first date

Have you ever pre-planned a conversation?  The kind where you think you’ll say this then they’ll say that and so forth?  

23 years ago  I was working at the college deli totally oblivious to the fact that I was being manipulated.  This guy, who had been coming in regularly for coffee, tricked me into going out with him.  Now at the time I didn’t realize that it was this whole planned out scheme.  What I knew was that I had a date with this guy, who I thought didn’t like  me, and I was blown out of the water. 

I mentioned it to my friends.  They knew immediately who I was talking about because I had mentioned on more than one occasion about this guy who always looked irritated with me.  I didn’t have a clue what I had done.  Oh, he made an impression on me.   He definitely stood out over all the other guys that came in there.  I am a people person and I just couldn’t figure him out.

Now back to the manipulation, here’s how it went down.  It was later than usual and I was starting to clean up when he walks in to get his coffee.  Usually when he would come in there were lots of people around.  This time he is the only one in there. 

I put  my cheery self forward and this time he struck up a conversation.  He mentioned that today was the final day of end of active service in the marine corp.  To which I told him that he needed to go celebrate.   He then mentions that he doesn’t really know anyone having just returned to college a couple weeks earlier.  To which I respond that there is a dorm full of girls just waiting to go out.  He then nodded and  said that was an idea and left.

I was about to close when here he comes again.  I am clueless.  Looking back I should have known something was up.  This time he says that since it was my idea about celebrating that he would take me up on the idea.  “What was I doing that night?”  Hmm, so I said ok but I was a bit puzzled.   

He then said that he’d be wearing his uniform and we would be going somewhere fancy. 

So it is with mixed emotions that I get ready for this date.  My girlfriends are convinced that I need a chaperon because after all who is this guy anyway?   I am a bit nervous but really only because I am wondering if I can get through this meal without wearing some portion of it.  I really need a bib. LOL 

He pulls up in this white truck and we go to the Nicollet Island Inn.  It is a beautiful restaurant right on the river.  Somehow I get through the meal without spilling (Curt later  jokes about it being the only time – 😛 haha).

The thing that really impressed me was the manners this guy had.  I think if it had been raining, he’d have put his coat over the puddle.  He was a true gentlemen.  The other thing that spoke volumes to me was that he spent  $50.00 on that meal (hey Perkins back then was spending high on the hog at $6.00 a meal).     Who was this guy?  

As for my first impressions of him – that was the Sergeant in him.  He wasn’t angry at all.  He had just been conditioned for four years in the military to wear that face.  Every once in awhile the Sergeant does come out.  🙂

When we got back to my place,  he came inside and we talked for quite awhile.  Before he left he prayed with me.   The way he just talked to God was refreshing to me.  This guy wasn’t like all those other Bible college guys that I had dated.  I was in for one more surprise.  As he went to leave, he hugged me.  He didn’t know about  my dating rule.  If a guy tried to kiss me on the first date, there wasn’t a second date.   

It is much later in our dating relationship that he comes clean and tells me that he had worked out the whole initial conversation ahead of time to set me up to go out with him.  The problem came when I suggested he go find a girl over in the dorms.  That was not part of his pre-planned conversation.   To which then he had to go back and rethink his strategy.

It’s been 23 years since that first date.  He is my best friend.  It is an adventure.

til next time