The Fighting Irish: Part II

Picking up where I left off yesterday: I don't think I've ever been so at odds with a person on so many (mostly) trivial issues before--neither one of us could say anything right, and from what I could tell, what follow are the three main things I did wrong. Since Joseph was a ballplayer, I thought the baseball analogy was fitting.

Strike One: I wasn’t jumping at the bit for marriage

In the car on the way to dinner, I asked him about the wedding to be polite. I was expecting something along the lines of “Oh, it was really nice”—what I got instead was a detailed ten-minute rave. I nodded my head vaguely throughout, and then made an innocent remark about the number of acquaintances I had who were getting married in the next year.

Me: Yeah, it seems like everyone and their brother is getting married these days.

Him: Why do you say it like that? Like it’s a bad thing?

Me: Um, well I didn’t mean it’s a bad thing necessarily. There are just a lot of weddings coming up. I guess I’m just nowhere near being ready for that sort of thing.

Him: …

Strike Two: I was in love with the supreme enemy

We never ran out of conversation during our meal, which was heartening. During the course of our little tête-à-tête, Joseph confesses something to me.

Him: You know, I’ve never read a Harry Potter book

Me (in mock shock): You’ve never read a Harry Potter book! That’s un-American.

Him (deadpan): Why is it un-American to have not read an English book?

Me: A British book.

Him: Same thing.

Me (who practically minored in British history): No…

I then take this opportunity to talk about my Anglophilia—how I’ve been to the UK three times,  how much I love London and Tudor history, how side-achingly hysterical I find their particular brand of humor, how mesmerizingly adorable I find their accents. I end my mini-rave with this throw-away statement:

Me: …and I think their system of government is so much better than ours.

Him (looking at me very seriously): I don’t.

Me: (looking at him very bemusedly): Quoi?

Him: I think that it is horrible how they treated the Irish during the Irish Potato Famine.

Commence a full-on FIVE minute rant on the Brit’s treatment of the Irish during the afore- mentioned disaster. I really wish there was someone there to record my facial expressions during this segment of our date, as I’m sure they were priceless.

Sidebar: I later asked my friend, Joey, another Irish-American, if he was still personally offended by the Irish Potato Famine. He said no.

Strike Three: I’m an argumentative bitch who likes uniforms

After dinner, we get in the car and are driving to what I think is the next portion of the date. During this time, Joseph tells me some stories of his experiences at a Jesuit high school out west. Among these was his explanation of the “Great Sock-Off of 2003,” which had something to go with the guys wanting to wear flip flops to school. I stop him right there:

Me: Wait, you didn’t have to wear uniforms?

Him: No.

Me: I’ve never heard of a Catholic school that didn’t require uniforms before.

Him: Well, I was glad; I hate uniforms.

Me: That’s interesting, since you’re a sportsman and all. I mean you wear a uniform on the field…

Him (exasperatedly): Well, why do YOU like uniforms so much?!

Me (thoughtfully): Well…I think that it certainly makes things easier in the morning. I never had to think about what I was going to wear.

Him (emphatically): Neither did I.

Me: Okay, I get that you’re a guy, but you still had to choose a shirt.

Him: Hmph.

Me: And, I think that since we looked more professional, we acted more professionally at school.

Him (heatedly): I think our ninety-nine percent graduation rate onto a four year college proves that we showed up ready to work!

Me: …Dude, not trying to personally attack your school, just giving you my reasons for why I like uniforms…

And she's out!

Very quickly after this exchange it became clear to me that Joseph was driving me back to my cousin’s house. Time elapsed since he picked me up? Exactly one hour.

He gave me a butt-out hug, as if prolonged touching would turn him into a psycho, marriage-hating, uniform-loving Anglophile.

The next month, he unfriended me and blocked me on Facebook. Apparently, my evil powers could also travel over the net. Who knew I had that kind of sway?

The Fighting Irish: Part I

I met Joseph MacLaren through family my first year out of college. It was after an Aggie football game, and I was already laid out on my cousin’s futon, face washed and glasses on, throwing myself a pity party about my job—not exactly the first impression I would have chosen.

