More bad dates? Okay.

First, thank you all for your great questions. And thank you all for being gracious enough not to snicker in my face (er...or in my comments) when you pictured the hideous mid-80s outfit I described. You're too kind.

Well, I dredged up some more bad date memories in the process of writing yesterday's post, so I thought I'd share another one or two.

Okay, here's one. Just after college and I'd moved back in with my parents for a while, so I felt the need to get out as often as possible, and did quite a bit of partying. Met a cute guy, the roommate of a friend, sparks flew, we went out a few times. Let's call him Lou. He was probably the best kisser I ever knew, which has no relation to the story, but I just thought I'd share that. One night we went out with some friends of mine to the local country dancing bar. Not that we were big fans of country dancing, but it was owned by some entrepreneurial Iranian friends of ours (who also owned one of the most popular pizza places in town; they were nothing if not diverse in their entrepreneurialship) and I could often get free drinks if Shorty was there. I dated him, too, later...but that's a post for another time. I digress. Anyway, we settled in at a table with my friends, and the brother of one of the friends, and a friend of HIS. Got it? I was carrying a very small purse in those days, really almost a wallet, and when we left the table to go dance to one of the occasional non-country songs they played, I had no qualms about leaving my purse on the table, under the eyes of my friends. Of course, I SHOULD have had qualms, but I didn't. We came back from dancing, and noticed my purse was missing. OH CRAP! I asked everyone if they'd seen it, or seen it disappear. No, they all said. And went back to drinking. Nice way to show concern, "friends." I looked around, told my friends working the bar and door to keep an eye out for it, looked around some more and then noticed that my friend's brother's friend had it stuffed into his back pocket. He was sitting right next to me at the table, and he had the nerve to steal my purse and and then just sit right there! He was a big guy, I didn't really know him, and I was scared, but all of a sudden this great wave of anger surged over me and I reached behind him, grabbed it out of his pocket and screamed "That's my purse, asshole!" He initially reacted as if I'd stolen something from him, and I should have been scared, I suppose, but I wasn't. I just kept screaming "This asshole stole my purse!" He got all conciliatory then, trying to pat my back, saying "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was YOUR purse." I informed him that didn't make me feel any better. Jackass. I yelled some more--I was really making a scene, people were staring, and still the big lug just sat there. Lou started to intervene on my behalf, but I calmed down a bit and said no, let's just go to another table if he won't. We spent the rest of the evening on the other side of the bar, since for whatever reason nobody seemed interested in kicking him the hell out of the place. When it came time to go, we went outside to meet the friends we'd come with, to get a ride home. As we walked over to their car, I realized with horror that the thief was in the back seat! They were giving the jackass a ride home, and expected me to hop into the seat beside him. Well, I threw a little fit, refusing to get in as long as he was in the car. Naturally. At this point the friend's brother came up to the car, having somehow missed all the previous commotion and saw only that I was accusing his buddy of something. He got all riled up, Lou (who I didn't know at the time was a former Marine) finally had all he could take, and they began beating the shit out of each other. It was horrifying. This sweet, gentle guy I thought I was on a date with became one of the dirtiest fighters I'd ever seen. Now, on the one hand, kudos for sticking up for me. But on the other...holy HELL, were they fighting! I ran inside for the bouncers, we finally got the two of them off each other and fortunately, a friend of Lou's was there and gave us a ride home, since the asshole still refused to get out of the car. (And yes, I let my "friends" have it later!) It was all quite dramatic. I mean, there was blood. There were cuts and toothmarks and gashes, oh my! But it was over, right? Except...not quite. A few nights later I was at another bar with one of my same friends from that evening, this one owned by yet a different set of friends, a less rowdy place where we were definitely the favored customers, and friend's brother came in. Came up to me, got up in my face demanding to know where that little guy (Lou was tough, but not a big guy) was who bit him, (I told you he fought dirty) and what was his name, 'cause he was gonna find him and kill him, etc. This was a very small town, and it wouldn't have been difficult at all to find anybody, so I refused to even acknowledge his questions until finally I had enough and just said "Were you aware that your good buddy STOLE MY PURSE that night?" He didn't believe me at first, but with corroboration from my friend, he finally acknowledged that yeah, that did sound like something buddy would do. He apologized and bought us a pitcher of beer. I told him he might want to ascertain a few pertinent facts before the next time he jumped somebody, and he finally left us alone. I don't recall if I ever saw him again. And after a few more dates, Lou dumped me for some nebulous reason I can't even really remember, some form of "it's not you, it's me," I believe, and that was that. Aah, good times.

You know, none of this is really encouraging me to get back in the dating ring. Hee. Maybe I should try remembering some good dates instead. Okay, that's my assignment for tomorrow's post--good dates, good men! I'll get to thinking.