The Last First Date of My Life

Step one of living "happily ever after" was mustering the courage to convince Helen to go on a date with me.

Step two was ensuring that the date would be nearly as spectacular as she.

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I always prided myself on planning first dates. After all, there is a reason the statement "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" has become a cliche... because it absolutely true. I figure if I were lucky enough to get a girl to agree to go on a date with me, the least I could do was try and make it something special. Like everything in my life, I always went overboard on first dates (see my post Making Perfect Better for more information on that). For me, going on a date was like going to war. I had to perform some reconnaissance. I needed to map out every detail of the engagement. Most importantly, I had to plan an exit strategy in case things went FUBAR.

For me, this meant doing as much research as possible. This research was much more difficult in 1997 than it is today. Way back in 1997, the vast majority of people, including me, only had dial-up internet connections with a max speed of 56Kps. Let that sink in for a minute. I couldn't just Google her name or check her steemit blog to find out about her interests. I had to put in real work.

Therefore, for me to plan a first date, I actually had to talk to people. I obtained some of the information directly. It turns out that actually listening to her during our conversations over the past few weeks would pay off. But I still didn't have enough information. I could have just directly asked Helen what she wanted to do, but that wasn't "perfect" enough. I had to knock her socks off with a date planned specifically for her.

So I enlisted the use of a spy. In this case, I asked Lucy, her best friend at the club, for a scouting report. What kind of food did she like? What did she like to do for fun? Had she ever mentioned her idea of a perfect date?

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This covert operative was a fountain of information...unfortunately most of it was misinformation. I had made a fatal error. I did not enlist a second spy to provide information on my first spy. As it turns out, the two of them went to the clubs together, but they weren't really that close. If I had relied soley on the intelligence provided by Lucy, I would have been S.O.L.

Luckily, I was able to glean enough information during my conversations with Helen to avoid a complete catastrophe. Somehow, the topic of picnics had come up during a conversation a few weeks earlier. I have no idea how that subject came up in a loud Industrial club... but luckily it did. So I had the basic skeleton of a date: a picnic dinner in downtown Chicago. Not bad.

Now for the details. Lucy had told me that Helen was an art loving vegetarian. Although it is true Helen likes art (everybody likes art) it isn't really her thing. Oh... and Helen is not currently, nor has ever been a vegetarian.

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During the seven short days leading up to the date, I scouted out several parks in the city. I found one directly across from the Museum of Contemporary Art. Perfect! As I mentioned before, Helen really isn't that into art. To make matters worse, if there is one type of art she is least interested in... it's modern art. Still, it was a really nice park.

Seneca Park Photography Courtesy of Minube

Now that the location had been decided, I turned my attention to the menu. Clearly I had to make the food myself. Buying something would not have been the actions of someone striving to "make perfect better". I decided that vegetarians like pasta salad so I bought a cookbook featuring those. My ADHD didn't allow me get very far into the book. I stopped at "Artichoke". I thought Lucy had mentioned that Helen loved artichokes. Bingo!

Even though I had never even seen an artichoke (no exaggeration) let alone cooked with one, I decided I'd give it a shot. Fate must have smiled on me that day. Surprisingly, I did a pretty decent job on the artichoke pasta salad... with lots of fresh garlic. Yep. Being the genius that I am, I decided that on my first date with the perfect woman, I should prepare a meal overflowing with an ingredient that destroys even the freshest of breath. Brilliant!

Perhaps if i had made something minty or even lemon flavored for dessert, I would have had a shot at overcoming that snafu... but I made brownies. Miraculously, that didn't matter.

Fate was on my side.

So many things could have gone wrong that evening. It could have rained... but it was a beautiful August evening right in the heart of the city. We could have been arrested for illegally drinking wine (I brought red and white because I didn't know which she preferred) in a public park. We could have sustained injuries as we played on the children's playground equipment after have one (or seven) too many glasses of wine. We could have wet our pants... because I had forgotten to plan our date in a park with a restroom.

That's right, no restroom... and I have a bladder the size of a thimble.

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I had planned on the picnic lasting a few hours. I figured we'd have our picnic, hit a bar, and then go to our favorite club which was about one mile away. The first time nature called, I panicked and looked around. This was definitely not "making perfect better". I spotted a very busy and expensive restaurant across the street. I hadn't frequented many expensive restaurants, but I was pretty sure they had restrooms. Helen and I quickly agreed on a plan. We would walk in and pretend like we were looking for someone who was already seated.

We walked into the place like we owned it. As the maitre d approached us, Helen looked at me, threw her head back and laughed liked I had said the funniest thing imaginable. We walked right by that poor guy. We visited the restrooms and headed back to our picnic. Everything was just as we had left it. Thank you fate!

We continued to drink wine, play in the playground, and laugh. Then we laughed some more. We were having so much fun that we failed to notice that the fancy restaurant had closed. Even if we could have pulled off our trick one more time, that option was gone. Right on cue, as soon as I noticed it was closed, nature called once again. All the businesses directly around us were closed. We had cruised right past the "hit a bar" portion of the evening. The club was only a mile away, but we couldn't make it fifty feet let alone one mile. We had drunk alot of wine.

Filled with heroes... and a bathroom!
Photograph by Ben Hollier

The only place, within a safe distance, that still had lights on was... a firehouse. Helen and I looked at each other, shrugged, and headed toward the group of firefighters who were sitting on the apron of the open garage while enjoying the warm August air. I had gotten us in to this mess, so I figured it was my job to do the talking. I looked at them, smiled and began to ask, "I have a weird question to ask. Can we...".

A firefighter cut me off and said, "You guys can use the bathroom. It happens all the time." Somehow, my bladder had allowed me to extend a little chivalry and allow Helen to go first. As I waited for her to return (and to take my mind off the fact I really had to go) I chatted with the firefighters. They politely complimented me on my date. They didn't say anything crass or inappropriate. They just looked at me and said, "Nice job buddy. You're a lucky guy." Yes. Yes I was.

After thanking the firefighters for their hospitality, Helen and I headed to the club. We continued to have a great time until the bartender shouted, "Last call". We took a cab back to Helen's where we said our goodbyes. I felt like I was walking on air as I jumped back in the cab and headed home. When I arrived in my apartment, my roommates were still awake playing video games. These were the same guys who worked so hard to set me up on so many first/last dates. These were the same guys who made fun of me all the time for running away from any girl who wasn't my ex-grilfreind. These were the same guys who ran a pool involving all of my other friends. Each one of them tried to predict how many dates it would take before I found something wrong with a woman I was dating. They all wagered one case of beer. Whoever predicted the correct number of dates before I broke things off, won all six cases.

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As I walked in, they smirked and shook their heads like they did after all of my first/last dates. However this time, I didn't shrug my shoulders and smirk back. I looked them dead in their faces and said, "Who picked the most number of dates? You can pay him right now. I'm marrying her."

What was it that the firefighter had said to me that night?

"You're a lucky guy".

I still am.