Not A Good Sign

After setting fire to myself on Thursday, I cleaned myself up and had a first date last night.

I didn't take it as a good sign when I thought just fleetingly, not once but twice, about running away mid-date.

He was a nice enough fellow, but painfully, excruciatingly boring. He kept talking about his job and calling in sick and his church. I don't think he asked me more than two questions all night about myself to keep the conversation rolling. It was an epic struggle to come up with something to talk about.

He hated the restaurant I chose.

He hated the CPR course I took last month.

He did like the tartufi I suggested.

He had no idea whatsoever what to do afterwards (while I was screaming inside my head, "Just say good night and move on!!") and when my two suggestions fell through, we drove around before he finally settled on seeing a movie. Which didn't start for 90 minutes, and left us still wandering around and me feeling incredibly tortured to come up with things to talk about.

We stopped at a public restroom for him. He didn't emerge for 12 minutes. That's not normal, is it? It became such a long wait I found a bench and began to think maybe he had run away, and I was not sad.

The movie was decent. He didn't complain too much about seeing a chick-flick, but I hadn't heard of any of the other movies playing except G.I. Joe, and that was a big G.I. No.

He emailed this morning and said he was sorry he didn't compliment me on my outfit. That was the least of his problems.

Why are first dates so painful?