First date, part 1

Pete and I thought it would be an interesting experiment for us to both post about our first date and see what each of us comes up with.

Everything I’m about to share with you, you must remember these very important things:

1. We were both young, I was 22 and he was 24
2. He was in college, I was a bartender
3. The internet is a very dangerous place, people!

Kids, when I was your age, I had to pay for Internet by-the-hour! And, the only option was dial-up service. Get out of here. I know it!

1996 was the year I met Pete online. We met through AOL by complete fluke, I was out learning to surf the Internet for the first time (wow, had no idea where THAT was going to take me) and he was looking for someone to talk to….search criteria – female, Daytona, heartbeat.

I was the girl of his dreams. Peter and I proceeded to have online conversations for weeks, he was a student at Embry-Riddle, the aeronautical university in Daytona, I was working in a bar called Bravo. He was broke, I could serve free beer…I suppose it was a match made in Heaven.

We waited to meet because between the warnings of my parents and friends, this person was more than likely going to kidnap me and sell me for body parts. I had one friend say “Only lunatics are willing to meet people they meet online!” She is now happily married with two boys to someone SHE met online after watching me snag Pete. Forget about Dr. Phil, I was the original internet love guru!

On with it!

After finally agreeing to meet with Peter, I had some serious conditions. It had to be in a very public place, so I chose to have him come in the bar I worked in so that I could promptly have him thrown out if he creeped me out! It wouldn’t be a date-date, just a meeting to see if we wanted to go on a date.

Peter and I had sent each other two pictures that pretty much left it that if we needed to identify the body in the morgue there was no chance it was ever going to happen. He sent me one from his trip to Alaska where he was making this bizarre expression and I sent him one from when I worked at Glamour Shots and for 20 minutes wore 15 pounds of makeup. Needless to say, we were both surprised.

After the meeting, I told him that I really thought we’d make great friends. I was all about the long-haired, angsty, rock band guy with no real job and no real expectations. Pete wore khakis. It was so not going to work from the get-go.

Wasn’t that nice?

I did the “well, can we stay friends and hang out?” thing and he agreed and we had a really nice time. He had brought a friend along for the initial meet and greet and we laughed and talked for a long time. We made plans to go out to lunch one day….BUT not a date date, just out to lunch.

Later that week, I went out with some friends, as 22 year old single girls are prone to do. I had too much to drink and no money for a cab, as 22 year old idiots are prone to do.
I did what any sane person would do, let’s call the new guy and see if he’ll give me a ride home!

I did that. I called Peter and he came and got me and took me home.

But let me set up the scene here. It’s 2:30 in the AM, he lives on one end of town, I live on the far other end of town, it’s pouring rain and his car has no windshield wipers…..and I’ve already told him I “just want to be friends”.

He comes and gets me anyway. He drives me home. He watches me get out of the car and walk into a tree in my front yard…yeah, it was just like that scene from Casablanca, so romantic.

The next day, he calls me and asks if I would like him to come and take me to pick up my car, which is still across town. I wasn’t feeling my absolute best, but yeah, that would be great. And since I feel bad for the way I jerked you out of the house, lets go ahead and do that lunch date now. After picking up the car, I took him to my favorite Chinese restaurant and we started talking.

We talked and talked and laughed and laughed. I think it was at least 3 hours we sat there and just let our big mouths run away with us. We had so many things in common, we were both coffee-fiends, an unhealthy affinity for Monty Python, and it just went on and on.

After the lunch was over, neither of us was quite ready to part ways. This was actually turning into a date-date. We decided that since both of us were pretty broke, we went dutch for lunch, that any big plans were out. We opted to just rent movies and go back to his apartment to watch them.

I want you to think about the things that you know about Peter and me and just imagine the first-date movies we picked out. We picked a documentary on Jack the Ripper and one called “The Last Supper” – which, by the way, is hysterical and awesome, and is a MUST-see – about college students who get invite people over for intellectual debates and then kill the person if they can’t change their minds.

Yeah. No Sleepless in Seattle, Here to Eternity, Mary Poppins. Just Jack the Ripper and homicidal college students. At checkout, I told the girl, “Look at my face, look at it really good….now look at his face, look at it really good…if you see my face on the news as MISSING, please remember his face.”

Ahhh, those are the words that marriages are made of.

There’s a part two to this post, but I have to go and get a million things done. So, I’ll post the rest of our first date later!

Oh, it’s like a cliffhanger!

f.r.o.G….fully relying on God
–Anissa

ps. I love you, honey, Happy Anniversary!