This will likely be anticlimactic

My most recent date was not my worst blind date, (I've already told that story) but it was still special. And it's one more story I'll be trotting out the next time someone accuses me of Not Making an Effort. I'll also be trotting out a taser, because who even walks up to a middle-aged spinster librarian and tells them they're just being too picky? That's when I think a good idea would be to look at the speaker's spouse, raise The Eyebrow, and say, "Clearly that wasn't your problem."

A little while back I decided to drive down to Provo to spend time with the Preciouses. And their parents, I suppose. When Jen's friend heard I was coming she said that she needed to set me up with a guy who works in the same lab as her husband. All she could tell me about him is that he's cute, smart, and nice. Which . . . okay, that's a good start. Of course, there's also the works in a lab part, which I kind of smoothed over in my mind as we spinster women occasionally do when it's either that or start downloading application forms for adopting unwanted Korean infants. So I said okay, gave her my number, and said that if he wanted to get together for a couple of hours that would be cool.

I got a call as I was heading home from work to pack for the weekend. The important part of the conversation went a-like so:

Blind Date: "So, do you like karaoke?"

Me: "Um, I don't actually know. I can't say that I've really . . . done much karaoke."

On account of I'm normal and not drunk in a pub somewhere.

BD: "Really? You've never tried it?"

Me: "Nope." (see above) "Why, was that . . . one of your ideas for tonight?"

BD: "Yeah, there's this place I go to pretty much every week, it's great."

Getting worse and worse, while I tried to decide if I could really let myself in for an evening of sitting in a crowded (or worse, uncrowded) place watching my Science Boy date croon Lady in Red while I convulsed with embarrassment. Which could then only get worse if I were convinced to get up there and take the microphone myself. On account of I like to think I have this low, well-modulated voice, only I actually don't. It's high and brittle and when I sing it sounds like an old lady with pneumonia is trying to claw her way out of my sinuses.

Me: "Okay, see . . . here's the thing. I am not a very confident singer. And I think in order for me to get up in front of a group of people and sing like that I would probably need to be with people I know really well, and not someone that I haven't actually met before. Or I would need to be really drunk."

BD: "Oh . . . oh. Okay, no, I know what you mean. I guess that makes sense that it wouldn't be the best idea for a blind date."

Me: "Yeah, maybe not this time."

BD: "Well, my other grand passion is bowling."

Which, would have actually been kind of witty if he'd been kidding, which he wasn't. Turns out he was on a league and everything. So I said that bowling sounded fine, and inwardly resigned myself to One Of Those Nights. I just don't see the point of bowling. I mean, who decided that it was the great go-to date idea? But I just couldn't shoot down both his ideas without feeling like a jerk.

I called my sister and told her she was dead to me, while she hyperventilated with laughter on the phone. And then she called her friend, who felt responsible for unknowingly setting me up with a Karaoke Singer. So she decided to invite herself and her husband along on the date just in case it needed salvaging. Only then she needed to find a babysitter for her two little kids. And my sister volunteered.

So . . . the original plan was for me and Spitfire to head down and spend a relaxing weekend with our family. Instead, we now had my two sisters spending their night at someone else's house babysitting, a tired, pregnant married couple joining a late-night bowling date out of a sense of responsibility and guilt, and me and this guy going on a date that neither of us were looking forward to.

Smart, huh?

We didn't get to the bowling alley until about 10pm, and the conversation in the car was practically nonexistent even though I did try. The guy was perfectly nice and good-looking but we had absolutely nothing to talk about. All I got out of him were one-word responses. And I was too tired to sparkle in my usual sparkly way. I kind of hoped that the bowling alley could have burned down on our way there so that we could have just forgotten about the whole thing.

At the bowling alley they asked us how many games we wanted to play. The married couple and I were undoubtedly all having the same thought: "One." Or, you know, maybe they could tell us that they were closing. Or that they were having an anthrax scare, or that the child molester on lane 3 keeps flashing people so they're evacuating the building while they wait for the cops.

Our companion looked at us and said, "Well, my best game is always game 3."

We compromised at 2. I got a rubbish score. My date did a strange stiff-jointed dance every time he got up to bowl. Me and the pregnant girl yawned a lot. My date and I stopped pretending to be interested in conversing with each other. We drove back to the married people's house and he kept repeating over and over again how tired he was, so I told him that I would just go home with my sisters.

Aren't we all glad we did that? It could have been worse, though. I could have agreed to the karaoke.

Posted in: dating or not so much