There’s a common element to most stories you hear about a first date. And I’m not talking about a first date with a particular person. I’m talking about the very first date a person ever has. Like pop songs, every very-first-date story comes from the same template: the apprehension, the sweaty palms, the inordinate amount of time taken to make sure you look and smell good, the perplexity surrounding the possibility of a first kiss, the great pains taken to act cool, and the inevitable mishaps that undermine that coolness. And, like pop songs, first-date stories are pretty entertaining on the merit of being so relatable. You could do a whole Moth Radio Hour on the topic every week for a month, and it would never get old. They’re embarrassing, and they’re generally adorable.
Well, here’s mine.
Growing up, I wasn’t the gregarious guy you’ve come to know and tolerate. I landed squarely on the shy side of the interpersonal spectrum, and while I always had crushes, I was scared shitless by girls and didn’t know how to talk to them. I would fall in love with the purity only found in adolescence, and then actively avoid the object of my affection at any cost, hoping that fate would somehow intervene, bring us together, let us look into each other’s souls and find love everlasting.
In the seventh grade, I asked a girl named Suzanne to “go out,” though we never actually went anywhere while we were going out. In fact, I’d barely talk to her at school, because I didn’t know what to say. Technically, she was my girlfriend, but practically, I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do. When Suzanne gave me her phone number, my sister told me that I’d better call her. She and my mom spent an hour helping me write down a list of conversation topics that would help me get to know my new girlfriend and keep the conversation going. But, the whole conversation was jilted. Sitting on the floor at the end of the cord of the kitchen phone, I got Suzanne on the line. I asked her what her favorite class was, and immediately after getting her answer, instead of talking about that class, I jumped straight to, “Cool, what’s your favorite color?” When she told me about how some asshole had called her friend a “queefer,” I had no idea what that was. My mom and sister kept giving me hand signals to slow down, loosen up and keep talking, but their gestures and pantomimes were lost on me as I plundered my way through a telephone conversation with a girl. That pseudo-relationship lasted just over a week before Suzanne dumped me via a message through a mutual acquaintance saying that I was boring.
It’s not surprising, then, that I didn’t have my first real date until I was eighteen years old. Sure, I’d taken girls to Homecoming and Prom (twice each), but these were formalities. I’d also gone on a few group dates that were more like big co-ed mixers than actual dates—in large part because they were coordinated by my Mormon friends. Mormons are champion daters, and it’s no wonder they get married so young. They cast a wide net until they land a big fish. Anyway, none of these were the kinds of dates where you’re trying to make a girl your girlfriend; they were just good clean fun.
Toward the end of my senior year at Ephrata High School, I was surprised to find that I had a crush on a junior named Jacqueline. She was pretty, personable, talented in the performing arts, sweet and liked to laugh. She was also unavailable, which made her pretty much perfect. Jacqueline was dating another kid in my class, and while I wished Josh was a lecherous, skulduggerous ne’er-do-well from whom I could rescue her, he was actually a really nice guy, so I settled into my routine of worshiping from afar. Jacqueline was my new Dulcinea.
That is, until they broke up right after graduation. I’d confided in my friend Jason (a champion Mormon dater) about my crush on Jacqueline, and when she was suddenly unencumbered by a boyfriend, Jason took it as his responsibility to get me off my duff. He got right to work organizing a group date to Ohme Gardens in Wenatchee, and told me I had to invite Jacqueline. Succumbing to peer pressure, I did. And she accepted.
We all had a fun afternoon. We roamed around the gardens, and the other couples kept wandering off on their own, leaving Jacqueline and me alone. I had no idea what to do, so I just kept it friendly. I didn’t want it to be obvious that I liked her, just in case she wasn’t interested in me, and I wouldn’t have known what to do anyway, so we just walked around, telling stories and making each other laugh. We all went to a pizza joint for dinner, and Jacqueline kicked my ass on every arcade game we played there. She was a good sport, she was funny, and I liked her more than ever.
A ping went out on the gossip wire that I liked Jacqueline, and the pingback revealed that she liked me, too. Oh, shit! I was going to have to suck it up and do something. I decided on the long game when only a short game was necessary.
Jacqueline sprained her wrist early in the summer, and I decided I needed to do something thoughtful to express sympathy and caring. On my lunch break at work, I walked over to Rite-Aid to get a card for her.
I should explain here that no one should ever let me within ten yards of a greeting card aisle. I get distracted. I forget my purpose. I buy the worst cards for the situation. When a girl at work, Nancy, lost a friend in a drunk driving accident, I decided to get her a condolence card. I ended up with a card that read:
On the Death of My Friend’s Turtle
A PoemMy friend’s turtle is dead
Dead, dead, dead
He’s the deadest turtle you ever saw
Dead
And when you opened the card, it said, “Or he could just be sleeping. With turtles, it’s really hard to tell.”
