A Date

Here is the story of a very bad date.

I met a girl a few months ago and got her number. We talked on the phone several times and had some things in common, so we went on a date. The date went well. We ended the night in a bar on the Upper West Side, where we drank until four in the morning, had fun, and decided a second date would be appropriate.

Second dates aren’t first dates. They’re more formal. You have to dress well, plan ahead, and, unless you’re an asshole, expect to spend some money. This is something I’ve learned. The whole thing is a process. It’s a shitshow. You’re supposed to be having fun, but there are rules you have to follow with this nonsense – and when you’re a little fucked in the head, as I was at the time, the whole affair can border on the fucking absurd. I’m not fucked in the head anymore, but I certainly was – at least in a dating sense – for quite a while, which didn’t exactly help my cause.

I took her to a sushi place the second time around. I love sushi, and she said she did, so I assumed it’d make for a very good start to the night. We sit down. She orders a bottle of sake. I think, “Okay, she wants to drink tonight. This is good.” I don’t particularly need to drink on dates – more on that in future posts – but it’s a big help, unless I have that one sip that zips me across that whole “What the fuck am I doing here on a date?” line I have a tendency to cross.

I always order the same thing: the sushi/sashimi deluxe, with one special roll. It’s plenty of food, but it’s not enough to bloat me to kingdom come if I’m planning on having a few drinks afterward. She ordered first, and that’s where our story begins.

She kicked off the extravaganza with the sushi/sashimi deluxe, then moved down the menu $20 at a time, ordering (I think) four different chef’s special rolls to go with her entrée. She also told the waitress to “keep it coming” with the sake.

At first, I’m thinking, “Okay, this might be cool. She understands how I like to eat, so she doesn’t want me to walk out of here hungry.” I wasn’t entirely sold on the situation, and I was a little worried about the check – there were drinks involved, remember – but whatever. I was giving her the benefit of the doubt. I was rooting for her not to be out of her fucking mind. Rooting very hard.

The food arrives, and the plates cover the entire table. It looked like a corporate fucking buffet: two full boats, five plates of rolls, two bottles of sake, and a 20-something ounce bottle or Kirin. Time to go to work, right? I started in on the tuna roll that came with my sushi boat, then made the mistake of veering my chopsticks toward one of the extra rolls she’d ordered.

“No!” she shrieked. “Those are mine! You can’t touch those!”

Mine?

See, this could have gone one of two ways. Either she was being cute and playful, or she was a fucking loon. Really? Seriously? You had to turn out to be a fucking loon? But yeah, she did. She barely touched any of her food, content to sit there, drink sake, and blather on about some certification course she need to take for her job, like I gave two shits with all the number crunching going on in my head.

She then flags down the waitress and asks to have all the rolls she’d ordered wrapped, then orders yet another bottle of sake – her third. At this point, there’s smoke coming out of my fucking ears. I stare off into the distance for a few minutes, and then the waitress comes back with the containers and the bottle of sake.

The girl looks me straight in the eye, smiles, and says, “Now I’ve got lunch for the rest of the week!”