Last night I went on a date in the city, which has bad traffic and very little parking on the weekends.
I was right on time, but a little worried about finding a space for my car. As soon as Siri told me I had arrived at my destination, though, I saw a spot literally right in front of the restaurant! It was fairly tight, but I told myself I was a decent parallel parker (I knew deep down that I was lying to myself) and went for it.
Terrible idea.
First, it was super embarrassing because I basically had to stop traffic to even try to park. Second, my date and everyone in the front of the restaurant could see outside, and my only consolation was knowing that he had no idea what my car looked like.
After trying to ease my car into the spot I realized I was nowhere near the curb. I couldn’t just leave my car sticking out in the middle of the road, so I got back in the car and tried again. And again. And again.
Guys, what I am telling you is that I am a terrible parallel parker. Terrible. I blame Virginia for not requiring it in Drivers Ed class.
Anyway, this is basically what ended up happening:
Yes, I bumped the car behind me. No, I didn’t have as much room as Michael to park; my spot was really tight, so it wasn’t as ridiculous. I did end up having to write a note and leave it on the car behind me in front of everyone. There wasn’t any damage done since I just tapped the bumper, but I felt like it was the right thing to do regardless.
Today’s lesson: Don’t try to be someone you’re not. I’m not a good parallel parker, so I shouldn’t have acted like I was Dominic Toretto. I should have just driven like a Krista.
Things with this guy started out on the wrong foot when I accidentally acted like a major creeper, but I figured if he really thought I was weird he would have politely backed out of the date or even ghosted me.
He’ll think I’m cool when he gets to know me in person, I thought.
Well, we met and had a great date, but not until I embarrassed myself much further before even meeting the guy.
I woke up with plenty of time to get ready and make the drive to DC. For once I even showed up early to meet my date! I stood outside of the Air and Space Museum and texted him that I was under the statue by the entrance.
This is very obviously “the statue in front of the museum.” Which is how I was able to quickly realize a mistake had been made when he didn’t see it. #smoothmove
A few minutes later he was like, “Wait, what statue? I’m right in front of the restaurant.”
I quickly realized I had gone to the wrong meeting place.
Crap. This guy must think I’m insane.
So after texting back and forth we decided to walk towards each other and go to the restaurant together. After mapping it I realized it was a thirty minute walk, so changed the plan a third time and decided to drive to him.
Then I found out there was a Spanish parade going on in DC. All of the roads were closed and long story short, it took like 30 minutes to get to the restaurant anyway.
I had made such an effort to get there on time, and ended up being over 30 minutes late. Great first impression, Krista (After being a creep too!).
Today’s lesson: If you’re at all like me, leave three hours before you think you need to be somewhere. When something can go wrong it will. At the same time, though, he got to see a day in the life of Krista on a first date, which isn’t such a bad thing. He’s been warned.
Update: I learned this guy is quite the trooper. I guess being a creep and a bit of a goof on a first date don’t necessarily mean you’re doomed… I was asked to go on a second date!
One of my favorite things in the world is making people happy.
My Love Language is giving people gifts, so I wanted to add that into my blog to share some with y’all. My friends and family are kind of spoiled and probably are somewhat sick of getting gifts from me, so I want to share with you!*
I don’t have a job right now (#GradSchoolProblems), but I can definitely get creative with this and give fun little things away when I come across them.
Today I want to give mix CDs of my favorite music at the moment to the first 5 people to comment what you are excited about this week. It can be something small, but I definitely think we all have something to look forward to, and would love to share your excitement!
My detective skills have been on point since I started dating.
Like, I can usually find a lot of information on a guy with only knowing a few key things about him. For the most part this has been great because I’ve felt safe meeting up with everyone so far.
There is one particular fellow who I kind of wish I had been bad at finding.
I woke up at 5:15 the morning I was supposed to go to the beach with some friends. I was still kind of groggy, so decided to go on my phone until I was a little more alert to finish packing.
A guy I had been talking to for awhile online had finally given me his number, so naturally I clicked on it to add him to my contacts. Apple, you really dropped the ball in programming the iPhone… Instead of having an option to add his number to my contacts, my phone immediately started to call him!
