Personally, I don’t prefer blind dates. I have nothing against them. I just don't want to be reading the menu to them, telling them to watch their step, walking them around everywhere, etc. I’m joking. For real though, blind dates have always terrified me. Anybody who knows me, knows that I do not talk when I eat, and I expect you not to talk to me while I eat. (EATING IS A BEAUTIFUL THING PLEASE DON’T RUIN IT WITH WORDS. UGH.) However, if I’m on a blind date, I can’t live by this principle that I have believed in my entire life because I come across as a “dick” or something. And I know what you’re thinking, “So, it’s cool if you’re a dick on dates that aren’t blind dates?” And the answer to this pretentious question is YES. Look, if I ask a girl out that I’ve already built a friendship with, I’m basically free to be myself, but when I’m on a blind date, the last thing that I’m going to be is myself. Everybody knows that the key to a great beginning of a relationship starts with lies and deceit. The truth hurts, and that’s why I’m a firm believer that you should stay away from it. This advice is free kids.
I say all of that to say that I went on a blind date a few weeks ago. My first ever blind date, actually. There have been many attempts to set me up on blind dates in which I never took seriously. I don’t know why I decided to ask her out. Well, I do know why. My aunt is the one that set this up, and she said that this girl likes to write and travel. I told her, “So does 95% of women in their 20’s.” I’m not saying I full out Facebook stalked her, but I Facebook stalked her enough to see that she was beautiful, and we had a few things in common that I was interested in, so I thought, “What the hell. I’ll ask her out.” So, I did. Over Facebook messenger. Which was a mistake. It took her a month to respond to me. I, immediately, started thinking, “Maybe she saw pictures of me when I grew out my hair last year and thought, ‘Nah I’m good’” Or maybe she thought my Spotify playlists were too dull. I hate you Facebook. She claims that since we weren’t friends on the Facebook that my message got sent to her deleted messages. The amount of times I pressed “refresh” in that month period is astounding. But lo and behold, she said yes.
I know manly pride should stop me from saying this, but I was nervous before the date. Hell, I did shot of Brandy before just to calm my nerves. OF BRANDY. I didn’t really know what we were going to do that night until that night.
I took her to St. Joseph’s Brewery, which is this old catholic church that was converted to a brewery in downtown Indianapolis. If you’re in Indy and like craft beer, I would highly recommend it. Anyways, I thought things were going well, so I asked if she wanted to take a walk on the canal, in which she said yes. Little did I know that I was about to enter into the most bizarre, frightening, strangest moments of my life.
The canal in Indianapolis, to me, is known as Indy’s quiet place, but I guess I’ve never been there past midnight on a Saturday. At the beginning of our walk, we saw two clocks that were winding backwards at a rapid pace, which I thought was a bad omen. Like, that has to be a bad omen right? Regardless, I threw up a prayer to the almighty God and his son Jesus Christ to keep a hedge of protection over us. Anyways, we walked/light jogged the whole canal which is about a mile and a half one way. Why did I just say light jogged? Well, a little bit about me. When I’m into something, whether it be a conversation, a place, a person, etc., I tend to walk at a much faster pace. Side story: when I was in Tokyo, I actually lost my friend when we were walking to the Tokyo Tower. As I saw him round the corner to meet me, I, to this date, have yet to see a man perspire like that, which is saying something because I shop at Walmart on the reg (it’s funny because a lot of overweight people shop at the Walmart you what nevermind). Anyways, since I could clearly tell that she was a bit winded trying to keep up with me, I found a spot where we could sit down and talk without her having to go home to grab her inhaler real quick.