It seems that I didn’t scare him off completely, because he friended me on Facebook, and we began exchanging messages every so often (clearly, I didn’t learn my lesson last time with Luke), then with increasing regularity. He was cute and Catholic, and I enjoyed the attention. Finally, he asked for my number, and we arranged to go out the next time I was in town.

The move from Facebook messaging to text messaging and phone calls raised a few concerns on my part. The first warning sign came after our first phone call. We were in the process of firming-up plans: he wasn’t going to be sure of his schedule until the following Tuesday—he had gotten a last minute invite to a wedding and wasn’t sure when it was—so I said he should call me then and we’d figure things out. Later, at the end of a textersation, I said that I’d talk to him Tuesday.

Him: What? I can’t call you until next Tuesday?

Me: …I mean, you don’t need my permission to call me before then. If you call and I don’t want to talk to you for whatever reason, I just won’t answer the phone…

Later on the phone, he reprimanded me for using some PG-13 language while talking about TAKS testing.

Sidebar: If you teach in Texas, I guarantee that you use words worse than “damn” and “shit” when talking about state testing.

I was beginning to get the impression that

a) He was way more into me than he should be, but  

b) He also appeared to be into a Disneyfied version of me that didn’t exist in real life.

I’ve no idea where he got this impression from, as I have no filter and haven’t pretended to be anything other than a bubbly, if slightly eccentric loon.  

But still, I pressed on and the weekend of our ill-fated date arrived. He called me as soon as I got into town to check-up on me, which was nice, I guess, but rubbed me the wrong way (I mean, we hadn’t even gone OUT yet—who did he think he was, my dad?), and because, although he knew I was hanging out with my friends that night, he was wondering if I wanted to meet up for drinks later. It was all a little too earnest, and I was looking forward to our actual date less and less.

After talking it over with my friends, I decided that our original plan of a picnic in Research Park was looking like a bad idea (seclusion didn’t seem like me best bet with this one), and so I texted him to say that the mosquitoes were worse than I thought and it got dark sooner than I was thinking (both true), and perhaps we should choose a restaurant instead. He responded that that was fine, and he would surprise me (cue creepy serial killer music).  

I exchanged horrified glances with my friends, and then insisted, no, I really needed to know where we were going so that I could dress appropriately (always a good excuse). He relented and said that he would take me to a little Italian restaurant downtown. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I had a full schedule the next morning and afternoon, so I decided to take a nap before Joseph came to pick me up. While I was asleep, someone came to the door and my cousin answered it. As it was at least an hour before I expected Joseph, I didn’t think anything of it. I got up about forty minutes later and brushed my hair and teeth, and then went to sit on the futon with a book while I waited for him to text me.

Imagine my surprise when he walked in through the back door with my cousin—the wedding had ended early, and so he’d been hanging out at the house with my cousin for the last hour. While I was asleep in the next room.

What followed was probably the worst date I’ve ever been on.

**Stay tuned for Part Two!**

The Perils of "Talking" via Facebook

My junior year of college, I studied abroad in Italy for a semester. It was one of my favorite college experiences, but I knew that I was going to miss my friends back home. About a week before I left, my good friends, Karissa and Angie, threw me a “Come Back to Texas” going away party, where I proceeded to have about three too many cheap tequila shots. At around 1:30 AM, I sat down on the couch next to an acquaintance with whom I had recently reconnected.

Sidebar: I had just taken a course on Russian History: The Beginning of Time to 1917, which concluded with a twelve-page research paper on the following historical event.

I’m not entirely sure how this particular topic of conversation came up, but upon sitting down next to Luke, I decided that it would be a good time to give an impromptu lecture on Boris Godunov and the Time of Troubles. It’s actually too bad that these guys weren’t there to record it, because I’m sure it was hilarious.

Forty-five minutes later, Luke, bless his heart, was still sitting there next to me, listening as I emphatically recounted Boris’ tragic end and playing endless games of Thumb War with me (I do remember that he didn’t really get the concept of the “thumb” part of the game, and kept trying to use his pointer finger).

