When I think back on my first date, I usually tend to skip those ones when I was younger and had to have a parent drive us around. While those nights of young puppy love are fun to think back on, I think when talking about a first date it’s more appropriate to talk about my first *real* date.
So to that end, let me tell you about my first. I had just turned 16 and had my own set of wheels, and the young lady in this story is named Tammy (real name changed to protect the innocent). We worked together at the grocery store and were friendly for a while. Soon that friendliness turned to flirting, and it didn’t take me long to ask her out on a date.
She eagerly agreed. Now I don’t know if it was because she was into me, or if it had more to do with the fact that I had a ride of my own when a lot of my peers did not. But either way, she was down and said yes.
Being a man of class and means, for dinner I took her to one of the finest restaurants I knew of at the time…Wendy’s. While you may snicker under your breath, you’ve got to remember that I live in a rural area. Heck, we had to drive to the next town over just to have a place to eat. And you throw in the fact that Wendy’s had those nice atriums at the time and still had the cool tables featuring the old news print, it was a classy joint. Plus their meat was fresh, not frozen.
Those of you who have followed me for a while may be wondering why I didn’t take her to Pizza Hut, but I was saving that for when we were more serious. I would learn my lesson in that regard and start going there on the first date so as to come across as a big spender.
To try and appear to be more mature, I ordered a Taco Salad instead of a burger on that night. Maybe her Mother had spoken to her and gave her some instruction as she ordered the same thing that I did.
We ate dinner and chatted and it must not have been anything memorable because I can’t recall any specifics other than being my overly charming self. Once dinner was finished, we drove back the way we came, passed my town, and headed to the next town where the cheap movie theater was. I could have taken her to the theater at the mall, but it was $4 more per ticket than the rundown one I took her to.
As I sit here and write this, I can’t remember what movie we saw that night. I do remember that the only move I put on her in that theater was putting my arm around her. That was it. I was being a perfect gentleman, and she was being a lady.
When the movie was over we left and were heading back towards her place. She suggested that the night was still young, and asked if I wanted to cruise around her town for a little while. We made those rounds a few times but quickly lost interest. She then suggested that we head over to the area called the “well fields” for a bit. I may not have been the smartest young man around at the time, but I knew that the well fields didn’t have much to offer besides parking in the dark. So of course I was willing to go there.
We hadn’t been there long and chatted ever so briefly before we were all over each other. The whole night of trying to be a gentleman and a lady quickly gave way to being our flirtatious selves that had attracted us to each other in the first place. There had been no reason to stand on attention as we had done throughout the evening. I believe we could have just started at the Well Fields.
While we only had a few more dates and never really hit it off or had much in common outside of wanting to go park somewhere in the dark, she still holds a special place with me as the girl I went on my first real date with.
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