The First Date Curse

I have only two rules for anyone going on a first date. The first rule is never go for fondue. Fondue, although both fun and delicious, is a guaranteed 3-hour endeavor. Eating for hours on end is fine if you already know you enjoy your date's company, but more often than not, you don't already know that.
The second rule is always, always, always have a backup.
Having gone on another first date three nights ago, I mustered only enough wherewithal to comply with one of the two rules. This should come as no surprise though, as I am absolutely cursed, first date-wise.

There really shouldn't have been any problems. This girl, we'll name her "Amelia" for the sake of confidentiality, and I have been getting to know each other since mid-July. Frankly, this first date was a mere formality. More a romantic gesture of tradition than an honest attempt at wooing. And I think perhaps, that is why I muffed it all up, because I pressured myself into making the night more important than it needed to be.

The entire day started with me trekking to various clothing retailers in hopes of sprucing up my already topnotch wardrobe.* But if you know me, you know that I really should not be shopping alone.
Whether it be my sister, my mother, or a gal-pal, I need help.
And after an hour-and-a-half of staring at three versions of a wool pullover while the an Asian wearing pants more expensive than my car (but no less worn out) sniggered at my indecisiveness, I decided to bite the bullet and buy some threads that were way too nice for the pile of dirty laundry they would inevitably find themselves sitting on in 24 hours.
I have to admit, I ended up seeking help. Not from the smug Asian, but from a kindly young lady who was either five years younger than me or a decade older - these days I can never tell.
Within four minutes of soliciting her help, this girl managed to mention her boyfriend and her boyfriend's taste in clothing no less than two dozen times. Should I have been offended by this? Did she think I was hitting on her? Is that why she kept "dropping the BF" on me? And how can asking a retail employee her opinion on the clothes she's trained to peddle constitute hitting on her? And if she didn't think I was hitting on her, was she trying to make me jealous?
And if she was, are the rest of you women that Goddamned obtuse?

I'm sorry. I don't like shopping. It makes me cranky.

I should have known. I've had several "first-dates" before and something bad happened on all of them.
There was the first date where I spilled fetuccini sauce all over my white shirt three minutes after dinner was served.
There was the first date I got a ticket for running a red light while borrowing my friend's car. His dad ended up paying that ticket.
There was the first date that simply happened without much planning and my girlfriend's sister ended up going to the movies with us.
There was the first date where the restaurant I chose was in such an odd part of town that we were forced to take a cab, and the cab driver went apeshit on some dude walking in front of him.
First dates and I rarely align correctly.

But last night was going to be different. Last night I was going to take Amelia to one of my favorite restaurants in the city, a safe place. A comfortable place...
...A place that had apparently gone out of business since the last time I had been there two years ago.
A little hint about first dates, if you ever find yourself standing on the corner of Rush Street and Ohio Avenue without any clue as to where to go, and the person accompanying you is slightly cold, wearing heels and seconds away from being offered a piggyback ride as appeasement - you've failed the planning stages of the date.
Rule #2: always, always, always have a backup.

More than once, Amelia suggested that we forgo all other plans and just head over to ESPN Zone.
I've had bad dates, but never "settle-for-ESPN-Zone-bad".

Pissed at Google for giving me the address of a restaurant that no longer exists, we made a mad scurry back to the parking lot, got my car, paid six bucks to, in essence, walk around the downtown area for twenty minutes, high-tailed it to the exact opposite side of town (because in my fury, I was blind to all other nice rerstaurants in the vacinity) and proceeded to lose my f-ing mind in the forty minutes it took me to find my way to my backup restaurant.
Then, for reasons I could not explain even during the moment, I decided that even though we were a block away from the new restaurant, now would be a good time to take a gander at the school I attended when I was young. I drove past the restaurant and down another series of streets and in my head, I'm screaming, "Asshole, you were supposed to eat forty minutes ago, you've been a sourpuss for the last fifteen minutes, you've gotten lost three times on the way over here and now... now you're deciding to whizz past your old elementary school, wherein you will most likely get turned around and cost you both another forty minutes of aimless driving?"
That's what I said in my head, but outwardly, I drove on in silence.

I am not a smart man.

We found my school, drove into the parking lot, saw two people engaging in some sort of shady doings at the playground, and I quickly drove off. At this point, I started feeling like DeNiro in 'Taxi Driver' when he took Cybil Shepard to the porno theater only to realize that girls don't feel comfortable in porno theaters.
"Oh, I'm sorry Amelia. You mean, you'd rather not see two junkies shootin' dice on the grounds of my elementary school? Oh. Okay. My mistake. I thought it'd make a nice apertif to our meal."

Then got lost for another twenty minutes just like my inner thoughts assumed I would.

For the sake of this blog, I'd like to continue relaying how poorly this supposed slam-dunk of a date ended up. For the sake of this blog, I'd like to tell you that Amelia was cold and bitter and that I cried while searching for a parking spot. I'd like to tell you that I spilled hot butter on my pants and cried about that too. I'd like to tell you that the waiter hit on my date and swept her off her feet. I'd like to tell you that a hobo robbed me of my wallet and shoes while I headed back to my car alone.
For the sake of this blog, it would seem fitting to tell you that, but that's not what happened. Almost ninety minutes after we were supposed to start eating, we actually started eating. And once Amelia made me promise to forget the beginning of the night, the rest of the night went just about how it should have.

But that's because she willed it to be that way. If it were up to me, I'd still be standing somewhere on Rush Street looking for a restaurant that I used to go to, back when it was in business.

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* And by "top-notch", I clearly mean a dresser full of board shorts and band shirts.