I visit a couple different forums and this is one of the latest threads on both boards and I caught the same question coming up on a few blogs, especially in the past few weeks. Have no clue why this subject is coming up and such a popular topic but all I have to say is maybe people are just having really bad dates lately?
But the topic inspired today's post. BMMH (before meeting my husband) I dated as often as I could. Mind you I could not date until I turned 16. Anyone hazard a guess as to what I did on my 16th birthday? Yep, had my first date.
High school dates were just that - high school'ish. Hormones were raging and at the time, it was 'not proper' for a girl to ask a guy out unless it was 'Sadie Hawkin's Day' aka Turn-a-bout. Even then, I actually never asked a guy out until after college. I know - hard to imagine. But in high school I dated exactly 2 guys and one I was engaged to my senior year. That is my first of many worst dates/romances. I got a 'Dear Jane' letter 2 weeks prior to my senior prom which ended up being the only prom I never attended (unless you count being freshman attendant and attending the prom with my father as one but I don't). Okay maybe that was the 1st bad date come to think about it. Who goes to prom with their father????? So the 'Dear Jane' letter also included a picture of my Navy fiancee with his arms around 2 naked women. On the back he had written: "Sorry, having too much fun to come back home or get married". Yes, I did get him back 2 years later when he begged me to go out with him again. I said yes and strung him along and then dumped him within 4 weeks.
So instead of getting married, I went to college instead - a college that was 80/20 percentage of men to women. Nice odds in my favor and I took full advantage of those odds when I wasn't working full time nights or going to school full time during the day or working in the cafeteria during lunch and dinner. I did manage to date quite a few guys though and while every single one of them was nice, most I dated only once and those few I allowed more than one date became really good friends with no benefits and some whose friendships lasted years. You ask the reason why I would only date or give a guy one chance? Because I was into school and had a very busy life and most guys were into partying and sex and that wasn't me. Plus they didn't grab my attention in any way shape or form so I would never let them into who I was to allow them to have a 2nd date. I was pretty picky, okay really picky.
My next memorable worst romance came the beginning of my senior year of college when I met a guy from Notre Dame. He was nice, polite, Catholic, and fit all my criteria especially since he lived over 5 hours away so he didn't interfere with either my work or school schedules. I dated him for 4 months and ignored that 'feeling' things weren't quite right with him mainly because there were too many right things that I knew or thought I knew that I wanted. Yeah, things weren't right - I eventually found out he was engaged and planning a wedding for June that year with a girl on Long Island.
I actually didn't date at all for almost 6 months (finished college and had started grad school full time days while working full time on the PM shift and was studying for the nursing boards). A friend set us up - stated said guy was nice and quiet and studious. 1st date he took me to dinner at this hard rock bar where all one had to do was inhale and they were immediately stoned. I asked him to take me home and he actually did but then expected me to 'reimburse' him for his expenses that night. By reimbursement he meant sex. I said no. He wouldn't take no for an answer until I kneed him and flipped him over my shoulder. He got the message and left. Nice and quiet my rear.
Next guy - still in grad school and still worked PM shift at a hospital - I lived next to a restaurant and worked there part time on the weekends or any day I was off work to pick up more money to pay for school. I met a drummer in a band. Great guy. Perfect manners. Nice and quiet and loved to dance and talk about books he had read (later I found out he had read the Cliff Notes in order to discuss them with me). He especially liked classical music which is my true musical love and best of all loved my 2 cats. Dated him for 3 months. Even met his mother! One night after work his wife showed up at my apartment building. I heard her yelling slut and a few other choice words and looked around and figured she was talking about one of my illustrious neighbors. She caught me as I went to enter the locked door to the complex and whirled me around and said basically that I was a whore and was sleeping with her husband. At first I didn't believe her but we started talking and sure enough, the 'perfect' guy I was dating was not only her husband but the father of the 2 year old she had with her and the father of the baby she was carrying. Refused to talk to him ever again. I ended up having to change apartments and phone numbers to get him off my back but did end up with a rabbit coat which I let the cats use as a blanket. They loved it. Oh and the mother bit - she hated her daughter-in-law which is why she never said anything to me.
It took me almost 6 months again to dare to date again. There had been a new crop of residents at the hospital I worked at and I was friends with a few of them. I still had 6 months left of grad school and was meeting residents at not only the hospital I worked at but the hospital I was doing the grad work at but I wasn't interested in even dating a doctor. Nope - wanted a banker with normal hours and someone who fit an image of what I considered the perfect family (yanno like the Cleaver family). Instead I met my husband. Yes he was a resident and yes he was everything I wanted except he was a doctor. He said we couldn't date if I continued working at the hospital he was at (there was some rule the residents could not date the nurses) so I changed hospitals again. Yes, I knew even then that he would come to mean something to me. I think we had 3 dates between September and the following February mainly because of both of our schedules. After grad school was done I switched to day time hours at the hospital and we had more time to date. It was 8 months after that we got engaged and 8 months later we married.
So I had quite a few bad dates and romances and went through quite a few toads before I met my prince even though he was a doctor and is never home for dinner by 5pm.
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