I Won’t Fade Into You

And it’s strange you will never know

Not what we looked like in the restaurant. It was much worse. Image by Freepik

Well, I did it.

I went on a date for the first time in what feels like a century. Well, since the last century.

To say it was a disaster might be putting it lightly, but hey, at least I tried. Some might say this is all part of “moving on” and “starting fresh,” but I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be there.

Between stumbling through half-baked small talk and struggling to remember what people do on dates, I felt like an absolute rookie. Considering how long I’ve been out of practice, I was.

Let’s rewind to how this even came about.

An enthusiastic, ever-hopeful work “friend” decided I needed to “get back out there.”

“It’ll be good for you,” he said, a little too excited for my taste.

“You’ll see,” he assured me, with the kind of smile that made me feel he’d benefit from my awkward night out as much as, if not more than, I would.

I agreed to, because a small part of me wondered if I’d get through it without completely failing. So he called his friend, and I sunk into self-doubt.

As the night approached, I realized I had no idea what dating looks like in this decade/century/millennium.