The Worst Date I Ever Had

Most of my stories about past relationships and dates have been relatively humorous at my expense. This time, I will tell you about a negative experience that occurred through no fault of my own.

First, I have to give you a little back story. When I was a sophomore, I decided to take Sign Language, ASL 101. A lot of my friends took sign language. My brother and mother did too. I figured, this could be a fun class.

I thoroughly believe that people can learn anything if they put their mind to it and really give it their best effort. Sign Language was something I just didn’t “get”. I did not give it my best effort either, but I had a “D” average and I was in danger of failing only a third of the way through the semester. I had to drop the course, which led to a lot of laughing from my friends.

Flash forward 2 years.

I started dating this girl who was an ASL major. Life throws a lot of curve balls.

I only dated this girl for a few months. One of the funnier moments was Valentine’s Day. We decided to cook a meal and eat in. She had to cook most of it and do all of the dishes because my right wrist was still in a cast from my bike accident. Hey, I couldn’t get the cast wet.

That last snippet wasn’t really part of the actual “worst date I ever had”, but I think it demonstrates why things didn’t really work out between us.

I think it was Valentine’s Day, or right around then when she asked me if I wanted to go to a deaf comedy show. I said, “Sure, that could be fun”. Here I am, the world’s worst practitioner of Sign Language, and I’m going to a deaf comedy show.

Everything seemed good and fine…until the show started (40 minutes late), and I found out it wasn’t interpreted. I had to sit for, I guess it was 2 hours +, and just stare at the stage blankly. Once in a while, she would explain to me what was going on. There was one skit that did Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” routine, but that alone was the only bright spot. Another thing was that she was constantly on her “Sidekick”. You know, that cell phone that is shamelessly promoted by Snoop Dogg. Apparently, it’s pretty popular with the deaf community for obvious reasons. She apologized to me afterward. She said she didn’t know it wasn’t going to be interpreted.

We didn’t date too much longer after that.

~ by southclaw on October 7, 2008.