LABELED: Blind Date from Hell by Lauren Morgan
A few years back my friend set me up on a blind date so she could go out with the guy's friend. We met up at the Santa Monica Pier on a particularly chilly summer night. My friend sees her love match and I see a very short guy next to him. Now, I have no problem going out with someone shorter than me. At 5’9", I’m used to guys being shorter than me, but this guy was barely 5’4". My date for the night was obviously put off by the height difference as well because as we were walking over I could see his face drop. This was obviously going to be a great start to the evening. While my friend went goo-goo for her date, I was quickly left alone with Shorty and nothing to talk about. I read a lot so I tried making small talk about books and quickly found out this guy hates to read. I tried talking about movies, but everything I liked he hated and vice versa. It became clear very quickly that we had nothing in common, and there would be no love connection tonight. In the midst of our awkward conversation my friend and her date had suddenly run off to be alone, and I was left with Mr. Grumpy Pants. After trying to look for our friends it became clear that we were just going to have to wait until they decided to reemerge from wherever they had run off to.
The guy was visibly upset that he was wasting his evening with a girl he wasn’t going to get anywhere with and unable to leave because our friends had the car keys. Our conversation turned to small talk about the ocean and places in the world when suddenly he tells me, “You know, one day California is going to break off and become its own country like Hawaii.” I thought he was joking so I laughed; this was obviously a mistake. The guy's mood changed from pseudo-intellectual to straight-up pissed.
“Why are you laughing? I’m serious! There have been reports stating that it's just a matter of time before California breaks off and goes into the ocean,” he insisted.
I looked at him quizzically.
“Um…Okay. But even if it did, Hawaii is an island, not its own country.”
That’s when he snapped.
“Are you stupid or something? Hawaii is not attached to anything, that means it is its own country, just like Alaska.”
At that moment I knew I was dealing with a complete idiot. I calmly turned to him and told him, “Alaska and Hawaii are states, and are part of the United States of America.”
The guy became so mad that he actually started to huff, puff, and turn beet red.
“HAWAII IS A COUNTRY!,” he yelled, before turning away and stomping off to the other side of the pier.
When our friends finally made their way back to us, I fiercely grabbed my friend and yelled to her date that she’d call him as I dragged her to the car.
“What the hell were you thinking setting me up with that?,” I yelled at her.
“What?,” she blankly asked. “You guys didn’t hit it off?”
I just stared at her before saying, “No. That guy thinks Hawaii is its own country.”
“Oh,” she simply said. “Well, at least he was cute, right?”
That was the first time my friend set me up on a blind date; you would think from this experience I would never let her set me up again. Little did I know, Mr. Hawaii is a Country would one day look like Prince Charming compared to the next guy she set me up with.
