There Be Dinos Here!

 This is a re-telling of a date and the events leading up to it from January 2011.  I could have sworn I had it written out before but can't seem to find it.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, my memory won't let me forget the lead-in, night of and even a follow-up.  WHAT?!  There was more?  Just wait...

Back towards the end of 2010, I struck up a conversation with a girl on a dating site.  I can't recall which.  It may have been POF, could have been Match, I don't remember exactly.  But we started off casually, opening up, getting to know each other and she seemed pretty interested in me.  She worked at a school district as a clerk/office assistant/something along those lines.  Since it was end of the year, we set our date for immediately after the new year.  I don't think it was anything like, New Year, New You mentality.  More like, we both had holiday parties, plans and celebrations to get through and bringing a date to any of those could be REALLY awkward to start things off.  

We set the date for right after the new year but before my birthday.  I'm well aware after so many years, the dangers of meeting someone new around the holidays because my celebrations carry over a full week (or more) into the new year.  Someone new at this time of year would be unfair to suddenly drop them into a "it's my birthday and here are all my best friends to help me celebrate" type of things.  I can't intentionally make it hard for someone new to come into.  

Anyway, our date is set and for the first time EVER in my dating life, I got REALLY curious about my date that I actually Googled her.  Didn't take long to find a couple of pages of hers.  Nothing on social media per se, MySpace/Facebook, et al.  But I did find a couple of blogs of hers, one much more recent than the other.  Both being photo heavy types.  Interesting layout but I digress.  The older blog mentioned a guy she was dating, the love of her life, guy she wants to be the father of her kids.  And the last post was maybe a couple of years ago.  Alright, we all make mistakes in who we think we're meant to be with for life or longer.  

But it was the second, more recent blog that got my attention.  In that, she openly shared about her RECENT ex.  The love of her life, the guy she wanted to be the father of her kids...  Yeah, same dude.  Apparently she and the dude had been dating for a few years, they had talked about marriage and kids and then some big blowout happened around Thanksgiving...  "But wait!" you must be saying, "Didn't you two just start talking just after Christmas?  A month later???  And you would be correct!  Wait, it gets better...  

Turns out she was talking about how she needed to put herself out there again, try to get over him.  But she wished he could give her another chance.  She was set to go out to dinner with a guy (That would be me!) but she still wished her ex would come around.  That's right ladies and gents, I'm the rebound.  Not just the rebound but the, if the ex comes to his senses, I'll be the guy getting dropped in a heartbeat.  Not the best mentality to take into a first date.  Which means, at this point, I have nothing to gain from my date in a couple of days.  

In the lead in to our date, and actually, something I started telling any potential dates was that I've been keeping an online journal cataloging all my bad dates.  And I'd follow that up with, "You can either be a great date or you'll be a great story I'll share with my friends later."  I said this warning to all my potential dates for a few years.  

Night of the date we meet up at a BBQ joint in Long Beach.  She lived in the LBC...  Which, come to think of it, I've had a LOT of bad dates with girls from Long Beach...  We meet, chit-chat as we're eating.  I wait until I've fully chewed and swallowed before speaking, I'm not an animal.  And we get to talking about random stuff for a while and I mentioned having gone to the Smithsonian the previous Summer and seeing the fossils on display at the Natural History Museum there and that lead into the most bizzare exchange.

I said something like, it's easy to see how stories of dragons must have originated in antiquity.  Older societies, not knowing what they were looking at, would have assumed these fossilized bones could be construed that these fantastic creatures were something they weren't.  The ancient Greeks thought that the bones of mammoths were giant, one-eyed men.  Cyclops.  How easily could a farmer plowing his field suddenly dig up large, serpentine looking bones (brachiosaur?) and assume it may have been a dragon?  Logically, it's plausible.  

Her counterpoint was that dragons were real.  That they were like dinosaurs.  And that dinosaurs lived alongside man.  

"Wait, what?"  

"Yeah, dinosaurs and cavemen lived at the same time."  

"What?  What makes you think that?"

"The pictures."  

"What pictures?"

"You've seen pictures of cavemen riding dinosaurs, haven't you?" 

I can only imagine the look I must have given her for legit believing that.  And it wasn't a joke on her part.  There wasn't any sly wink or knowing smirk.  No, she was dead serious.  And after a few silent moments, she finally asked,
"Is this going to be one of those dates you talk about with your friends?"

"oh, yeah." I nodded.  

"Awkward." was her nearly silent reply.

The rest of the dinner went, I walked her to her car and got the one-armed side hug.  You know the one that says, I don't hate you but I don't expect to ever see or hear from you again.  

So imagine my shock when 10 days later she texts me out of the blue.  Exactly 10 days later with not a peep between us since that night. 
"So I guess this means we're done?"  

Yep, genius.