The Disappearing Date

Over the years I've been on a lot of dates. Some were good, some were bad, some continued on to be future girlfriends, and some ended right after that first date (or perhaps during it), and some ... well, some just spent the entire evening crying in the bathroom.

Back in my late teens I had a friend who I'll call Jennifer. One day she called and asked me for a favor. She had a friend (who I'll call Susan) who needed a date to one of their high school dances. Susan had planned on going with her boyfriend, but he had recently broken up with her and was taking someone else. Susan wanted to show him that she was "so over him" by showing up with her own date, and Jennifer suggested me.

So I agreed, knowing that my role was just to be a filler, and to possibly make her ex-boyfriend jealous. Because nothing makes an ex-boyfriend more jealous than when you show up with a nerdy honor student.

That evening I picked Susan up at Jennifer's house, introduced myself ("Hi, I'm your date."), and took her to the dance. Most of her friends were also friends with her ex-boyfriend, so we sat at a table with some friends I knew at the dance. A few minutes after we sat down, she excused herself to go to the bathroom. And other than an occasional glimpse in passing, that was the last I saw of my date.

I found out later from Jennifer that Susan had seen her ex-boyfriend with his date, and she was so upset she went to the bathroom to cry. I guess she wasn't "so over him" after all. I couldn't really go console her in the ladies bathroom, so I stayed at the table, visited with my friends, and danced with other girls I knew.

My friends asked where my date was, and periodically I would see her walking in the crowd to find Jennifer so that they could go back the bathroom and talk. I would say, "Ooo, there she is, walking toward the bathroom again!"

After a couple of hours, I asked Jennifer if she would take Susan home since it didn't seem like she was ever coming out of the bathroom. And then I went home.

It wasn't necessarily a bad date, for me anyway. I've had worse. And it's certainly not the only time one of my dates ended with somebody crying in the bathroom.