Except for a few brief
interludes when I was married, I have been dating for about 40
years now.
I always thought one day
I would get the hang of it.
I don’t think women
understand how much courage it takes for a man to ask a woman for
a date. You sit there and stare at her phone number, going
through imaginary conversations in your mind. You debate what the
best time to call her will be, should you call at 7 p.m., or
should you wait until 9? If you call at 7, she may be busy with
housework or taking care of her kids. But if you wait to call at
9, she may be irritated because you interrupted her watching
"ER" on television.
Then you have to worry
about what she might be interested in doing on the date. Should
you suggest a dinner and a movie, a football game, a play at the
Little Theater? The major consideration in this area is, you don’t
want to risk spending a lot of money on a first date with a woman
who turns out to not be interested in you. Of course your biggest
fear is the fear of being rejected. You would think that after
being rejected hundreds of times, one would get used to it. Not
true.
The worst rejections are
the ones that come before you even have a chance to ask her out.
You have finally mustered up enough nerve to dial her number, you
make conversation for a moment, and then she says she’s busy in
the kitchen and she has to go. The best way to handle this is to
cuss her out, but be sure to wait until she hangs up the phone
before doing it. There apparently are laws against "improper
telephone communications". Then smile and be grateful you
didn’t spend any money on a woman who is obviously a poor judge
of character. Equally painful are the "shotgun"
rejections. A "shotgun" rejection is one where you have
asked the woman out, but she refuses and blasts you with a
multitude of reasons why she can’t go out with you, such as,
she just exited a long relationship and needs time alone, she is
going to school four nights a week, she is caring for her ailing
aunt, she is waiting for some lab results, yadda yadda. In other
words, not "no" but "heck, no". If you want
to get even, call her a week later and ask her out again. This
will challenge both her memory and her ingenuity.
Never leave a message on
her voice mail or telephone answering machine when asking a woman
for a first date. She will invariably replay it over and over to
her friends so that they, too, can enjoy the abject fear in your
voice.
If you’ve been
rejected, your weekend is not necessarily ruined. You can always
try pot luck at one of the area dance clubs. The trick to this
is, wait until nearly closing time, or else you will find your
credit card has been rubbed smooth with nothing to show for it. I
myself stopped going to dance clubs about five years ago. I was
at the old "G.G.s" in Monroe, and I finally worked up
the nerve to ask a very pretty young lady if she would like to
dance. She looked up at me with a "deer in the
headlights" look in her eyes, and in a high, trembling
voice, she said, "No, . . . uh, . . .sir".
I realized I was in the
presence of greatness. After 40 years, I had finally experienced
the perfect rejection.
Head bowed, I left G.G.s
and I’ve never had the courage to go back.
