I’m like a stamp collector. But instead of
stamps, I collect awkward dates. So, there I was, urged on by a fellow to go
night-time skiing. Why, that sounded just dandy! And given that our last
interaction was, well, another date, I felt like this invitation was going to
be, well, a date.
He picked me up, and on the way, the ride
was filled with flirty pleasantries, a giggle here and there and it seemed
hopeful, all in all.
As we were skiing and snowboarding, sharing
in the romance of the snowy evening, he kept bringing up the possibility of
some seemingly fictional friends of his joining us. I was starting to sense
this might be but a lie, because two hours into it, his friends were still
nowhere to be found.
So, we decided to go grab hot chocolate in
the lodge, to thaw and continue our innocent coquettish banter.
Just as he’s asking me about my burlesque
performance, he casually mentions “the girl he’s been dating.”
Suddenly, I thought “Well, hold on there
sailor, why am I here partaking in a snowy evening of merriment and sport with
you if you have some chick somewhere out there?”
But before I could ponder this any longer,
his friends showed up. They were two couples. Again, I thought “what screwy
adventure is this?
Following this odd break, he and I
continued to ski and snowboard solo. On the way up, I no longer sat on the
inside seats of the lift. Nope, as a sign of defiance I sat on the outer seat.
He chose to fill the awkward silence with questions about my dating life.
But the evening was far from over.
“Do you think they forgot we’re up here?” I
asked my non-date across the chair lift.
“Hmm I don’t think so,” he responded and
proceeded to whistle and holler to the attendant at the top of the hill.
“See? He’s just putting down more snow for
us,” he comforted me. But no. He was cleaning up his little booth, shutting her
down for the night.
The skidoos zoomed down the mountain and it
became painfully clear we were indeed forgotten.
So, there I was. On a date with a guy who’s
dating someone else, freezing, with an increased urgency to pee and stuck on a
chair lift left to die in the frosty night.
Finally, one of the rescuers, a jolly
Irishman, heard our pleas and skied underneath us.
“How did you guys get up there?” he asked.
This question was puzzling given that we were dangling high above ground on a
ski lift. The answer seemed clear.
We left it unanswered.
“You guys had a close call there…almost had
a cold night ahead of you.” This probably seemed cute to him, because he figured
we could use body heat, because he, like I, thought this was a date.
“You really should watch Frozen,” he
continued, “it’s a horror movie about a couple left on a chair lift over
night,” he continued his light-hearted banter.
“Excuse me, sir, but you are getting help,
right?” I interrupted his musings. He confirmed and 15 minutes later we were
zooming down the hill.
It was the date that had all the makings
for a comedy and horror, but none for romance.
