(Gilmore Girls fan site)
This week’s episodes, from “The Fundamental Things Apply” through “Ted Koppel’s Big Night Out,” include some of my favorites. It’s funny; when season 4 first aired, I remember thinking how mediocre it was. But as it turns out, season 4 has an awful lot of classic episodes in it, and an awful lot of classic scenes.
But this week, watching the episodes reminds me of my life as a dating single. Like our girls, I was never very good at it.
Rory’s date with… uh… whathisface, in “The Fundamental Things Apply”… I can sympathize. In my time, I had my share of “bad dates,” both truly bad ones and just uneventful ones. I told of one or two in the Love-Idiot book, including one I also posted on my blog, of my worst date ever. But those were not really what Lorelai and Rory meant by “bad dates.”
What they meant was just dates without magic. Here’s one of mine, a story I haven’t told yet.
When I was in my late teens or early twenties, I asked this younger, blonde teenage girl from my church out to dinner. I took her to a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant that I had remembered being a lot nicer than it was when we got there. But the food was okay, and the conversation was unobjectionable, if not memorable.
I asked her out again, although I didn’t know why, probably because I just enjoyed spending an easy-going time with someone of the opposite sex. And she accepted, probably because she liked me. I remember meeting her father, a short, uneventful meeting. At the end of the second date, I sensed that she wanted me to kiss her. But I just didn’t feel like it. (If you haven’t read the Love-Idiot book, maybe you now understand the “Idiot” part.) So I said goodnight, and that was that.
I even asked her out a third time, but she was smart enough to turn me down. It didn’t really bother me. I guess she just wasn’t my type. Glad she (younger than I) was smarter than I about it.
In “An Affair to Remember,” Lulu likes Kirk. Yes, that’s strange. As Lorelai points out in a later episode, Kirk was really lucky to find her.
I remember my first real girlfriend. I too thought it was weird that she liked me. At least Kirk didn’t sabotage his relationship with Lulu, like I frequently did when I found out a girl liked me. Yeah, Kirk tried. But Luke was there to set him straight.
That’s not to say that I didn’t also have good dates. I had a number of first dates that were fun and memorable. The most notable, of course, was my first date with Margaret. We started by going bowling, and I sucked at bowling, but we still had fun. Then we saw a movie together—neither of us remember which movie. Then we went out for a late dinner at a family, eggs-and-pancakes restaurant. The moment I remember the most is after I told Margaret about a problem I was having with my wrist, probably because of my poor posture at the computer at work. At the time, she was studying to be a physical therapist. I showed her my wrist, and she took my hand, so gently, and held it, and I wondered whether I could fall in love with this woman. Which I eventually did.
And then there are the “Ted Koppel’s Big Night Out”-ugly dates, like Lorelai and jason’s first. Don’t think I’ve ever had a date quite like that, refused at first, eventually accepted, went bad, then try again, then forget it, then finally saved. For me, if something went wrong, it always went wrong. And usually before step one.
For example, one woman that I had it bad for, I tried everything I knew to get her to go out with me, believing that if only I was persistent, she would eventually give me a chance. I tried sending her gifts, romantic cards and letters, flowers, all with very personal messages attached. I even tried being “just a friend,” in hopes that being close might cause her to reconsider. Instead, she said she didn’t trust me, because she couldn’t understand why I felt so strongly about her. I guess it wasn’t enough that I just did.
I guess Jason was lucky with Lorelai, because she didn’t get freaked out by his persistence.
What are some of your favorite dating stories?
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