and my misery started with the movie.

There were some hilarious moments in the movie. Hilarious! I laughed. The audience laughed and someone behind me either spilled their Coke or laughed so hard they wet their pants. But my date was unmoved. No smile, no laugh, nada. No big deal, some people find Monty Python hilarious and some don’t. (for the record, I do) I don’t get Pauly Shore, some people collect his movies. Who can explain funny?

This was not fatal to the date. But when she suddenly erupted into shrieks of laughter at a part that wasn’t meant to be funny I nearly jumped out of my seat. And she didn’t stop. Someone would deliver a line that moved the dramatic part of the story along and she would roar. Roar! One of the characters would nail another one with a line and while the rest of us laughed she remained stoic. I finally stopped watching the movie all together and just stared at her because I could not believe what was happening.

After the movie we had planned to go out to do something else but I suddenly remembered the early morning shift I had at work the next morning. I stepped on the gas as I dropped off one of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen back at her house as the clock struck 9 p.m.

The best part was two weeks later when one of the guys at school came to me and asked if he could ask her out even though she was going out with me. I hadn’t talked to her since the date (I know: jerk) because I had no idea how to explain that not laughing at the funny parts had killed it when I’m pretty sure she thought she HAD laughed at all the funny parts. I told him we’d gone out but I didn’t realize we were going out and if he wanted to take her out to go for it. I also told him if he wanted the relationship to last he shouldn’t take her out to a comedy.