"Socially Awkward Penguin" Is My Spirit Meme

Other titles considered for this post: "Newsflash! I am also bad at this whole dating thing," "Yes, I'm an insane person," and "It's my blog and I can be a Taylor Swift gif if I want to."

This blog has historically ragged on the gentlemen and jerks I've encountered in my dating life. While I think I've done a reasonable job of making fun of myself as well, to be fair (and to ensure that none of you have gotten the impression I am anything close to smooth), I decided to dedicate this post to one of the many wonderfully weird things I have done and said while on a date that could be considered blogworthy, if the domain howtocreepaguyoutinonedate.com is still free.

This summer, I went on a great date, which included a delicious meal and after-dinner drinks and lasted seven hours. SEVEN.

Sidebar: Not a bad thing. Einstein once described his theory of relatively thusly: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”*

*I found this on Goodreads. Do with that and your faith in this quote’s authenticity what you will.

In short, it was definitely not the worst date ever. 

INTERLUDE in which I detail some things to know about me:

Despite what some people have insinuated, while I find absolutely nothing wrong with kissing on the first date, there are no guarantees that I will engage with you in post-date intertongitation, even if you did buy me dinner. Consequently, while I had been on several dates during my sojourn in T-town, I hadn't kissed anyone in ages and had a (possibly) irrational fear that I had forgotten how and so had been feeling a bit trepidatious about what might happen at the end of the date. 

Sidebar: Is making out like riding a bike? Or is it like high school French, and if you don’t use it, you lose it? This sidebar brought to you by the ghost of teenaged Carrie Bradshaw.

It is also important to note that, over the course of the evening, I drank what probably amounted to an entire bottle of wine.

END INTERLUDE

So there I am at the end of the night, a little west of drunk and nervous as all get out, liking this boy and knowing that that pivotal, potentially magical moment that lives between the car door and the door to my apartment was fast approaching.

We parked, and I gracelessly exited his sedan, wobbled on my wedges up the path beside him, and then—he paused.

Oh God, is this happening?

He leaned in...

This is definitely happening. 

...and kissed me.

Oh...hello.

Excitement! And pure terror. Subsequently, spurred by a shot of corticotropin which Wikipedia informs me is the hormone that kicks off the acute stress response, I fled.

Just to keep things confusing for my date though, I paused mid-bolt on the landing of the stairs to my apartment.

“Goodnight!” I called. He turned around and smiled up at me.

“Don’t die!”

Sidebar: My memory is a bit hazy because wine, but I imagine his face looked something like this.

Um...what?

I’m pretty sure what I meant to say was something like, “I had a really good time tonight, and it’s late, and you’re cute, and it would really suck if something horrific happened to you, so please drive safely on your way home so you don’t die,” but the entire first part of that sentence came out as silent subtext.

The moral of this story is I should probably drink less when trying to present myself as something close to a normal human being/love interest. 

Also, good news! Howtocreepoutaguyinonedate.com is, in fact, still available on Go Daddy for the low, low price of $2.99/yr. Someone should jump on that before someone else steals their domain name. #totallynotbitter

Ladies, I pray I'm not alone in my moments of of supreme social awkwardness whilst dating, so please share your own moments of inelegance in the comments below. Gents, if you were on the receiving end of such behavior, feel free to share your own experiences as well. Bonus points if you use reaction gifs.

Sidebar: I'm kind of obsessed with reaction gifs at present, in case it wasn't obvious.

#4, this is a meme :)

A (Catholic) Single Girl's Lament, or Existential Musings On My Own Inefficacy

I found myself mired in a conundrum last night during Mass.

First, a confession—I have a tendency to people-watch more than is entirely seemly while in the house of God. It is a personal failing of mine on which I need to work, but last night, as I cased the pews around me while belting out the processional hymn—one of those which, when they initially announced it, I was like, “I have legitimately never heard of this song before in my life,”…then they played the opening chords, and I was like “OH! …Jeesh, how many times have they used this tune?—I discovered something.

There were at least SIX cute guys sprinkled throughout the congregation that I could see without (obviously) craning my neck.

