At seventeen I left home to seek my fortune, moving to Penticton, as I mentioned in a previous blog. A friend of my uncle's, Don, had offered me a job at a mobile home factory and later on a date with his younger sister, Rena (pronounced Ree-na). It was a blind date and I was to meet her at Don's, who happened to live right next door to my uncle. Having never been on a date I was pretty nervous (bordering on petrified) but I knew I needed to press on if I was ever going to have any meaningful interaction with the opposite sex.
My Aunt took this pic as I was leaving... smooth...
When I went to pick Rena up she immediately complimented me saying that I looked nice. Having never received a compliment from a female and possessing zero self confidence, I thought she was lying to make me feel good even though she seemed sincere. It felt good anyway and we left on our date, I had made plans to go to the drive-in- Led Zeppelin; The Song Remains the Same was playing... a real date movie classic. I really don't recall too much of the date other than how bad the movie was and a horrendous discovery about myself. I guess we were about halfway through the film when Rena snuggled in close, looking up at me with these big brown eyes, I knew she wanted me to kiss her. I froze and then started to shake, almost uncontrollably. I swear if I would have let myself go it could have easily turned into convulsions, I was that scared and nervous (I use "nervous" but it was way beyond that). I blamed my condition on how cold it was and we finished the movie, our lips never touching. I don't think I ever saw her again.
Date two was with a friend of my sisters whose name was Debbie. I sort of knew Debbie already and her and her family were vacationing in Penticton for their summer holidays. My sister was there as well and through her I had arranged a date with Debbie to go see the first Star Wars movie. As I was leaving to pick her up the fears of my first date with Rena seeped in... so I decided to take a little pre-date precaution, I downed a few ounces of vodka...
That's my sister on my right and Debbie on my left....
After the vodka I smelt footh. I met her parents at their campsite where I was totally charming, funny, confident and relaxed (so I thought). I took Debbie to the Pen-Mar Cinemas where Star Wars was playing and we took our seats. We were enjoying the movie and each others company when something awful started to happen... the vodka was wearing off and I started to shake again, worse than before. This time I blamed my shuddering on the air conditioning because it was the middle of summer. I may have gotten a bit better over the years but truthfully deep down... probably not...
1 comment:
Terrifying is right...I always felt that anything said to me was insincere, lying; that there had to be an ulterior motive...
They couldn't POSSIBLY be telling ME the truth. It must be a deep-seated insecurity, but I swear to god, even in this day and age, if I have the slightest inkling someone is headed towards me to ask me out, well, I can actually feel the back of my knees and shoulders fill with dread and my first thoughts that go racing around in my brain are 'how do I get out of this?'
But wait...you had another blog about a girl that broke your heart...it was sad...when did that happen? You sound kind of 'low'...
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