A Scene in My Life: The "Non-Date"

It was the end of June and the heat had anyone who stepped outside sweaty, red faced and sticky within minutes.  My air conditioner was broke, I was working seven and a half hours every day and I was more concerned with how I was going to pay for my mission trip to Arizona that ran at about $400 and how much a new A/C air compressor was going to hit my already feeble bank account.  For the first time since I was 15, dating was the last thing on my mind.

My best friend, a perky, tall blond, that always had her hair in a ponytail, and when she walked, it bounced.  Her bouncy ponytail described her personality to a tee.  She could be a bit pushy, and she always wanted her friends to be ecstatically happy.  As for me, she decided ecstatically happy would only come if I were seriously dating a good Christian boy that Momma Lauren would approve of.

After a disastrous prom date setup, I had pretty much lost all confidence in Lauren, so when she texted me that someone was interested, I rolled my eyes and calmly replied, “Really? Who?”  The text back was “Zach! Zach Cruse! Remember him from the lock-in?”

After that qualifier, “from the lock-in,” it hit me.  Zach was the guy I had talked to at 2 a.m.  I was running on very little sleep, and everyone else had been ridiculously hyper, but Zach and I weren’t.  We wound up talking for three hours about nothing specific; music, our love/hate relationship with Death Cab for Cutie, movies, our die-hard love affair with Star Wars and our disagreement on William Shatner Star Trek or the absolutely horrible (in my opinion) Next Generation.  That random conversation was what stuck out to me.  I couldn’t really remember details about what he looked like, so I did what any other curious 19 year old female would do: I Facebook stalked his pictures and scoped out his friends.

Zach seemed like an interesting guy, so I gave Lauren the thumbs up and the go ahead.  She gave him my number.  I think I was more worried about her forcing him to text me than if we would actually like me or not, and yes, she had forced texting on a guy before.  The prom fiasco was still vivid in my mind.

The first text came on July 1.  I was at work, sneaking my cell phone from my purse when I knew my boss wasn’t around. He was at his Grandma’s.  For five straight days I woke to a text and fell asleep to a text.  SMS messaging was the new pilot light for relationships in my life.  We clicked immediately, and I knew I wanted to see where we could go.

Five days later, Zach and I had our first “non-date.”  I agonized over what to wear. I still didn’t have my air fixed yet, and at a humid 95 degrees outside, I was worried I would show up at the bowling alley with melted make-up, sweat-stains under my arm pits and crazy hair that would make me seem like a Scary Spice Girl wannabe.  I was running late, per usual, and I was already nervous.  Dating wasn’t something I did very much in high school.  In all actuality, I hadn’t dated in two and a half years.  I got to the bowling alley and there he was.  He looked fairly harmless.  I was pretty for sure I could take him down if I needed to.  And then he smiled, and said hey, and I forgot about my little pink pepper spray bottle in my purse.  I smiled back, we bought two games of bowling, and immediately started conversation. 

It was like we had been friends for years before then.  We talked about church, our friends, school, and anything else that popped into our heads.  He made fun of my little dance moves after I tossed my bowling ball down the alley.  He laughed at the thud it made when I accidently lofted it.

The night wasn’t all about bowling though, it was about finding my way back to being social, to saying hey, I’m capable of going out on a “non-date” and surviving.  It was a liberating thought.  And I got a bonus out of the entire experience.

“Huh,” I thought to myself.  “I really like this one.”