I dropped the phone on my face in a panic (You know how that happens sometimes, right?), and it bounced onto the ground. I leaped to the floor to try to hang up, but before I was able to I heard a muffled, “Hello?”
I waited a day to text him, but I’m sure he must have been able to put two and two together, as I have a pretty unique looking phone number. Oops.
That seems like something I can recover from still though, right?
Unfortunately we decided that we would meet up, so I began investigating. I happened upon his Facebook — I think you know where this is going — and accidentally friend requested him.
You can “undo” that, which I did quickly, but I got a text later joking me about friending him. Like, how creepy do I seem?! And guys say girls can’t be labeled as creepers… They just haven’t met me I guess.
We are still going out this weekend so I’ll write an update later if any of this comes up, but I am sure this dude must think I’m already obsessed with him or something. Yikes.
Today’s lesson: Guys must not care as much whether a girl is a creeper or not. What do y’all think; can a girl be a creep?
I went on an ice cream date last week, and maybe it’s just me, but it’s a lot messier than one would expect.
I’ve learned that being a Krista is hard work. If I wear white and eat Italian food, I will get red sauce on something. Chocolate milk? Thanks for the mustache.
These minor embarrassments have prepared me really well for first dates.
Unfortunately, this guy must not be as clumsy as I am, because he didn’t know about the trick to choose a delicate, light colored ice cream (White Chocolate Truffle is my favorite); instead, he ordered the Blackberry Swirl.
Needless to say, I was pretty darn impressed. Gutsy move on his part. “He must be quite the dexterous dude,” I thought to myself. I was wrong.
Halfway through our date the sun was beating down on us, so we moved under the shade. Our ice cream had already begun to melt viciously, but as I said before I am kind of a pro and had ordered mine in a cup. This poor gentleman had picked the cone.
Neither of us saw what was coming next.
He bit the bottom of the cone.
Let that sink in. He bit the bottom of the cone. On a hot day. Our ice cream was already melting like nobody’s business.
Needless to say, the ice cream exploded all over the front of his pants. I tried so hard to keep a good poker face, but literally could not contain myself. I burst out laughing, and he quickly followed.
Honestly, there was no fixing the shorts while we were there. He blotted some of the cream off, but it seemed like the blackberry stains only spread more as we tried to get them out.
This date had a happy ending, as we decided to be friends afterwards, and he even texted me later that Mr. Clean had done the trick in fixing his soiled shorts. He still has a great relationship with ice cream, and would order the blackberry again in an instant.
Today’s lesson: I normally encourage people to be themselves on a date, but when it comes to what food you choose to order, do not be yourself! Dear God, do not be yourself. Choose something foolproof like white ice cream for dessert or a plain loaf of bread for dinner. The less room for error, the better.
What is the worst faux pas you have had with food on a date? Can anyone else relate to my struggle of still being a messy eater in your twenties?
I’m not really a proud person, (Thank God; I get myself into too many embarrassing situations on a regular basis, and wouldn’t be able to be happy if I cared a lot about what others thought about me) but I do pride myself on one thing — always being kind to others.
People love to laugh at others’ expense (I do encourage you to laugh at my expense on here!) or poke fun at people for being different, and we almost always think our way of doing things is best.
God gives us each our own special and unique gifts for a reason, though. If people weren’t vastly different from one another, the world wouldn’t be able to function as a whole. Frankly, what makes us different is often what makes us interesting.
One thing I never, ever want to do is make anyone feel bad about themselves. I don’t want my dates to somehow stumble upon my blog and feel badly about the way they are portrayed — so far everyone has been really nice and treated me well, so they definitely don’t deserve that. If they ever found this I would want them to be able to laugh and enjoy themselves the same way you have so far.
So we are going to change things up and make them a bit more interesting.
First, we are going to get a peek into what it’s like dating me. I probably make the most hilarious date of all, and I definitely have my fair share of embarrassing stories already. Second, we will still be seeing great clips from hilariously relatable dates; we just won’t be getting up close and personal with any individual gentleman. Third, I think we can all relate to the struggles we go through dating in our twenties, so I am excited to give and receive advice from you all.