I took the card back to the break room at work, and started signing it. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how inappropriate it was for the situation. It was also in that exact moment that Nancy walked into the room.
“What are you up to?”
“Nothing.” I hid the card behind my back.
“What’s that?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Is that a card? Can I see it?”
“No.”
“Come on, let me see it. I could use a distraction. Who’s it for?”
She walked around behind me and plucked the card from my hands. As she read the front of it, tears welled up in her eyes. Those tears continued to swell as she opened the card and read the inside, including the inscription to her. She quietly set the card down, tried unsuccessfully to force a smile at me, and silently walked out of the room before I could try to explain my idiocy and good intentions.
So, with Jacqueline, I should have avoided the greeting card aisle. I spent an hour browsing through cards, picked one out and stepped into the checkout line. A haggard woman behind me asked, “Do you mind if I see the card you’re getting?” and picked it up without waiting for an answer. After reading it, she said, “Wow, so she really did it, huh? That’s great!” I was a little confused, so I looked down at the card I’d picked out. On the front, it said, “Congratulations on Quitting Smoking.”
What the hell?! Neither Jacqueline nor I had ever smoked a cigarette before, but I didn’t have time to get a new card, so I just decided to roll with this one. I wrote something in it about how any kind of congratulations is enough to lift someone’s spirit. When I gave it to her, I was as surprised as anybody that she loved it. She chalked it up to my random sense of humor and thought it was hilarious. What a relief.
I decided I needed to ask Jacqueline out on a date. A real date. A boy-picks-girl-up-for-a-date kind of date. And when I did, she enthusiastically agreed. I was terrified. The date had to be perfect. Everything I knew about romance was from Bryan Adams, Michael Bolton, Sting and Boyz II Men albums. I devised a plan for the best…date…ever.
I packed a picnic dinner that my mom helped me make. She let me take some of her china, silverware, two candle-holders with taper candles, a quilt, and two champagne flutes for the bottle of Martinelli’s sparkling cider I’d picked up. I made a romantic mixed tape full of the aforementioned Bryan Adams, Michael Bolton, Sting and Boyz II Men, and loaded up my portable stereo. The picnic would take place next to a small lake (or large pond) outside of Ephrata, at sunset. It was the most romantic thing I could think of, and I gave no thought to what I’d do for a follow-up date if it came to that. I was going to go full Casanova for this one, do or die.
I borrowed my dad’s pickup truck, and drove from Moses Lake (where I lived) to her house in Ephrata, giving me about half an hour to obsess over every detail of my plan a thousand times. I was pretty sure I’d thought of everything. Except flowers! I’d forgotten flowers! A guy can’t show up on a girl’s doorstep for a date without flowers! When I got to Ephrata, I went straight to the grocery store and picked up a dozen roses from the floral department. I was set.
I parked outside of her house, walked up to the door with the flowers, knocked, and started trying to dry my sweaty palms on my jeans. I gave myself a pep talk. Be cool, Doug. Act casual. You can do this.
She opened the door and was glad to see me. I made a big production out of presenting her with the flowers, which made her smile. If I could just keep making her smile, I’d be all right. She invited me in.
“I still have to put my shoes on,” she told me. “They’re in my room downstairs. You can come with me.”
I’d never been in a girl’s bedroom before. Growing up in my Evangelical Christian family, boys in girls’ bedrooms was considered just one step away from full-on fornication. I was a gentleman with pure intentions, but I couldn’t escape the discomfort of the stupid implication. Just be cool, Doug. Make nothing of it. It’s just a bedroom.
I followed her down the stairs and into her bedroom. It was an ordinary bedroom. She showed me some of her things, and we made small talk. I was doing really well. I stood casually against the wall with my ankles crossed and my hands in my pockets, striking the coolest pose I could. I cracked jokes that made her laugh. My anxiety went away, and I was on my A game. We volleyed stories and jokes, laughing and having a good time.
At one point, I said something really corny. Over-the-top corny. Jacqueline decided that I should be punched for saying what I said, and, being a total ham, threw a punch my way in slow motion with an, “Oh, you…” Her fist made its way toward my gut at a snail’s pace, giving me ample time to plan my reaction. I decided I should ham it up, too, so when her fist connected, I’d pretend I’d taken a huge body blow, I’d grunt and be thrown back against the wall—also in slow motion.
Her fist connected with my stomach. I slowly threw my body back against the wall, and began to double over in “pain.” I went to grunt. But, I didn’t grunt.
I farted.
I farted loudly. I farted like an old man at a urinal. I farted like a goddamn alpenhorn was attached to my asshole, and the sound of it reverberated around the silent room like I’d played it in the Swiss alps. If someone else farts in public, I think nothing of it. I know it’s just something the human body has evolved to do, and there should be no shame in it. When other people fart, it’s something to be dismissed without another thought. But, when it’s me, I’m absolutely mortified.