We sat and talked about life, what we wanted to do, what our interests were, how I dated a lesbian once, how much I love Kanye, how much she hates Kanye, you know, your normal first date conversations. During our conversation, we heard a loud noise, which I thought was a gunshot, but I played it cool and told her that it was probably a “firecracker or something,” as I frantically looked around, in which she replied, “Are you sure? Should I be worried?” She definitely had a right to be worried because I still wonder if I had a near death experience at that time. We had been talking for a couple hours, then a raindrop hits both of our heads at the same time. I, specifically, picked this night to be our first date because I saw no rain in the forecast. I made the comment, “This actually feels nice” because it was kind of humid out, but then the torrential downpour took place. We got soaked and ran under the nearest bridge.
Now, I started a new paragraph to talk about our experience under the bridge because it truly is a story in itself. As we stood under the bridge, I couldn’t help but stop and stare at the characters around me. To the right of me was a couple that you would typically find at your local county fair: girl with lip ring, ass hanging out of dem jeans, lower back tattoo (assumption), and arguing with her man, who happened to be wearing a wife beater tank, jorts with boots, and smoking a cig directly into his gir's face. To the left of me was, what I perceived to be, a gang. Across the canal, a guy had his boo pinned up against the wall, going hard in the paint (just making out; no sex), then there were 2 cyclists just riding through the bridge which is weird considering that it’s 1am at this point. I’m honestly speechless for about 3 to 4 minutes as I look at all the characters around me, then it gets weirder. I shit you not, in the distance, I hear people singing. Not just singing, but singing well. Like classical music. It starts to become louder, then, I see a group of 4 people, 2 girls and 2 guys, walking towards us singing a cappella in the pouring rain. They were just walking at a normal pace (slow to me), singing without missing a beat. They didn’t even stop when they got under the bridge, they just kept singing and walked into the rain on the other side into the distance, where they disappeared. I know you’re expecting me to wake up at any time, but I swear I couldn’t even dream this.
As we’re waiting under the bridge, the rainstorm turned into a thunderstorm. The lightning in this storm made U2 concerts look like…Michael Bolton concerts. This storm was just absolutely insane. Lightning bolts are occurring just about every 3 seconds, which inevitably, is followed by a roaring thunder (“It’s coming. The thunder.” That’s an inside joke. Don’t laugh at it.) One lightning bolt shot down and struck the canal right next to the bridge that we were under, which was followed by possibly the loudest noise that has ever entered my ears. I’m not saying that I urinated myself, but I’m also not saying that I didn’t. It was tough to tell, since my pants were soaked from the rain.
We finally mustered up the courage to run out in the downpour even though my car was a solid mile away. We didn’t have an umbrella, rain jacket, poncho, rain boots, nothing. We ran through the streets of downtown Indianapolis extremely ill-prepared and no sense of direction because we forgot where I parked. As we were waiting for the light to turn green, so that we could cross the street, a car drove over a puddle and showered me with water. To make it worse, some jackass stopped at the light to the right of me yelled, “You should have been further away from the road.” “Thank you,” I sarcastically replied.
After about 30 minutes of intensely searching that would put Liam Neeson to shame, we finally found my car in all her beauty. As we’re driving to her house around 2am, we pass an empty parking lot except for this one car. The car was under this street light in the middle of the parking lot. There was a long-haired man leaned up against the car with his head down, hands on the hood, letting the rain pour over him. This is one of the more terrifying images that still haunts my dreams to this very day. Again, I was soaked from the rain, so it’s inconclusive whether urine was involved or not.
How did the date end? Did I kiss her? Did she kiss me? Did I give her the ol’ “We should do this again sometime”? Well, let me talk strictly to the girls now. So girls, I gave her a hug, told her that I had a blast in which she agreed. I gave her a kiss on the cheek, told her how beautiful she looked, got on my white horse, and rode off into the rain. Now, let’s talk to the guys. Yeah bros, we made out; we made out all night long, then I was all like, “Shiiii, I gotta go home” and she was all like “No, stay” and I was all like “Nah, I’m tired. Got another date tomorrow night” and she was like, “Fine (sad face).” I joke. The ending was about the only normal thing that happened on the date. Goodbye hug, tell each other you had fun, text each other when you get home to reiterate that you had fun, then go to bed.
Josh
