Okay, y'all. I'm a bundle of nerves today. No, I'm more like an entire factory of nerves. One of those industry-boom era factories, with all the smokestacks billowing a merry ambivalence about the environment into the afternoon sky, and staffed with hundreds of nervous, caffeinated women and children, all dropping things and yanking their hair.
See, I have a date tonight. A date. Tonight. Me. And frankly, just between us? I'm petrified. PETRIFIED!
I don't know "date". I don't speak "date". I'm not suave or debonair! I'm a spazz! I'm lucky if I don't set fire to myself when cooking spaghetti. I'm lucky if it turns out no one was looking when I just spontaneously started doing the hand jive to Herman's Hermits, because I Just. Wasn't. Thinking. I'm lucky if, when I get dressed in the morning, I remembered to take my jammies off first, or maybe put my underwear on the right way.
And I'm out there in the dating pool. Granted I'm in the shallow end (and still thrashing about wildly and screaming for a life preserver), but I'm out there. And I'm offering this up? Oy. My only hope is to trip across someone who finds my idiosynchrasies endearing, or at the very least, someone who's so out of it themselves that they don't notice what a basket case I can be.
And my date? Is hot. Hot. Like, retina-burn hot. Like, Venus hot. Like, "What are they doing together?" hot. In brief, too hot for the likes of me.
It's T minus 300 minutes and counting till go time, and I'm so not ready. It feels like Final Jeopardy, and I'm staring blankly at Alex Trebek while that damn theme song dings away in the background, and I've got 23 seconds left to come up with something brilliant and write it down or else I'm going to lose everything, because I bet everything, even though the topic was U.S. Foreign Policy, and I don't know shit about U.S. Foreign Policy, but something told me to go for it, and now I'm totally screwed. And I just know that if, by some providence, I write the correct answer, I've got about a 75% chance of getting disqualified for not phrasing it in the form of a question.
I mean, what if he realizes that he's way out of my league tonight? What if he takes one look at me and goes, "Oops...my bad," and then leaves? What if I'm not funny enough? What if my inner Anthony Michael Hall (circa Sixteen Candles) explodes out all over him? What if I come across as desperate and pathetic in person as I do in this entry? What if Paula compliments me but carefully avoids mentioning my voice, and Randy just shakes his head, and then Simon rips into me and I don't get to go to Hollywood? Oh, wait, wrong fear. Sorry. But, come to think of it, what if he finds out about my embarrassing television viewing habits, and bolts?
And what if our senses of humor just don't jibe, and things get really awkward and I have to laugh at all his jokes because of how hot he is, but it comes out all fakey sounding, because, let's face it, people...everyone's got a fake laugh, and none of them are very convincing. I mean, either you guffaw right out and then cut it too short and forget the follow through, or you carry the follow through out too far, and run out of steam halfway -- which is really the absolute worst mistake to make, because it is soooo obvious. And then he doesn't fake laugh in return, because he really doesn't care what I think, since he knows I'm not hot enough for him because he looks like Michael Vartan (no seriously, Jessica, he really does), and I look like, well, me?
Or, even worse yet, what if I'm completely moonstruck the minute we sit down, and I really do laugh at all his jokes, and I feel really comfortable, and then -- oh, gosh -- he doesn't ever call me again, because he didn't reciprocate, and then I go careening back down the highway of self-doubt like a drag-racer on quaaludes?
Okay. Okay, wait. I need to shut up and think about this! We do have some things in common, after all. Well, we almost have some things in common. He has family from Chicago, and I used to live in Chicago! He has a twin, and I could've been a twin! Okay, that one's stretching it a bit, but we're both...carbon-based life forms. At least, I'm assuming.
Oh shit. And when I get nervous, I babble. And when I babble, I always tell pointless stories. And when I tell pointless stories, they're always about the one subject I know I won't be in over my head on: me. So, I'm going to go sit down across from this guy and start babbling incoherently about me me me, making stupid jokes that he won't laugh at, and come across like a total asshole. And this is tonight, people. Tonight! Grace period officially over! No going back! Stand or fall, kid!
I think I'm going to have a stroke. Wow, do I ever suck at dating.
