Blind Dates

I am going to assume that most of us have been on a blind date. I’m even going to assume that some of those blind dates have worked out for the best. (i.e. my aunt and uncle). While I was not blessed with good blind date experiences, I also haven’t had the worst.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in Wyoming. I really enjoyed living there, and would even like to go back—someday—for a predetermined amount of time. Both of my parents grew up in Pleasant Grove and came from largish families. Most of their siblings (read: all of my dad’s and half of my mom’s) have stayed in the vicinity.

Naturally when I decided to come to BYU for school, they all began to scope out boys that would be “acceptable” for me to date. I’m still not convinced that there wasn’t a contest between my mom’s sisters on who could get me married the fastest. This resulted in a blind date every weekend for the first two months of my freshman year.

Most of them were run of the mill, not too horrible, but definitely not people I would care to spend any more time with. There is one that exceeded my every expectation, and not in a good way.

Blind date #1 (BD1): This particular aunt was extra excited and set this date up before school had even started. My mom was in town to help me move all my stuff in, but we couldn’t get into the dorms until the next morning. He picked me up at my Grammy’s house and when I opened the door I was nearly floored by the strength of his cologne. I’m pretty sure my head even did that backwards-movement-with-a-slight-eyes-closing thing. We said our pleasantries and were on our way.

He opened the car door for me (point BD1) and made his way around the car. I took this opportunity to take a look at my surroundings. I was in a lime-green Honda Civic with leather seats, lime metal interior accents, manual transmission and what I could only assume were speakers taking up the entire back seat. BD1 got in the car and turned on the radio, causing me to jump from the sheer force of the sound.

We drove to a restaurant, ate, and then he decided that the best thing we could possibly do to get to know each other would be to drag State Street. Every red light was a race, and every race resulted in my head slamming into the leather seat. After an hour or so of this, he answered the tenth call that had come through on his cell phone to talk to his mother. We met the whole fam-damily for shakes and awkwardly talked about me. The night ended with a drive back to my Grammy’s that consisted of talking about his recent ex-girlfriend and music too loud to even think. I finally got out of the car and feebly waved as my head and ears continued to pound. He gave me a peace-sign (no—really!) and drove off in a cloud of music-filled smoke.

I invite you all to share an experience that may have helped you to love/hate blind dates. I’m sure mine pales in comparison with some.