Lost in Place

Tell us about the worst, most awkward, most embarrassing or most messed-up date you've ever been on.

I didn’t have a good answer when this question was asked. Dan tried to give me a few stories but they just didn’t fit for me. The only one that kept popping in to my head was – I believe it was maybe – Prom when I was a sophomore in high school. I wanted to go to the dance, of course. But not exactly with the guy who had asked. I was only 15 and my family had the “can’t date until you’re 16” rule. I tried to use that as a weasely way out of it but the boy was in my grandma’s ward and she liked him so she approved. So apparently, if Grandma approves, it’s okay to break the rules. Now that I think about it, just about every high school dance I went to as a “date” was awkward or weird or just plain “huh??” in some way. Is that the case for everyone? Please tell me it is! Anyway, back to the story – yeah, dance was awkward and weird and I had nothing to talk about despite the fact we were doubling with my best friend and her date. (Which, I believe, was just as awkward as mine if I recall correctly.) I guess I could say the moral of the story is don’t go to a dance with the boy if you don’t actually “like” the boy. But I don’t think that’s a good moral and I don’t think that’s a good piece of advice, because yah just never know.

Oh! Another date that every single person who knows me now will think is incredibly awkward and weird but I thought was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done (another dance story, yes) is junior year when I went to Prom with my date and two of the seminary teachers and their wives (a couple of other high school couples as well). We had dinner in the seminary building, all fancy-schmancy (it was really nice – done by the teachers’ wives, of course) and then played the game Sardines in the seminary building between dinner and the dance. One of the teachers’ wives was looking for people in the men’s room and ended up putting her hand in a urinal. No idea why I remember that. It’s still funny. Though it’s probably more because of who she was than the event itself. So yeah, I’m sure if we were sitting around telling date stories and I told that one, people would think it’s exceptionally odd, some maybe would even consider it “messed-up.”