SS #93 - "The Date"

I was in my first year of university, and he was in my Pleistocene Geology class. He wasn't particularly handsome, and he was pretty quiet. But he had a nice sense of humour, and he knew his way around a topographic map. And I was feeling brave.

When he met me outside of my residence, I was pleased at the look of surprise on his face. Evidently the effort I'd gone to to shed my jeans and sneakers had made a difference. (Heck, I'd even put on make-up.) We made awkward small-talk as we walked through campus and to the movie theatre.

I offered to pay, as I'd asked him out, but he wouldn't hear of it, so we settled for splitting it. The silence between us seemed interminable as we waited for the movie to start. I knew he was shy, so I tried starting a few conversations that went nowhere. When the movie began, we sat watching in silence. But the film wasn't very good, and I spent most of the time trying to figure out what was going so desperately wrong.

I guess, I thought as we walked back to my residence, that this is what they mean when they say it 'didn't click'. Not having a whole lot of experience at this dating thing, and it being the first time I'd asked a guy out, I really didn't know. All I knew was that the movie had been awful, and that I might as well have gone alone for all the social interaction my date was providing.

By the time we reached my door, I was beginning to get annoyed with my silent partner. An evening of meaningless, monosyllabic answers had definitely taken its toll. But I was determined to still be polite.

"This was nice," I said, doing my best to smile. (It was a small geology class. No point in making things awkward, I thought.)

He looked at me for a long time, then finally spoke his longest sentence of the evening.

"I only went," he said, "because I thought you were someone else."