He was cute. And polite (hello, he suffered through forty-five minutes of Russian history!). And single, which was an improvement on my past crushes. But I was getting on a plane to Rome the next weekend. What to do?

Thank God and Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook. Almost immediately, Luke and I began chatting online, and the more we talked, the more I liked him. Plus, I had a sneaking suspicion that he liked me too. I sent him amusing tales of my travels, such as the time my friends and I were accosted in the train station in Perugia by a certifiably insane Brit wearing a denim habit who railed against who he believed was the embodiment of all that is evil in this world, George W. Bush; he sent me Dots. After three months of AIM and Facebook messaging and one phone call via Skype, I felt like we were pretty much a done deal as soon as I was back stateside.

He even surprised me at the airport when I got home, which was sweet, though it would have been sweeter if I wasn’t freaking out about the MIP I had almost gotten for the two one-ounce bottles of Limoncello I had in my suitcase, and the fact that I had been traveling for close to twelve hours and had no makeup on and a bad case of plane hair.

Finally, after close to four months of build up, Luke and I were in the same country and could go out on our official first date. What follows is the reason for my reluctance to ever try online dating.

For a couple of people who never ran out of things to talk about over the internet, hanging out in-person and alone for the first time seemed to leave both of us speechless. I attempted to drown out the deafening din of crickets by forgoing eating my dinner in favor of chattering on and on about whatever I could think of: the décor, the douchey customs officer who was clearly out to get me (two one-ounce bottles of Limoncello—clearly, I was trying to start an illegal aperitif-smuggling ring), my failed attempts at getting a publishing internship for the summer.

The self-conscious silence followed us to the park where we took a walk, and back to his house, where we watched a mini-marathon of “The Office” with his roommate. I was getting kind of chilly in my short-sleeved shirt, so I asked Luke if he had a sweatshirt I could borrow. He returned a few minutes later with a long-sleeved thermal and a small orange pill in his palm, which he offered to me.

Him: Here you go.

Me (eying the tablet with suspicion): What is that?

Him: It’s vitamin C. It’s good for you! Take it.

Sidebar: For those of you who are a smidge concerned at this point, I knew Luke to be a bit of a health-nut, in addition to being a truly stand-up guy, so there is no need to fear that the capsule contained anything other than ascorbic acid.

Me (in my head): Vitamin C? What, do I look like I have scurvy?!

Hmm. Maybe that was why he was keeping our physical contact to a minimum…

It wasn’t long after this that Luke’s friend, Mark, called him up.

Mark: Hey, man! What are you up to?

Luke: Not much.

Me (in my head): Ain’t that the truth…

Luke: What are you doing?

Mark: I just got a new car! Want to check it out?

Luke: Sure, man, that sounds awesome! Come on over!

Me (still in my head): Seriously? Does this mean the “date” portion of the evening is over?

And so two became three.

Mark hung out for a bit, and then in an attempt to reclaim Luke’s attention and salvage the evening, I began to yawn hugely and ask if Luke could take me home, thinking that we could at least have some more alone time during the car ride.

Luke: Oh, yeah, sorry. Let’s go. Hey, Mark, do you want to drive?

Me: !!

Mark: Sweet! I’ll go clear-off the backseat.

During the drive home, Mark in the driver’s seat, Luke riding shotgun, I texted my roommates from the backseat to let them know that all three of us would be arriving shortly. I won’t lie, my messages contained a few choice expletives. You know what they say about the best-laid plans…

I don’t remember specifics of the rest of the night, though we probably played Cranium at some point. I can tell you that Luke and I never kissed, though there was some tentative hand-holding. Alas, Luke and I were never meant to be. I spent the rest of the summer in Oklahoma, and our daily conversations dwindled down to a text here and there. By the end of summer, I had heard through the grapevine that Luke was seeing someone else.

So, my dear readers, let this be a lesson to you. Tequila and Russian history make for a quirky and entertaining combination and Facebook has a knack for disguising awkward silences as thoughtful pauses in conversation. Please FB responsibly.