by eMan
I asked her out
She was everything I was looking for at the time: brilliant, nice, funny, with eyes and a smile that any cover-girl model would kill for. Ivory Snow, clean cut all American. But heck love is blind, right?
Acting on the advice of mutual friends who said she was interested in me, I asked her out. She was very sweet about it, and said she’d like to but she just couldn’t. I was a little surprise by the rejection. I figure her friends misheard or misunderstood.
No. Her best friend said “No, I’m sure. She was clear. It’s hard to misinterpret “I’d like to go out with him.”
So, based upon this information, the next time I saw her, I went ahead and ask her out again…and… I got the same very kind and sweet “I can’t. Maybe another time.”
Again rejected based upon information obtained from her friend… I was a bit embarrassed but heck, it was a little funny to me as well.
So, I thought why not, it couldn’t really hurt anyone and it became a little game of cat and mouse.
This back and worth exchange between us goes on for maybe six (6) months, and it more or less, turned into our Friday morning comedy routine. “Want to go out?” “Yes, but I can’t.” “Why? Another guy? A girl?” And there was a lot of laughter. No clear answer.
After a while, if I forgot to ask her out on a particular Friday, she’d joke about it.
If, as a man I had less confidence, I’d have felt like Charlie Brown after Lucy pulled the football away for the millionth time. In any case, I did notice she was vaguely miffed, when at the end of that year, I started dating another girl.
The First Date
The next school year starts and I’m living in another apartment with a couple of guys, and I was no longer dating anyone. Then, I see her again in the student lounge, and a bunch of us are chatting over beer and pinball.
She came directly over to me and says “Hey, ya know it’s been a few months since you asked me out.” Everyone around us was chuckling, because at this point tons of folks are in on the joke.
And I say, “It’s been fun and we’ve both been good sports but don’t cha’ think it’s getting a bit stale?” She says: “Aw c’mon. It’s fun. And who knows? I might say yes this time.” So, I ask her out to dinner in front of everyone, and she says yes, and I swear there was applause. Folks murmuring “thank god!” and “it’s about damn time!”
So, I pick her up in my second-hand car that I bought off my mom for the repair cost, and take her to dinner at an upscale seafood restaurant, where I order blackened salmon and a spicy Bloody Mary.
Things are going well. Great conversation, etc. And then, I rub my eye…which is not a very good thing to do whilest concurrently consuming ‘blackened’ or ‘spicy’ anything. My eye got red and I mean fireball red. It teared up like someone opened a faucet. No amount of ice-water helped. Which is to say, all we could do was laugh. After a little over a year of back and forth, lots of anticipation, it came to that. A quick, somewhat humiliating fail… She had to drive us back since I was pretty much blind in that eye for a few hours.
Now ask yourself: how does a blind man teach his date to drive a stick shift?!
