Bad dates=good stories

I don't usually enter writing competitions, mainly because I don't think anything I write is good enough,  plus even if it were I suffer from A.D.D. at open mic gatherings, preferring to read other people's stories on my own terms, alone, and while in slipper socks. 

Yet, with Valentine's Day approaching, and the fact I have one V-Day advertiser confirmed for The Pipeline, and figure I'll have to politely acknowledge the existence of the holiday given the majority of readers might celebrate it, I was intrigued by experiencing the holiday in a different way, perhaps at an Anti-Valentine's Day story gathering taking place outside of the neighborhood. 

Perhaps V-Day 2010 will be better than the evening of Feb. 14th 2009 when I was at the emergency vet clinic with my cat hooked up to a catheter, or the Feb. 14th before that when a man who at the time I didn't know was Eurotrash and who criticized everything I wore down to my socks, wooed me with a carnivalesque dog he picked up at Walgreen's and hung from the exhaust pipe of my apartment using wire which I finally cut, long after the wiener dog had been stuffed into a dumpster in the dark of night.

Maybe even on some level listening to the bad date stories of others will be better than a Feb. 14th before the turn of this century when my ex was cooking a romantic dinner and I arrived 45-minutes late to said dinner because the 

"Choose Your Own Adventure" style V-day card I was writing featuring references to our lives kind of like in those personalized books for kids that used to be all the rage at shopping mall kiosks in the 80s had turned into a 40-page story with graphics. I'd experienced great difficulty printing off the card-turned-story in its entirety, all the while apologizing profusely for my lateness through phone calls and trying to put on make-up. He never read the story, and I married him. 

Though there's three or four other 500-word-or-less bad date stories I can write up to submit for consideration, with one about accepting an invitation to be a date to a then older man's 10-year high school reunion because I was kind of in a weak moment-- we used to sell our plasma on the same schedule and he was laying on the naugahyde chair alongside mine when he inquired as to my Saturday night availability--  I decided to stop at just one story.  The following bad date yarn was originally 1,600 words and I just condensed it to 491. 

A Very Candid Evening

by Aly Hensler

At ten after eight, I call D.  His voicemail says, "Do not leave me a message. I won't listen to it. Send an email instead."


I wonder if there’s another entrance. There is, and D. is climbing the fire escape.

The bemused hostess leads us to a table in the back of the restaurant, which used to be a railroad car. In the narrow aisle I walk gingerly behind D., watching his large backpack to ensure it won’t knock any glasses over.


"So," D. says, before removing his coat.  "Did you check out my company’s web site?” 


I reply that I did. Ten minutes later D. is still talking. I blurt, perhaps too forcefully, "Do you want to check out the menu?" 



Cue received,  D. thanks me, and says he “likes people that speak their minds.”  
He tells me that he is in daily psychoanalysis.

"You mean you see a therapist every day?" I ask.  

"Yes," he replies. "You knew this from my profile. There is a pause. He adds, "I mentioned it in my profile."





His profile had said something about being an "analysand," though I’d assumed it meant a student of psychoanalysis, not a daily patient of it.

He studies the menu, and declares, "I'm not hungry.”

Over a cup of soup I learn there are three women in D’s life, yet he does not enjoy a sexual relationship with any of them. 

He proffers that the woman with whom he shares the strongest emotional connection with is extremely jealous that he is on a date tonight. 
He looks at me defiantly.

"It’s OK, “I assure him. “I don't think she has anything to be jealous of.”

He asks me why I feel like there’s nothing for his female friend to be jealous of.  "Be totally honest," he requests.

I tell him I don’t feel much chemistry.


"You’re holding back," he insists. "What else?”

“Your voicemail," I admit. “It's not friendly.”

“Okay,” he says. “What else?

”

"This is weird. Why are you asking me to critique you?" I wonder.


"I want you to," he says. "Plus, I promise to tell you why I don’t feel much chemistry toward you."




"Cool," I say. "Your backpack, it’s huge."



We both look at his backpack, which occupies the seat next to D. Had the backpack of been a toddler it would be about three-years-old based on its weight, and height.  

I then ask what it is about me that made him determine there’s no chemistry.

"When I saw you, I thought, ’She’s too normal,” he admits.  
"Your coat, your hat, your purse, the way you carry yourself, it’s all so normal. I don't usually get along with normal people.”

He walks me to my car, and I drive away thinking about normality. Though in most cases it’s overrated, quite candidly, and coming from D. I decide to take it as a compliment.