Here are a few things to look forward to in the next few weeks:
The story of me getting friendzoned… Hard.
Every girl’s worst nightmare on a date. Seriously, at least 90% of you should be able to guess what this topic will be on.
I have some really entertaining interviews set up that I’m really excited to share.
Y’all are going to get the opportunity to be a little more involved in my dating life. No, we won’t be pranking my dates, but I have a few different ideas on how you can be a part of this journey with me.
Lastly, I want to thank all of you for your support. I didn’t realize when I set this up that I would have almost 1,000 viewers in the first 24 hours, and the pressure is definitely on to come up with some good material.
This is one of my favorite quotes, and if I can have any influence on the way people feel, I want it to be positive.
Well, I went on my first date post-breakup and first ever Tinder date today.
It was everything I could have imagined and more.
I love awkward situations. They’re hilarious and make great stories. This blog is going to survive because of my awkwardness.
First, I didn’t realize when I set up a Tinder that they automatically made your preferences like, between the ages of 18 and 40 or something. I didn’t change those, frankly just because I didn’t know about them.
So this guy ended up being more than 10 years my elder.
We had planned to meet at a nice outdoor cafe in town to get Nutella crepes (There was no turning back once Nutella was brought into the mix… It is my kryptonite), so I left my house a little early to just kind of chill until he got there.
I needed a picture for my blog, so got one of my first date outfit.
First impression: He didn’t necessarily look like his pictures, but he also didn’t not look like his pictures. Meeting up with people you have never seen in person is a bit odd!
The date started off fine; I would say it was fairly normal.
He told me about his outdoors escapades for the first 45 minutes or so, and I listened politely. I’m not super-outdoorsy, so couldn’t necessarily relate to his excitement, but it’s cool.
Then things got weird.
A baby bumblebee landed on his forearm.
We watched it crawl up and down his arm for about a minute, then I finally couldn’t contain myself any longer and was like, “Do you have something against killing bugs?”
He told me he didn’t but that, “The little fella isn’t bothering anyone.”
Okay. I guess I get it. I just absolutely hate bugs, so there was another thing I couldn’t seem to relate to.
We moved back to talking about his appreciation for the outdoors, and after almost 3 hours of chatting, I decided I really had to get going.
Here’s the thing. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t think it’s cool making out with someone I literally just met that day, especially if I don’t feel any chemistry with them. I could tell by the way he had been looking gazing at me the past few minutes that he wanted to make a move. Being fully aware of the fact that I am hilariously awkward at “cheeking” men is only half the battle; actually doing it is the hard part.
So I handled this predicament the best way I could. It was time to choose fight or flight.
I picked the latter.
I thanked him for the crepes and said I had to go to the restroom, but that I would see him again later.
“Oh, no worries, I gotta go too.”
Crap, crap, crap. There went my escape plan.
We awkwardly walked back inside the cafe and then left to walk back to our cars together. I had considered sneaking out the first floor window in the bathroom, but I do believe in treating people the way I want to be treated, so figured that wouldn’t be such a nice way to end a date. After all, the guy hadn’t done anything wrong.
He began to slow his gait as we neared the cars.
Crap, crap, crap!
I’m no dummy. He was going to make a move. Guys, there was no attraction whatsoever. This wouldn’t have been fun for either of us.
So I did what I do best. I created an awkward situation.
“Since that was our first date I’ll just go ahead and give you a hug,” I said cheerfully.
As we broke free, he beelined straight towards me. I did a quick 180 so the back of my head met his lips, then took three enormous steps away from him, turned around to face him, waved and exclaimed, “Thanks again for the crepes, it was nice meeting you!” and got into my car.
Seriously, read that again. He kissed my bun. Please write a comment below if you’ve ever deflected a guy and had him unintentionally get a mouthful of your hair. This was unpleasant enough for me, but I can only imagine how weird it must have been for the guy.
Poor kid. I gave him all the signals in the world, though.
Today’s lesson: Have a better escape plan than doing a 180 on a guy. That was so not cool.
Krista Lauren 