The Date From Hell
When Your Date Is Broke
All names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty!
This particular scenario actually happened to me twice, with two different people! I still can't quite figure it out....
I was living about an hour East of the major city in our area and I was in an all-originals band at the time. During one of the shows we played (for the Grand Re-Opening of a club that had shown some of the greatest acts during the 60's), I connected a bit with the guitarist of one of the other bands there. We exchanged phone numbers.
Over the next couple of weeks, we had several long, highly stimulating conversations. I found him intelligent, funny and insightful, with a dry sense of humor. He asked me out for dinner, but since he lived in the city he did not own a car, he asked me if I would mind coming out to him. I said, no, I didn't mind and that I looked forward to the date.
I had a very low-paying job and a gas-guzzling car, but I made it out there just fine. He'd had invitations to some VIP party, so we started there. He bought me a drink, and then left to mingle throughout the party.
I didn't think too much of this and decided to mingle myself a bit. After about 30 minutes, he came up to me and asked me if I had any money to buy the next round, since he had so generously bought the first one. I agreed, he got his drink, and went to mingle some more.
Then it was time for dinner and he knew about this great Thai place not far away. We waited for a long time, but finally sat down to eat.
The food was quite good but the conversation started to slow down. I would smile and enjoy my food through the awkward moments so that we could pretend we were just having a nice dinner together.
When the check came, he became almost surly when he asked me if I could pitch in on the bill. At this point, I had very little money left and that had been budgeted for gas for my land yacht. I'd also had to pay for parking.
I expressed concern over having enough money to get home and he leaned back, openly disgusted.
I stammered some sort of apology and put as much as I could on the table.
Ever since that time I have felt that there are some unspoken rules that I did not understand and thus broke. Even though I think the guy was a complete jerk, I still have this nagging doubt about what happened and that I ruined what could have been a nice evening simply because I didn't reach for my wallet quickly enough throughout the evening.
Guys, if you're broke, we need advance notice!