A few days after the keg party I went upstairs; David’s door was open. Entering the room, band posters cover all the walls. “Hey David” “Hey Sandy, how’s it going?” I spent a lot of time in David’s room talking, we got along well.
I got right to the point. “What’s the deal with Fiona?” David looked confused; he didn’t seem understand the vague question. “What do you mean?” I chuckled, knowing that he knew what I meant. Reiterating the question, “Well… I was wondering if she was single… on the market…. available…. you know…” continuing without an answer “You’ve known her a long time, what can you tell me about her?”
Kevin hesitated for a moment. “Fiona is single, she’s a nice girl. She recently broke up with her boyfriend, but that was a long time coming. You two got along well at the keg party, have you talked to her yet?” David’s face filled with excitement, he really wanted to know. David loved getting into other people’s business. I responded with a smile, “No, not yet, she told me to get her phone number from you.” David smiled while reaching for his address book, he opened it and flipped it to the right page; scrolling down the page he found her name, and wrote down her phone number. “Thanks David.”
Seated comfortably, dial tone, piece of paper, buttons pressed, the phone rings a couple of times. Someone says, “Hello.” “Hey, can I speak to Fiona please?” “Yes, just a moment.” A couple of seconds later Fiona picked up the phone. “Hey Fiona, this is Sandy, how are you doing?” She seemed relieved, her tone lightened, she said, “Oh Sandy… not bad. Doing homework, how about you?” “Same thing.” That wasn’t the truth; I only did homework if a test or an assignment was coming up.
Talking for couple more minutes, it was mostly small talk; classes, the keg party and David. Stumbling over my words, I ask, “How does the rest of your week look?” She was busy till the weekend. “Saturday night would be good, how about you?” It worked; I usually didn’t have plans for the weekend anyways, I spent most of my time in the basement alone. “Yeah, that works perfectly, I’ll talk to you on Saturday, we can make some plans.” “Sounds good. By the way, I have a car so we can used it if we need to.” “That’s cool, talk to you later.”
Hanging-up the phone, I excitedly head up stairs to put it back on the receiver. David is in the kitchen eating Chef Boyardee; he asks “So how did it go? Did you ask her out?” Nodding I say, “Yeah, we’re going to do something on Saturday night.” David seems happy to hear this; he has some new gossip. “Yeah I could tell she liked you at the keg party. She’s great, you’ll have fun.” This was good to hear from David, he knew Fiona well.
We talked a little more while David ate his processed meat sauce and pasta. It sure smelt good; it was 7:00 so I decided to make something to eat.
It had been a long time since my last date, more than eight months, and things hadn’t gone great. Bumping into a short beautiful brown haired girl at a bar, we danced and after a bus ride walked to her room. We decided to see each other again. Due to a lack of experience, I was overcome with nervousness and acted awkwardly. I didn’t know what to say or how to act; this was made worse with my personal expectations.
We headed to a local restaurant to have dinner. Taking the bus made me nervous; I thought, ‘we should have taken a cab’. I liked the girl but couldn’t come up with anything to say; a consequence of minimal experience with girls, and people in general. Shyness sucks. While eating, I nervously said, “You know how to use your utensils correctly, most people don’t.” What a strange thing to say. She didn’t know how to react but was obviously offended. “You’re watching me eat?” I tried to recover but was speechless.
Throughout the date I’d say things like, “I don’t think this is going well” or “I don’t feel like I’m being a good date.” These are terrible things to say, girls like confident guys. By the time the date had come to an end, I didn’t have anything else to say. She didn’t help, she must have been shy too. Opening the door she said, ‘Good bye’ and then squared up ready for a kiss. Nervously I said, “Bye” and quickly walked away. Walking slowly to my room, filled with regret, I contemplated the night.
After all of this it’s not surprising to say that we didn’t have another date. It was clearly my fault, or at least the fault of my negative perspective on the situation. The perspective we take plays a huge role in the way things will be, or at least appear to be.
Fiona had a car so she came to pick me up, we headed downtown; finding a parking spot, we walked towards the restaurant. As we got closer to our destination, Fiona asked, “Where are we headed? What kind of food?” With a quick, confident response I told her, “We’re going to ‘The Indian Restaurant.’” A look of disgust washed over Fiona’s face; something was wrong. “You don’t like Indian food?” She slowly and quietly replied, “I’ve only had it once; I didn’t like it. I’m not interested in trying it again either.”
This puzzled me, I had thought something different would be a good idea; boy was I wrong. Luckily, there was an Italian restaurant next door. “What about Italian?” Fiona was quick this time, “That’s perfect. Sorry about the Indian restaurant. Last time I went the food was too spicy and there wasn’t anything I liked on the menu”. Such a weak explanation; if you haven’t eaten something, you’re obviously not going to know whether you like it or not. I went along with it anyways.
The surroundings were bland and so was the food. Throughout there was good conversation, we had a lot in common. The waitress brought the bill; I figured it was my job to pay. Girls like that don’t they? After the meal we walked around and did some window shopping.
We decided to head back to my house. Car parked, we walked towards the house. It was late but we were having fun so we decided to spend some more time together. Opening the white door, we headed inside, and went straight to the basement. Still being a little shy, I didn’t know when the right time to kiss Fiona was. I could tell that she expected a kiss; she would kiss back.
Taking seats we continued to talk. After an hour or so it was quite late, and Fiona had to go. Time was running out, so I had to make a move quick. Heading up the stairs, I took the lead and stopped halfway, turned around, and looked into Fiona’s eyes. She looked deeply into mine, and smiled. Leaning downwards - she was much shorter – I gave her a quick kiss; it lasted for only a few seconds. I suddenly felt like a fool for not knowing how to kiss. It felt good and I wanted more.
Heading up the stairs again we both put on our shoes; opening the white door, we headed towards Fiona’s car. “I had a good time Fiona, I’d like to see you again.” She smiled and said, “Me too” then closed her eyes and leaned forward; we kissed again. The kiss lasted longer and was more passionate; reaching around her back, I pulled her closer.
After a few minutes she got into her car and we said good night.
