The Sweet Midwest Girl

This is my entry for "Worst date ever" on http://www.datingtales.net/

I had been on the dating scene for about three years, enough to be good at it,

but not so long that the crushing loneliness had consumed me. A former co-worker had shown up at a party of a mutual friend, and was boldly sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter with a rather short dress on. She had long red hair, alabaster skin, bright green eyes, and the cutest nose with a four tiny freckles on it. I tell you all that to try to convey that she was smoking hot and was well aware of it. I had my eye on her for some time before she had gone back to school, and left town..

We stuck up the usual, "How's it been going?" "What are you up to now?" type conversation. She had just finished her masters in CIS, moved back to the city, yada-yada. What I was most interested in was that she had broken up with her long-time boyfriend, another acquaintance whom I despised on general principal, a bull-necked jock who always wore a visor with sunglasses propped on them, no matter the occasion or time of day.

After drifting off to other members of the party, but continuing to make eye contact throughout the night, I finally had enough (liquid) courage in me to ask her out. She agreed, and we made plans for the next night.

As I had been on the hip scene for some time, and she was relatively unfamiliar with the city, I took her to see some of the newer hotspots around town. We finally settled in a dive club that had live music from local bands, and I had known several friends would be there, so I could show off my hot date. We danced and drank our ass off until close. After an initially slow start to our date, the dancing and the booze had assured that we were really into each other, and we had already stepped outside for a moment for a hot kiss.

As the club closed, we were still pretty wired, so we adjourned to a nearby Denny’s for some hot food in an attempt to sober up a bit before we headed home. We had another thrilling make-out session in the car, and I was eyeing the ubiquitous La Quinta that shared the parking lot with the Denny’s. (I know, very classy of me, but really, I was just planning ahead to the inevitable conclusion of this evening. . .) Seriously, what is it with La Quinta and Denny’s? Do they get a special tax break if they are within a stone’s throw of each other?

After the windows began to fog, we finally headed inside, and joined my friends at a big round booth table near the back. I ordered some fries to have something to munch on, but not enough to keep us there very long. We were quietly listening to the others ramble on about the bands we had seen, just enjoying each others company, my hand resting high on her insanely smooth and warm bare thigh.

Just then, the wait staffer sat a Hispanic family of five at the next booth, and I was thinking to myself, “Christ! Its 2:30 in the morning, what the hell are those poor kids doing up?” I turned my head to face my date, and was about to whisper that thought to her, when she looked into my eyes, and spoke first. “F**k. Why do they have to sit them next to us?” My brow furrowed, not taking in her meaning. She said in a conversational tone, “Those Sp**s. They stink! They stink worse than N****s!”

I stared into her huge green eyes, trying to see if my booze addled brain was misunderstanding her meaning. I was still trying to comprehend what she meant when I realized that the rest of our table had gone dead quiet, and they were all looking in turn at my date and then to me, wondering if they had really just heard that, and who exactly was this girl I was with?

I couldn’t believe it. A intelligent, witty, well educated, and beautiful woman had felt comfortable enough with me and my bar cronies to announce in a public setting that she was a vicious racist, clearly assuming that we would share her sentiments. I didn’t know where to go from there, my mind was racing, and a full ten seconds passed before I said, lamely, “Well…er…probably not as bad as us.” as the entire table was still hot and sweaty from the dancing not an hour before. Our food had arrived, and she chewed a French fry before replying “Oh, no need to defend them, they can’t help it, it’s all the hot food they eat, it just comes out of their pores. They can’t even shower it away,” she finished, wrinkling her petite, freckled nose.

I became aware at that moment, of where my hand was, and pulled it away, finally resting it awkwardly on the table between us. I felt disgust towards her, a little bit of pity, wondering who had molded her into this, and began to feel severe disgust with myself, as my lustful thoughts were still playing in my mind at the same time, envisioning how I could be all right with this. Ten more awkward minutes passed before I made our apologies that we should go, as I was getting sleepy. My date tried holding my hand as we left, still under the impression that we were having fun. I just didn’t know what to say to such a person, how to convey my contempt for her point of view. We walked outside before I began, slowly, to explain that I didn’t share her racist views, that I had been molded since birth to revile everything she had just said.

You, reader, can imagine that conversation rapidly went downhill as she realized my true nature and my increasingly condescending tone, and began shouting her defensive tirade, which thankfully was cut short as a cab rolled up in front of the Denny’s, looking to pick up the bar dregs. I put her in it, went in and apologized to my friends, and went the hell home, feeling lonely as ever in this world.

Six months later:

I see her again, in the very same club I had taken her to. She was in front of the stage, and appeared to be seeing the singer of the band that was headlining that night. We were aware of each other for some time before we made eye contact. She came to the bar where I was ordering shots, and gave me this twisted smirk. We stared at each other for some time, (I really did like looking at her) before I finally took a deep breath, tapped my wrist and said “Aren’t you going to be late for the Klan rally?” The smirk disappeared. She stalked back to the dance floor, and no doubt went on to live a nice racist life, raising a pack of vicious brats.