Welcome to part one of a series I’m going to be adding to this, all about the first and only dates I’ve had with a handful or so of guys who otherwise didn’t really have a huge role in my life or provide much of anything important – besides giving me some great material over the course of one date.
Shout out to my mom for giving me the title idea for this series, which she originally called “One Hit Wonders,” but since I can’t exactly say that all of these guys were, in fact, particularly wonderful, I decided to change “wonder” to “blunder,” because really, that just felt more appropriate.
First up, we have The Semi Date, Roman, and The Dollar Man, Rodrigo.
My Sophomore year of college, my sorority’s semi-formal was coming up (hey there, Alpha Epsilon Phi). I wasn’t dating anyone (big surprise), so I figured I could either get set up by a girl or guy friend, which a lot of my sisters did, or I could invite a guy friend. I chose the latter, inviting a friend of mine, Dallas, who was in a fraternity we were close with to come with me, and he accepted. Super random side note, but I remember that because I’d just gone ahead and paid for his ticket he brought me a bottle of Hypnotiq for the pre-game at my friend’s place, and I thought I was super cool drinking a teeny-tiny bit of this electric blue concoction, which should say a lot about how I was at 19, but I digress.
We got to our semi-formal, which was at a hotel, and Dallas and I had a good time together, but as the night progressed I started to become ever so slightly suspicious that he had a different idea of how the night would end than I did. Which is where Roman comes in.
Roman was in a different fraternity, and had been brought by one of my good friends, Courtney, after being set up by a mutual friend. I hung out with her for part of the night and started talking to him as well, and developed a bit of a crush. This ended up helping me avoid a potentially awkward conversation with Dallas when it was time to leave, and the night ended on a good note with him, and we remained friendly throughout college.
I could find a photo of!
Photo by Frans Van Heerden on Pexels.com
Long story short, I knew I had a thing for Roman, but obviously, girl code exists so before making a move, I asked Courtney if she was okay with it and she said yes, of course, (their ‘date’ wasn’t anything serious). So I added him on Facebook, sent him a message making up some ridiculous reason for why he needed to text me, gave him my number, got him to text me, we talked for a bit, and then after a little while, I more or less forced him to ask me out, which he eventually did.
He asked me what I wanted to eat if we went to a restaurant, and I said anything but Thai food. We got Thai food. (I told him it was okay once he suggested it, really, I can find something anywhere, plus, he paid). Then, he walked me back to my dorm and was CLEARLY waiting for the invite up, which I could tell, and after about three seconds of nearly letting temptation give in, I was pretty much just like, “Okay cool, had a great time, thanks, bye!” And ran upstairs.
Obviously, things didn’t go further from there. I did text him a couple of times after but we never met up, though I did run into him on the street once years later and it was very awko-taco. To be fair, I myself was often confused by how incredibly forward I was considering my complete and total lack of sexual prowess at the time, so I probably gave him some insanely mixed signals, and considering he was a college-aged frat guy, I get it. So, no hard feelings, just some free Thai food and a funny story about hijacking my friend’s semi-date.
Next up is The Dollar Man – you’ll see why I call him this pretty soon. This was back in the summer of 2016, when I’d just moved back to Orlando, so excited to be closer to Christian again, just to have him give me a three-month long silent treatment because I (rightfully) got mad at him and called him out for something. But, I was about to start a new job and make new friends, plus I had really cool strawberry blonde hair at the time, so, I was determined to make the most of the summer.
I matched with Rodrigo on Tinder. He was from Portugal which I thought was pretty cool (me and my love of foreign men never gets old), and we talked pretty often for a couple of weeks. Finally, I asked him if he was going to ask me out one of these days (are you noticing a trend with me?) and he did, finally asking me to go to Kobe’s – which, if you don’t know, is a Japanese steakhouse – that weekend. I accepted because who doesn’t love some good hibachi?
When we got there, I was immediately a bit perturbed because, again, here was someone who’d clearly fudged on his height a bit. I had asked him how tall he was over Tinder, just out of curiosity to know if I could wear heels or not, and he told me in centimeters, which I converted to be about 5’10” or so. He was about 5’7”, maybe 8”. Again, I don’t care about height, but I DO care when you lie about something that’s going to be blatantly obvious when we meet.
He was also SUPER nervous the whole time. He was clearly intimidated by me, which was kind of cute at first, but as the night went on it just got annoying. We ended up going on a walk after dinner because we were so full, and the whole time he was so jittery talking to me I kept thinking, “Holy crap, if we get jumped right now am I going to have to be the one to beat the person up?”
Photo by Burst on Pexels.com
But really, the biggest problem with Rodrigo came when we got the bill. I always, always, always offer to split the check on the first date (and all dates, really), and when I did, he declined, and I said thank you. Usually, that’s it. But not with him. After he paid, he went on a very long tangent thanking me for offering to pay, because usually girls don’t, and it’s so rude when they don’t, because why do women think that the dollars they earn are more valuable than the ones that a man earns, so it’s up to the guy to always pay? He even told me that one time he nearly left a girl stranded on a date because she hadn’t offered to pay! He went on about this for way too long to the point that I felt very uncomfortable, almost wanting to just take back the bill and pay for myself and split.
I get a guy being appreciative of a girl offering to split the bill, but he didn’t have to bash all the girls who didn’t. I might get flack for this, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being old-fashioned and traditional and expecting the man to pay for the first date. After that, you can split or take turns, sure, but everyone was raised differently and might have different ideas with that. Ultimately, if that’s a problem for you, tell the person what works for you – don’t hold it in and then talk smack about them on a date with a different person.
So, again, Rodrigo was a bust. I remember I even gave him my leftovers because I was going away the next day and didn’t want to waste them, which is kind of funny when you think about it. Overall, he seemed pretty nice but ultimately I was turned off by the height lie, clear intimidation, and monologue about the value of a dollar and didn’t pursue anything further.
And that, my friends, is part one of One Hit Blunders. Stay tuned for next week, when your regularly scheduled blogging will return (get excited for The Stalker!), but don’t worry, more One Hit Blunders are on their way.