The original plan for the double date was to have a nice, classy dinner at Olive Garden with pulling out of chairs, long awkward conversations, and the splitting of the bill by the men. Everything fell through, however, when we arrived at the already overflowing waiting room at the restaurant, and had a coincidental run-in with a teacher from the high school. We quickly bolted out onto the sidewalk to think up a new plan, while still waiting for Luke to show up.
An hour before the date occured, I still had no idea where Luke was. He was not picking up his phone, answering any of my facebook chats, facebook messages, or texts. I eventually had to call his mom just to get a hold of him. Do not question why I had his mom’s number, it is just flat out irrelevant. But, she was very helpful and gave me the number of one of his friends he was with. When I finally spoke with Luke, he told us that he was at a random McDonalds in Dedham. He agreed to meet us at Qdoba as soon as possible, and started rushing over.
Already feeling bad for Luke’s lack of presence, I bought my date, and his date, their quesadilla and burrito— three meals for under $20, not bad. Half way through our meals, Luke finally shows up apologizing, with a red face and out of breath.The mood was finally set when “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum played in the background at Qdoba as we chowed down our cheap Mexican food. Neither me, nor Luke, sat across from our dates, or even next to them. I doubt the seating arrangement was on purpose, but I secretly found it funny. And, awkwardly enough, Luke did not eat, because of course he was too full from his McDonald’s meal. Conversation started out with us questioning Luke about him randomly being in Dedham, and ventured to us discussing Cashman’s brutal English class.Luke simply answered that he had wanted McDonalds, and his friend wanted to go to Dedham, then shrugged. After this ridiculous conversation, we moved onto the topic of the awful essays we have had in Cashman’s classes, and the abundant amounts of homework he gives us. After my date finished his over-sized burrito, he spent about two minutes going on about how good Queso Sauce is; and on that note, we all headed out. I heard Luke running to catch up as he asked in the background what everyone was doing next. Personally, I acted like I did not hear him, but I think he got an “ahh I don’t know” out of my date. Luke shrugged again, and then ten minutes later brought up the topic again. Yes, we awkwardly gave him the same answers. We eventually decided to part ways, and I drove people to their friends’ houses all across the town.
It was not what we initially expected of the night, actually far from it. But, the night was kept interesting with Luke’s extremely late arrival, the informality of the meal, and the splitting of ways early on in the night. I feel that cliché is never the way to go with dates, so our spur of the moment decisions made the night all that more exciting and unforgettable. For next time, we have learned that we need to structure the night better and leave a little room for last minute decisions. This structure makes a good metaphor for relationships and dating, and also for life in general.
