One of the writing prompts I had this month was “The worst date you’ve ever been on”. It was the prompt that really solidified me wanting to re-vive my blog. To be completely honest, I haven’t gone on a lot of 1:1 dates in my lifetime. In the past, I clearly had the uncanny ability of finding the boys who didn’t want to take me on an actual date (that did wonders for my confidence). When I saw this prompt, I actually couldn’t decide between these 3 different “dates”/interactions. They all happened within 2 years of one another (I think) and they all seem to have similar themes. This will be a 3 part journey, friends. So sit back and enjoy.
Quick and very important background: For those who don’t know, I’ve got a history with the name James (and really, just J’s in general which makes it hilarious that I’m marrying a J). I’ve dated like, 3 or 4 guys named James. I was in my peak James life during the time this story takes place.
Maybe 2008?
At this time in my life, I was spending most of my free time with two guys named Mike and Chris. We went the movies a lot and ate at way too many cheap buffets. What I wouldn’t give for my teen and 20-something iron stomach… Anyways, Alex was this guy that I met when I went to one of Mike’s birthday parties. I’m pretty sure that Mike worked with Alex at that time. Did I remember Alex when Mike brought him up a few days after his birthday dinner? Nope. Was I at all attracted to him? No. Did Mike convince me to hang out with him in a group setting? Yes. But at least Mike deeply apologized (kind of) about this afterwards (the kind of was because this was a hilariously ridiculous night). Mike, Chris, Sophie (Sofia?), Alex, and I planned on going to dinner and a movie. This was a basic hang out to see if we vibed (SPOILER: We didn’t). Like I said before, I was falling into this super specific and weird pattern of dating guys named James so I always asked guys their middle names, just to make sure. It went something like this:
Me: Hey Alex, what is your middle name?
Mike: -Absolutely horrified look on his face which absolutely showed me he knew what Alex was about to say-
Alex: Oh, actually, my middle name is Alex! My first name is James, but no one calls me that.
Chris and Mike both knew about my James history and started absolutely cracking up, which in turn, made me laugh because what are the odds? Alex/James was super confused and asked what was so funny. I told him that I had a bad history with the name James but this was a “haha” situation, not at all a big deal. However, I already wasn’t feeling this guy and here was the Universe giving me a second sign? Grab the bull by the horns or whatever. Alex/James was not amused and the night took a super sour turn. He immediately threw himself into this long winded story about how his grandmother had disowned him because apparently James is his grandfathers’ name and his grandmother hates his grandfather and so for the beginning of Alex/James’ life, he didn’t know his grandmother because she refused to speak to him or his mother because of his first name. It was… a lot. And Alex/James was getting so incredibly worked up. The entire rest of the dinner was awkward and we should have just honestly bailed on the rest of the evening. Hindsight, am I right? We got to the movies where Alex/James insisted that we had to sit together, by ourselves, away from my friends. I wasn’t into that but Alex/James threw an actual fit and I hate confrontation and Mike was so horrified by everything happening that we just went with it and hoped the movie would go by quickly. He proceeded to make fun of my friends and talked about how we were so much more mature than them. Cool. You know how you prove to someone that you’re more mature than everyone else? By talking about how much more mature you are than everyone else. He tried to hold my hand and I practically crawled across the theater away from him. On the drive home, he tried to hold my hand (again) and I (thought I) made it clear that that wasn’t gonna happen but for some reason, when we dropped him off at his place, he seemed to think that the night went absolutely swimmingly. It’s interesting how differently two people can experience an event.
I don’t remember how I ended it but it was probably fairly quickly. Alex/James whined to Mike for a while and told him that I was a bitch for only disliking him because of his name (okay kid) just like his grandmother.
Writes with Wolves 