The Date

I originally had a post about my first date with Chef in mind when I uploaded this picture. Since then, we’ve stopped talking, so it doesn’t feel right to brag about how good it was. But… It was pretty good… Now where I really want to go with this post is how my “friends” reacted to me going on said date.

I have almost always had more female friends than guy friends (aside from the Marines… They’re family), so I guess it’s understandable that there has been a good bit of attraction between my friends and I. Some I’ve acted on, some I’ve avoided, some I’ve been on the fence about and possibly took the wrong path. But, at the time that I went on this date, my relationship with all of my friends was completely platonic (I know that I’m technically using this word incorrectly, but you know what I mean. Let’s go by the assumed meaning and ignore the dictionary definition here). Or, so I thought. You see, in my mind, I didn’t have any friends who were sitting and waiting for their chance to either date me, jump my bones, or both. I thought that the people in my life were fine with our relationship… I was wrong.

I told some of my female friends about my upcoming date and the majority of the response that I got was something along the lines of “that sounds like a great plan, when are we going?” Seeing as how we are/were friends, and have been strictly friends for a while now, I laughed it off… Because… I honestly thought that it was a joke. But, it wasn’t. Then, after the date, I ran to my friends to talk about it and… I’m sure you guessed it, none of them were interested in hearing about it. I mean, it’s understandable… I don’t want to hear about someone whom I’m interested in going out with some guy. But, I’d do it… I’ve done it… And rooted them on, truly rooted for them, while pushing my feelings aside.

I know, you don’t get to decide who you’re attracted to. But it would be nice if when we decide to “just be friends” that we can actually just be friends. They’re actively dating, I (almost literally) had a date fall into my lap, and somehow it’s not ok for me to talk about it? After attempting to talk about my date, sensing the hesitation, and moving on to a different topic, some of those friends stopped talking to me… Because I was interested in someone else. Which, in a way, I understand… But, again, we were just friends. I don’t know, am I still aloud to be upset about it?

Hmm, this post seems to be missing something… Let me tell you about the date that literally no one cared to hear about (and you probably really don’t care to read about). When it came time to plan the date, Chef joked around about going bowling. I immediately responded with “I think I can come up with something a little more creative than that”, and then immediately thought ‘maybe she actually wanted to go bowling’. So, I retracted it with “I just checked the weather, it’s going to be crappy out, maybe bowling isn’t such a bad idea”. She agreed. At some point we discussed comedy shows, and there happened to be one on the night of our date, so we decided to include that I’m the plans.

We met at the bowling alley (and I just realized that this is going to turn into one of my longer posts… Sorry guys), I got the shoes and the lane, and when we sat down she gave our server her credit card for our drinks. Now, I’m not good at bowling. Not bad, but not “good”. Chef was BAD. During our game it became rather apparent to me that the “wanna go bowling haha” joke was actually just a joke, but we still made the best of it. We ordered food, I went to the front to pay for another game and to swap her card for my own with the server. When I got back and handed her back her card she was pretty irritated, but, it passed.

We didn’t finish the second game. Instead, we took off to get some play some games at Dave and Buster’s, where she demanded to pay for our drinks. We sat at the bar in the game room. The conversation/banter was great throughout the date, which lead to a kiss, which then lead to more kisses, which lead “if we don’t get up and play some of these games we’ll never stop this”, which lead to me using my jacket to awkwardly cover my um <cough> ‘excitement’ as we weaved around families throughout the room. We played games, I didn’t let her win any of them (also, I didn’t let her win in bowling either… I took it easy on her enough so that it was still entertaining, but no) and then we headed to the comedy show.

We showed up just as the last act was starting, which was the only one we really cared to see anyway. We sat, we laughed, we held hands and wrapped arms as we made our way back to where we parked, swapped a bit more spit, and went our separate ways. Oh, and we talked on the phone about our next date as we made our way home. See? That wasn’t REALLY that hard to hear/read… Was it?

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Until next time, let’s just be friends, real friends.

P.S. This wristband is from the comedy show. The morning after the date I went for a run and then met Chef for breakfast. I thought about wearing this out, but it irritated my skin and didn’t make it past the run. Luckily, I took this picture beforehand…. For you guys… Obviously…