The Best Date I’ve Ever Been On

Disappointment, Applebee’s, and Lifeless Small Talk

This is exactly what my date looked like. All you have to do is replace the bicycles with a Chevrolet Aveo, the beautiful sunset over the ocean with a sticky vinyl booth at Applebees, and the general atmosphere of joy with one of sorrow and regret. (Pexels.com)

I have a date tonight.

My last date was two years ago. It was with Martha Sedgewick, a girl who was two years below me at Tegran M. Samour High. She found me on Facebook, added me as a friend, and started posting laughing faces and eye-rolling emojis under my denunciations of Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. I thought I was righteous; Martha Sedgewick thought I was hilarious.

I will admit that my Facebook pictures tend to be a tad dated. My profile picture is from 2016. It’s a twenty-two-year-old me carrying a baseball bat over my shoulder and flexing my bicep to achieve that late nineties, Mark McGwire, I-swear-I’m-not-on-steroids effect. I can only blame myself for the look of politely-disguised disappointment on Martha’s face when I picked her up in a cherry red and rusted Chevrolet Aveo that she probably mistook for a Sherman tank when she first heard it grumble and clank down her street. She said ‘Hi!’ with labored enthusiasm, looked down and saw that I wasn’t going to get out and open the door for her because my belly was wedged into the steering wheel, and then we made lifeless small talk on the ten minute drive to Applebee’s.