#TheSW30: Day 11; Don’t Drink And Date

Day 11: Your worst/funniest/most embarrassing date.

First let me preface today by telling you that as outgoing as I seem on the air with Keke, I'm incredibly socially awkward.  Like super shy until "I feel like I know you" socially awkward.  In fact, I was rather quiet outside of my group of friends and teammates in high school.  So it shouldn't surprise you that traditional dating gives me a bit of an anxiety attack.  I mean, think about it...let's go out somewhere with someone we really don't know at all, stumble through conversation and hope that we find each other interesting enough to suffer through the same awkwardness a second, third, fourth time...until you decide if you want to be in a relationship and possibly build a future together sometime in the distant future.  It's super weird.  Yup, I despise traditional dating...and this is why I drink.

Gosh, that made me sound like an alcoholic doesn't it? I'm not (I do like to party though,) but a shot or glass of wine definitely takes a little of the edge off.  It's not a problem...until you put two people who really like wine together.  Welcome to where my worst date started.

I don't have much nice to say about the salesman and this story's going to be short because it doesn't reflect well on either of us.  We should've never been together...in any way...ever.  But after two weeks of me staying at his place, him hiding what was going on from just about everyone we knew, the weird "daddy had a sleepover moment" with his kids, dozens of bottles of wine, a few fights about me not knowing what the hell we were doing exactly...we decided to try going on an actual date.  We had a lovely meal and bottle of wine at Cottonwood Grille (which I'd run past about a gazillion times but never had a chance to patronize.)  He was charming (like always) and such a gentleman. That all changed when we went to meet up with friends downtown.  And we drank.  And somehow got separated (I don't remember if I went to go say hi to my friends that we were working at the bar or went to the bathroom.)  And he left me at a bar without telling me he was leaving or goodbye.  I was devastated.  His friends found a very, very sad Michelle standing on the corner wondering why I wasn't good enough for him and if he was just plain embarrassed to be associated with me.  They told me he did that kind of thing all the time.  They weren't able to get a hold of him either.  So, I took a cab home by myself.

I forget what sort of bull$#!* excuse he gave me the next morning, but I bought it enough for our situationship to continue on and off for another three months where he let me down every time he possibly could.  He'd make promises and break them.  Told me he'd be there to check on me after I had some medical stuff done and never showed.  Sent someone else to pick me up at the airport the night I got back from my grandmother's funeral and tried to make it up to me by inviting me to a cookout the next day.  A week later I thought we were making a clean break, but of course he left the blowout fight we had unresolved and ended up showing up at the one place I really didn't expect to see him the very next night.  He was overly polite.  It was awkward.  I left the bar.  It was weeks before I saw him again, where he showed up to one of my work events...with his new girlfriend.

Moral of the story of sharing the few details I'm willing to of that horrible time we actually tried to date?  Don't drink and date. And remember what Mandy said about red flags. A red flag is just a stop sign waiting to happen.  If I would've cut things off and said I deserve better after that ill fated date I would've saved myself months of misery and retained more of my sanity/self-esteem.

Ladies, there's got to be some way worse dating disaster stories out there than mine!  Share yours with me by tweeting @michelleonkiss.