Am I Trying to Sabotage This First Date?

I behave stupidly. Ergo, I do stupid things. To understand why I do stupid things, I may as well do stupid things.

My brainlessness was on full display yesterday—during a first date. At one point, I even thought, Am I trying to sabotage this? During this meltdown for the ages, I riddled my feet with lead. Though I was a gaffe machine, the date still seemed to go well, somehow.

The Litany of Blunders

1. The previous week, I'd emailed her various songs. These included Buckcherry's "Lit Up," the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," and Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing."

2. The yolky sun arcing over Saturday's Red-White Spring Game and its temperate rays terribly seared my lily-white skin, so my nose, forehead, and cheeks were glaringly rosy. The tops of my knees and the bottoms of my thighs looked as if I'd colored them with dullish red chalk. I was in such pain that I'd been popping Aleve like they were Chewy Runts. I wasn't nervous. No. I was in exorbitant agony from all the melting flesh. Thus, no yips.

3. I showered but moronically chose to wear the same clothes from the night before when I was a walking sales rack for American Eagle. I likely reeked of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.

4. We tried to eat at The Green Gateau. This was Sunday at noon, so it was packed. We tried to eat at Bison Witches. What a zoo. We went next door to The Coffee House. Thankfully, the place was dead. I was down to my last strike.

5. After making a platitudinous comment to the barista about "muffin tops," I ordered two "giant" muffins, blueberry and pumpkin. Muffins? Really? Can a man—okay, I'm not a man; I'm a lad in a man's body—order muffins on a first date? Isn't this tantamount to a man ordering a salad at a restaurant on a first date?

6. I somewhat rudely chastised her for trying to pay for her food and drink. She pulled her purse from her bag, and I said, "Put that away! We're not going Dutch." The total cost was $7.92. Yep, I looked like a real cheapskate.

7. We sat down and began eating. The muffins were disintegrating like wet sandcastles. I was making a mess. Crumbs everywhere. And I was talking with my mouth full.

8. I was dehydrated from three nights of insobriety so I ordered water and chomped away on ice cubes. My date? A future dentist. She duly and politely called me on it. I unabashedly continued crushing those glorified hailstones.

9. I yammered about Nazi Germany and how it was a good thing that my ancestors fled to Russia decades earlier. I said, "Who knows what the Nazis would've done with my ancestors...probably put them on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau." (Germans exterminating other Germans? What?) Boy, you're some conversationalist. Will you wise up?

10. I told her I'd shaved my legs on Saturday and said, "Go on. Feel 'em." She did. I said, "I'm just not that hairy," and delved into this story: "It was junior year of high school. I was jogging out to football practice when some, like, seventh-grade girl goes, 'Hey, do you shave your legs?' 'No!' I shrieked. She almost reduced me to tears." By now, I'd completely, if not irrevocably, emasculated myself, but the self-destruction was far from over.

11. I mentioned how I'm set to apply to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "I used to be like, 'I know I can write at that level.' Now it's more like, 'I think I can write at that level.' I'm not as arrogant as I once was." A short while later, I blurted out, "I've wasted prodigious talent." Gee. That's attractive. That's what every woman wants to hear.

12. I waxed nostalgic about my days as an opinion columnist for the Dakota Student newspaper—the old Dakota Stupid—when I was "the most reviled columnist at any student paper in the country." I said that the students created a Facebook group. It's name, you ask? "Jake Beideck...I Use Big Words to Feel Smart." I added that they labeled me a pompous ass.

13. Then I brought up abortion. "I'm pro-life with an asterisk, because if a woman is raped, she should have every right to an abortion." Was I brain-dead? Bless her heart for changing the subject.

14. We left and walked to my truck in the parking garage across from BDubs. I walked around to the passenger side, saying, "We open doors in my family!" I motioned to insert the key into the lock and saw that she hadn't locked it. (I may've made a snide remark. "You didn't lock your door." I don't recall. I did say, "We lock doors in my family!") Then I didn't bother opening the door for her.

15. I drive a '98 Dodge Dakota. It has a tape player. Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" played as I started the ignition. I proudly said, "I made this tape on Friday. I'm the last person on Earth who still makes tapes." She laughed. "I made this tape" guarantees a laugh—but it's usually out of sheer pity.

16. We drove by the Cornhusker Hotel. I said, "[Redacted] once pulled a Keith Moon in one of their hotel rooms. You know, throwing lamps and stuff." (She got the reference, which I thought was hotter than hot.) How does sharing this off-center anecdote further my cause?

17. Finally, I realized I'd forgotten to tell her that she looked beautiful, which she most certainly did. So I wrote it in an email.

End

"Yep, I'm a real man. I'll prove it to you by gnawing on ice cubes, eating a delicious pumpkin muffin, and flaunting my smooth legs. Call me."