(written 5 years after the fact)

As many of you can imagine and some of you can attest to, the dating scene is Ottawa is not exactly jumpin’ jumpin’. Unbeknownst to many of you, I dabbled in the online dating world while living in O-Town, a few weeks on OKCupid, a few on Match. Not much came of the then-modern technology except for a few awkward dates that I immediately wanted to leave right after arriving and a few really great first date stories; in fact, my first ever worst first date story brewed from my experiment in online dating. I’d like to divulge said story not only to incite laughter, but to relive the glory days of grand ol’ Ottawa.

 

Out of the four dates induced from my online dating adventure in Ottawa, two of them were on the same day, a lunch date and a dinner date – about the most scandalous thing I did in LaSalle County. The lunch date drove an electric blue Mustang and was incredibly boring. When I arrived at dinner, the fact that guy #2 (Jessie) drove a lime green Mustang should’ve tipped me off to the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad date I was about to embark upon. While Jessie certainly wasn’t a looker (what can I say, there weren’t very many options on OKC back in the day!), I decided to get past this fact and concentrate on the average Mexican food…oh, and the conversation.

 

Throughout dinner, Jessie continuously rubbed his nose, claiming that “someone must be thinkin’ about me…” roughly 273 times. Now, I really wish I was more technologically savvy because I’d love to have an audio of this next bit…every time I’d say something, Jesse would exclaim “Whuuuuuuuttt?” Please, right now, say this out loud. Imagine it:

 

Me: How’s your dinner?

Him: Whuuuuuutt?

Me: Um, how’s your dinner?

Him: Oh, good. How about you?

Me: Tasty! The margarita is good, too!

Him: Whuuuuuutt?

Me: Throws a punch across the table.

 

You catch my drift, right? I wanted to punch something after the first 10 minutes of conversation. Don’t worry, Mom, I didn’t punch anything, though I did come really close when the conversation turned to what color he wanted to paint his bathroom. My memory is fuzzy here, but he might’ve pulled out color swatches.

 

After the bill was paid, I was in a rush to jet away, but with puppy dog eyes, Jessie reminded me that “You promised we’d get dinner AND drinks.” Didn’t that margarita count, dammit?

 

I relented and drove behind him to a nearby bar. Was I delusional? Crazy? Desperate? No! Maybe I just knew that our awesome story didn’t end at Jalapeno’s. At the bar and settled into our seats, our rather mind-numbing conversation continued until…a very special and near-to-my-heart song came on and I was serenaded. Can you guess the song??

 

Yes, “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield!! “The bartender’s playing this for us!” he said in the lull of the song with no words. For the rest of the song, he continued to sing…out loud…to me. Was Punk’d a thing back then? Because I was pretty sure that Ashton Kutcher was about to pop out from under the indoor bacce ball table. My eyes darted from side to side, “Is anyone going to save me?” Apparently, the two other people in the bar didn’t care that the words didn’t make sense coming out of Jessie’s mouth.

 

I skedaddled as soon as the last note was sung. I’ve been telling this story for years and years and it never gets old. Now, I have other stories to add to my collection of “off their rocker” dates, including Ear Licker and Angry Man.

 

At least the latest guy I’ve gone on dates with is pretty normal, so normal in fact, I can’t write a blog post long enough about him.

Officially fed up with feeling sorry for myself, I broke down on Monday night and downloaded the Tinder app on my phone. Tinder is a dating app that’s linked to Facebook; it presents a few photos, interests, and mutual friends from the site. The concept is easy: judge people’s photos…Nope or Love. Swipe, X, swipe, X, swipe, <3. Two hearts equals the honor of being able to chat with one another if you both so choose. 

 

One such mutual “love” was with what turned out to be a 26 year old Puerto Rican military guy. We chatted on Tinder, exchanged phone numbers after an appropriate amount of commonalities, proceeded to text, then talk on the phone. We agreed to meet over drinks after work. In true “Ashley always has great first date stories!”, boy do I have another interesting tale!

 

Right off the bat, in rapid-style, he gives me a 15-question inquisition about my job, my family, my hobbies. Tired from all the answering, lightning fire, I throw the question: What do you do for a living? at him. After a few moments of silence, he answers that he’s trying to think of a way to not scare me. Mafia? Mob? Hit man? I guess. 

 

I probe a bit further, “Can you tell me in like a summary? Just a few words?” 

 

“I’m thinking!” he yelps. 

 

More silence. Then more yelling, “I don’t want to tell you too much. I don’t know you! Why would I share personal information with someone I just met?!” 

 

“Um…because we’re on a first date and that’s what you do…share information about ourselves. But, you know, whatever, tell me what you want.”

 

“Fine,” he answers. “If you ever did anything bad, you wouldn’t want to see me…” 

 

In my head only, of course, I guess, “Dog the Bounty Hunter!!”

 

He loosens up and, for the most part, we have an enjoyable conversation. It was fun enough to agree to a second meeting. Maybe he was just nervous at the get-go?? 

 

Then…all hell breaks loose. All smiles, I say, “It’s a good thing I told you to be open at the beginning; we’ve had fun!” More silence. I’ve learned what that means by now…

 

“Who do you think I was for the last hour? Do you think I was faking it?! I’m genuine! How rude of you to think differently!!!” He’s yelling. I’m cowering, highly embarrassed because we’re in public and I don’t know this (throw in your own expletives here). 

 

I explain that he’s making me uncomfortable and pull date #2 off the table. More yelling. More uncomfortableness. The god-sent bill finally arrives. He tells me to give him a card to pay half. I happily oblige. Get me the hell outta here. There’s no talking during bill time. Then he looks up (seriously, this was the best part of the whole night…) and says…”What’s your favorite animal???” 

 

“Uh, um, I don’t understand…”

 

He bellows, “I’m just trying to change the subject!” 

 

When we’re finally at the train station, he juts out his hand for a shake, then tells me to let him know when I get home. Before I can run away down the stairs, he exclaims, “Military police…”

 

Golly, I really do love my dating life. 

 

And, yes, I did let someone know where I was before this date. Safety first!