But not only that, oh no. They were sitting alone. And their butts were in church while the Cowboys were playing, so I knew they weren’t Pokes fans, and ostensibly had good morals (not that the two are mutually exclusive). A closer examination revealed good shoes, bare fourth fingers on their left hands and, in some cases, perhaps even a glint of Aggie gold on their right.

Catholic unicorns. I found myself at Mass with a blessing of Catholic unicorns.

Sidebar: You’ll be interested to know that “blessing” is in fact the collective noun used to describe a gathering of unicorns. I found it on the internets, so it must be true.

Therein lay my dilemma. How to meet these cute, Catholic men?

This is an earnest question. I can barely meet new people when I’m out at a bar where guys are presumably there to mingle with the ladies. And for all of the beauties to be found within a Catholic Mass, interaction with one’s neighboring worshippers is limited to a half-second handshake during the Kiss of Peace.

Sidebar: You better believe I smize the crap out of that half-second handshake though.

Plus, unless one of these theoretically eligible bachelors happens to sit near you (or you see them in time to strategically position yourself in their immediate vicinity), you don’t even get to proffer them a “Peace be with you” imbued with meaning.

Other than that, my arsenal of in-Mass flirting is limited to whispering “Bless you!” and asking on what page the day’s readings are. If I’m lucky and the opportunity presents itself, I might be able to work in some witty banter on whether or not the officiant invalidated the liturgy when he read the wrong Eucharistic prayer.

Sidebar: This actually happened during the early days of the new missal adoption. It was a confusing time for us all. #andwithyourspirit

The fact that I feel I must stoop to this kind of strategery is insane.

But I honestly don’t know what else to do. This question, and the subsequent weight of my own impotence and general ineptitude in solving it, has haunted me for years. YEARS.

I recently discovered that a friend of mine moonlights as the anonymous Catholic twitter account Snobby Catholic, and as he has sixty times the number of followers as I, I imposed upon him a few weeks ago to tweet out my query.

Below, find some helpful suggestions for approaching cute men in church, courtesy of his gagaffle of followers, a collective noun I just made up to fill an inexcusable gap in the English language. It’s gonna be a thing; tell your friends.

1)     Sign of peace handshake

        As previously stated, this is the only guaranteed audible connection and potential opportunity to break the touch barrier available to us singles, but is limited in its effectiveness by the general congregational disapproval towards parishioners flinging themselves across the aisles to make holy palmer’s kiss with the gentleman five pews up, even if the nape of his neck is stunningly gorgeous.

2)     You say, “Hi, I'm (insert name) and I think you're attractive.”

      You, Twitter commenter, are adorable. Besides, this is what I’m saying with my Kiss of Peace smize—why isn’t that enough? Is mind-reading really so much to ask of my fellow brothers in Christ?

3)     Maybe approach after Mass? Where everyone congregates in the back of the church?

Who congregates at the back of the church anymore? Even if cute guy stays to finish all eleventy-thousand verses of “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,” you know as soon as the organist finishes wailing out on the outro, cute guy is out of his pew, snappily genuflecting before making a beeline for the door. And once he’s out the door, the battle is utterly lost because you best believe he’s already on his phone checking the Texans’ score. Or tweeting.

4)     “Would you like a beer?”, “I like your beard” or “How bout that Eucharist, huh”

       The first has potential, but might be awkwardly timed after an 8 AM Mass, and the second is lyrics from a Ke$ha song and would unfortunately reach peak effectiveness in November. That last one though may be perfect. I’ll put that one in my back pocket.

5)     Make eye contact and smile a few times. Nothing over the top. He should do the approaching.

Like this?

Dear readers, I am at a loss. Sound off in the comments below and save me from making badger-face at complete strangers in an attempt to communicate my interest.

***Shameless bid for new followers***
If you'd like to read more things like this but mostly Good Bull Hunting retweets and a series of gifs that track my steep descent into BAS-territory, follow me on Twitter at @scribblesnjots8! Just click the pink bird icon on the right sidebar so I feel like I got my money's worth on the watercolor social media button package I bought off Etsy.