Granny-date

So that blind date that I went on last night was the most awkward experience of my whole life. I will try to sum up the facts in an intelligible fashion, although I'm having trouble with it all just in my own head.

My friend recently started dating this girl from Colombia. She is a member of the church and living here in So Cal with a host family while she goes to school and learns the local language (which these days happens to be Spanish, but since she already speaks that one they are teaching her English). She has an uncle, or 2nd cousin, or something like that who lives locally also. He caught wind that she was going out latin dancing last night with my friend, so he somehow gets in touch with my friend (I'm really not sure how that part happened) and says, "Hey, I hear your dating my niece/cousin/whatever and going out dancing this weekend. I know an LDS girl from Spain who is also here learning English, blah, blah, blah. Do you have any friends in their 30s that wouldn't mind taking her out dancing with you guys." So, immediately my friend thinks of me, since I'm in my 30s and will most assuredly not have a date on Friday night (this was all on Thursday). He calls me up, and I agree to go out. I hadn't been latin dancing for a few years, so I thought it would be fun to get back out for a little Salsa and Merengue.

So my friend and his date come by and pick me up last night. I was all stoked to go. First date in a while, a new person I didn't know, got to go dancing with some (hopefully) hot chick from Spain - it was all building up to be a night of great fun. We drive down to go pick up my date. She lives in a gated apartment building, so I didn't actually go to the door to get her, I just called from the gate and she walks down. It was night time. And dark. Very dark. No street lights. So I see this person walking down, she's about the right height for a Spanish girl, she has blond hair (could be a hottie) and appears to be fairly slender (nice). She walks out of the gate and I greet her, and my first thought is, "Hmmm, maybe it's just the low light, but she looks a little older than I was expecting."

I open the car door for her, and she gets in. I introduce her to everyone, shut the door and walk around to get in my side. I open my door, and this time I can clearly see her from the overhead light. No! It couldn't be! Are you kidding me!?!? This person was no girl, it was a lady. A much older lady. I never got her age, but judging from her appearance she was pushing 50 and may very well have crossed that threshold a few years ago. So it's my 30 year-old friend and his 25 year-old date. Then it's me, 34, and my 50+ year-old granny-date. Uuuuuugh! The pain! The pain!!!

What would you do in a situation like that? The guy that had set this all up had told her we were going dancing and everything, but I don't think he had told her that it was a church-sponsored dance. My thought process completely froze. All I could muster up was "let's go eat." We had dinner, which was okay but not great. It was a restaurant near her house. The whole time we were eating I was trying to come down with an acute case of food poisoning, but to no avail. Dinner slowly passed. Conversation was painful. What do you talk about with a 50 year-old that isn't a relative? I mean, I could take my grandma out to dinner and talk her ear off. But a blind date?

Dinner eventually comes to a close, but still no food poisoning. Drat. Looks like we have to go dancing now. So we drive for half an hour up to the place where the dance is being held. The whole drive up there was surreal. The other two were having this great "we're newly dating and in love" conversation, and I was sitting there making the worst small-talk ever with granny-date. And, quite frankly, I hate the Spain accent now (I speak Mexican Spanish). I discovered last night that the "th" lisp that they talk with annoys the hell out of me - well, at least from this person. So, on top of not having anything interesting to talk about, the very act of her speaking was annoying to me.

We get to the dance and walk in. Granny-date surveys the crowd and realizes that there has not only been an age mismatch between her and me, but that she should actually be chaperoning this dance, given the fact that I was probably the oldest of the younger people there. Everyone else looked early 20s. So, granny-date turns to me and says, "Umm. You should feel free to go out and dance with anyone out there you want to. I'm just going to sit here." And, well, since we all drove together and I couldn't take her home because the other two wanted to stay and dance, I took her up on that offer and headed out to the dance floor. I had a fun time dancing. I had forgotten how much I loved to shake my hips to a syncopated beat. We weren't there too long, maybe an hour and a half, before it ended.

Then we drove back. That was the longest half hour of my life. We didn't speak once during the trip. I was driving, and we progressively drove faster and faster. I just wanted the suffering to end. We finally got back to her place. She thanks us all for the evening and apologizes because she thinks there "may have been a bit of a misunderstanding." You think!?!? A "bit"!?!? So, I waved goodbye and off we went.

My friend's date said she was going to rip her uncle a new one. I hope she follows through with that.