We both just stared at each other, not knowing what to say. I wished I was dead.
“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed to whisper.
“It’s OK,” she said, and spun around to find her shoes, pretending it never happened. She quickly struck up another topic of conversation while I collected myself. She relayed another anecdote, giving me the opportunity to chime in. We got everything back on track, and I returned to my cool and casual demeanor, leaning against the wall with my hands in my pockets. Totally nonchalant. I complimented her hair. I asked her about a poster on her wall. I fully recovered, and was back on my A game.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Yeah, let’s go.” I led the way out of the room, and started trucking up the stairs like I didn’t have a care in the world. But, I should have had a care. At least one. I should have cared about the stairs.
When I reached the second-to-last step, I tripped. My foot caught the edge of the stair with a loud thunk. My hands were still in my pockets, so I couldn’t catch myself, and I came crashing down, my face hitting the floor like I’d been TKO’d in a heavyweight boxing match.
My hands were pinned in my pockets beneath me, and I flopped around like a fish on the beach. Jacqueline ran up the stairs behind me and grabbed my arm, trying to help me up, but that only made matters worse as she kept tugging on my arm like it was a 190-pound kettlebell weight. Finally, one of my hands got free, and I was able to help myself up.
“Oh, my god! Are you OK?” Jacqueline was genuinely concerned, nice as she was, “Are you hurt?”
“Just my pride,” I said.
But, I soldiered on. We got into the truck, and headed out for our picnic. I had trouble finding the way to the pond I’d been told about, and we drove in circles, but eventually, we arrived. I grabbed the picnic basket full of food and dishes, the blanket and the stereo, and led the way to the shore of the pond. She offered to help me carry something, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I was the man. I would be carrying everything. I only dropped each thing once.
I’d timed our date so that we could watch the sunset over the pond, but we still had some time before then. I spread the blanket out on the grass, distributed the dishes, lit the candles, and turned on the stereo with my mixed tape. I handed her a champagne flute and got out the Martinelli’s. Between the rough ride in the back of the one-ton pickup truck and the picnic basket being dropped once, the bottle was pretty shaken up, and when I popped the cork, we lost half the bottle to the resulting geyser.
As we sipped our somewhat-sparkling cider, the taper candles kept tipping over on the unstable surface of the blanket, and I had to lunge for them to prevent a fire. I finally put them on one of our two china plates, and while Jacqueline ate her dinner on china, I ate mine out of the Tupperware containers in which the food had been packed.
It would seem that despite my planning, nothing was going quite right. Looking back, even the music selection was a bit on the creepy side. Richard Marx sang, “Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here waiting for you.” Sting sang, “Every move you make, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.” Boyz II Men sang, “Slowly my eyes began to see that I need you near and with me at all times, yeah. My feelings are so deep for you that I won’t let go, oooh no, of you.” Fortunately, the songs struck the mood I was going for, at least until the batteries in the stereo died.
Still, as we sat on the blanket, conversation flowed, and I was mesmerized by her. She was funny, genuine and kind. She wasn’t uptight, demanding or vain. I hadn’t told her what we’d be doing on our date, and she loved my surprise. Once we’d eaten, we packed up the dishes and leftover food in the picnic basket, set it aside and moved closer together. The sun was going down right on schedule. The candles burned brightly on the china plate. I put my arm around her, and she leaned against me, and we quietly watched the sun dip below the horizon.
And that’s when I got my first kiss. I looked at her, and she looked at me. We just stared at each other for a while before I realized, “Oh! This is it! This is my opportunity!” I didn’t want to just lunge in, because what if I’d misread the signals?
Trying to summon the charm of some 18th century British bloke, I smiled at her and formally said, “I think I should like to kiss you now.”
It took her half a second to untangle those words, and another half a second to process the fact that I was actually asking permission. In that full second of silence, I thought she was going to tell me no.
“OK,” she said with a smile.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers, and it was electric. I tingled from head to toe, my heart swelled, and I was in love. That gentle kiss turned into a two-hour make-out session. As it turned out, she was a terrible kisser. Her tongue was robotic, flicking around the inside of my mouth like it was shooting marbles. With endless practice over the next year and a half, we got it right, but in that moment, I didn’t care. I was kissing a girl, and she was kissing me back.
Though everything imaginable had gone wrong that night, those two hours kissing by candlelight to the sound of crickets on a warm summer night were pure magic, the kind of magic that can never be duplicated. While my life since has been chock-full of similar awkward bumbling, botched plans, pratfalls and fuck-ups, I’ll never get another kiss like that one. Everyone only gets that once.
