Dating and Dining

I like to eat. But not while on a date. It's too much pressure, eating while trying to impress the ladies. Too much can go wrong, no matter how awesome you are. Take it from me.

I once went on a date with a vegan, but I didn't know she was a vegan.  (Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against vegans. They're people, too. Allegedly. But we're talking about dating and first impressions, not whether vegans should be ostracized and ridiculed. Nor are we talking about whether they should be incarcerated and sentenced to hard labor, like many of you so fervently believe. Please stop changing the subject.)  I should have picked up on the fact that she was a vegan when she threw red paint on my fur coat and called me a murderer. Instead, the only thing that crossed my mind was, "That's strange."  The other thing that crossed my mind was, "I wonder if she likes me."

I probably would have picked up on her hatred of all things normal if I hadn't been so preoccupied with whether I'd zipped my fly. Thinking about my fly made me think of the old Levi's commercials, you know, the ones with the jingle that goes "Levi's button fly Five-Oh-One jeans. Yeah!"  

Oh, and remember the Cherry 7-Up commercials? "Isn't it cool, in pink? Cherry 7-Up." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_OV8jTEbJk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBh3o7eqJI&NR=1

I liked those commercials for some reason. Maybe because they had this 50's vibe that reminded me of my time at Rydell High, and the summer that I met an Australian girl named Sandy, and how my buddies and I fixed up a junker car and raced it for pinks at Thunder Road. Ah, the good old days.

Wait a minute. We're talking about my fly. So there I stood, not knowing what to do. Should I check it? Probably not while she's looking. On the other hand, I couldn't just stand there like an idiot if my fly was undone. It was a dilemma unlike any I'd ever had. At least, not since the day before, when I had walked across campus, wondering whether I'd forgotten to zip my fly.

Then a plan formed in my head. I said, "Hey, I forgot my wallet. You don't mind paying do you?" She raised her eyebrows, probably impressed at how good looking I was, especially since I was sporting a suit vest without a shirt on underneath it, you know, so I could show off my guns. Anyway, she went in the other room and got her purse, giving me just enough time to check my fly. Thankfully, it wasn't undone. Mission accomplished.

The moral of the story is that once we got to the restaurant, she wasn't impressed that I had ordered steak. She said, "You're like a murderer, eating flesh. Gross."

I told her that I wasn't the one who killed the cow, but since it was already dead, why let it go to waste? "Here, want a bite?" I offered.

Tragically, my hopes and dreams of having a family with this girl, whom I'd known for almost 24 hours, were destroyed. It's kind of sad when you put that kind of time into a relationship and it turns out to be all for nothing. 

Which brings me to my next point:  how you eat is every bit as important as what you eat. Transporting food from your plate to your mouth without getting any of it on your forehead or on your shirt isn't as easy as you'd think. Don't believe me? Try it sometime. 

What's especially embarrassing is when you take a bite that is way too big. As you're sitting there chewing that four ounces of steak, you realize that you just won't be able to chew it enough, and you have to remove it from your mouth (sheepishly) and then cut it up some more. I don't know how many times that's happened, but it's always embarrassing. I've found it's not so bad, though, if I can cast some embarrassment on my date by telling her she's got a booger hanging out of her nose and that it's really disgusting. That way she can't be so judgmental. Who does she think she is, anyway? 

But then, eventually, if you date long enough, you get to the point where you're comfortable eating in front of your girlfriend. I once was in a relationship and we went out to eat. I had done something completely stupid, I don't really remember what it was...something like taking a route to the restaurant that was five minutes longer than the "ideal" route, when, in fact, the "ideal" route wasn't so "ideal" because it was five o'clock traffic and everyone knows what kind of logjam you're going to face on westbound I-84 that time of day.  But I don't really recall. She could have been mad about anything. 

So we're at the restaurant and she's mad at me about something.  I remember thinking that the only way that I was going to make the situation better was if I ate two entrees. Then everything would be okay. Now that I think about it, I don't know why I thought that would get me out of trouble, but it seemed logical at the time. Maybe she had a coupon and wanted to save some money.  I don't know. 

So I ate two entrées and afterwards my stomach was so full that I thought it was going to explode. It was awful. It was so bad that, for the first time in my life, I made myself throw up. But back to my initial premise about the kind of commitment that I bring to a relationship: I bring nothing less than the willingness to eat two incredibly delicious entrées at one sitting if I think it will make a girl happy. But never on a first date. I'm not that kind of guy.

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