What Was I Thinking? By David Martin Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. ~Winston Churchill Before getting married, I liked to think that I was a pretty good dater. After all, I had been doing it for years and I always figured that practise makes perfect. I made it a habit to ask out women whenever the opportunity arose. My thinking was that if I was to get better at this, I had to keep doing it. For the most part, this approach worked. The more I dated, the less nervous I was. I became skilled at the art of conversation and was soon an experienced dater. Or at least, so I thought. I hoped that all of this dating experience would prepare me for the eventual day when I met the woman of my dreams. Whoever she might be, I reasoned, I would be ready. I would not be my previously nervous, tongue-tied self, but instead would sweep her off her feet with my charm and savvy conversational skills. And so it came to pass that I met my potential Ms. Right. I was sharing a house with my sister who had a friend who had a sister named Cheryl. The friend and her sister happened to stop by one day and I was smitten. Despite my wealth of dating experience, I was quickly reduced to a gibbering idiot. I offered them dinner and ran around like a headless chicken doing my best to prepare an edible meal. The cool, calm, suave relationship expert I thought I had become was nowhere to be found. Somehow I managed to survive our first encounter without completely tripping over my tongue or drowning in a bath of my own nervous sweat. In fact, it looked like I might have actually salvaged victory from what initially had appeared to be overwhelming defeat when a few days later I phoned Cheryl and she agreed to go out on a date with me. Now when someone is smitten like I was, the logical thing to do is plan a cant-miss date that will convince the object of your affection that you are the only man for her. Unfortunately, despite my lengthy dating career, I seemed to instantly forget everything I knew about burgeoning relationships and how to cultivate them. Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Dating Game The first part of our date wasnt bad. I took Cheryl out to dinner. I figured this would be a chance for us to get to know one another. Sadly, the only thing she got to know was that she was dining with a nervous, chattering idiot who couldnt shut up. It seemed that my extensive dating experience was of little use when I was love struck. Still, dinner wasnt a complete disaster and I had planned a second part of our date: a movie. And not just a movie at a regular cinema, but a special showing at the arts center in our city. The movie would be shown on an extra large screen and would be backed up with a symphony-class sound system. Now a rational man trying to impress a woman with a movie would probably choose a love story or a romantic comedy. But since infatuation had short-circuited my reasoning ability, I chose instead to take Cheryl to a special showing of the movie Apocalypse Now, which, I can now attest, does not appear on any womans top ten list of first-date movies. From the gloomy napalm-filled opening scene backed by The Doors singing The End to the final gruesome encounter between the two main characters, the movie is the complete antithesis of a feel-good romantic comedy. As the error of my choice became manifest, I could almost hear Cheryl mouthing the final words of Marlon Brandos character Colonel Kurtz: The horror, the horror. Needless to say, the date didnt end well. I still persisted and tried asking Cheryl out again a few days later but the answer was understandably an unqualified no. Unlike Apocalypse Now, however, this story has a happy ending. Five years later, Cheryl and I reconnected and started going out. Apparently enough things had changed in the interim, including my choice of date movies, that I was given a second chance. Weve now been married for almost twenty years and I expect well be together for twenty more. So long as I dont rent a copy of Apocalypse Now. Reprinted by permission of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC (c) 2013. In order to protect the rights of the copyright holder, no portion of this publication may be reproduced without prior written consent. All rights reserved.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 03:07:45 +0000