Growing up with two brothers, I had to learn how to share

I am participating in -R-'s Second Blog Share today. What does that mean? It means THIS POST WAS NOT WRITTEN BY ME. That's right.....this is my first guest post ever on Sauntering Soul. You may be wondering who my guest poster is. Well, I can't tell you. That's what Blog Share is all about. It gives participants an opportunity to post something anonymously on someone else's blog for the day. If there's something you've been wanting to get off your chest but don't want everyone to know it's from you, today is the day for that.

Here is a post from an anonymous blogger and was not written by me:

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When I sit down to write a post for my own blog, I usually have no idea what I'm going to say. I just start with some random thought and go from there. Now that I'm taking up space on someone else's blog, I feel all this pressure -- be witty! Be charming! Write about something taboo! Sadly, I do not have any stories about nudie resorts (hiLARious, by the way), but since -R- has noted that "swinging is always funny", I will tell you a story that tangentially involves swinging. Swinging and a very, very bad date.

(I should mention, by the way, that I must have been fated to write on Sauntering Soul's blog, because, like her, I absolutely DESPISE when people make words plural unnecessarily and when people say MACKDonald's. We are grammatical pet peeve soul sisters.)

I personally have not gone on many dates; I am a relationship person, not a date-y person. High school was, shall we say, not fertile ground for dating, at least for me for a great number of reasons not worth mentioning here. In college, I went on one memorably awful date with a scrawny, short dude who mentioned in passing that he owned a green velvet unitard (HUGE turn-on, let me assure you), and who, on the walk from our dorm to the coffee shop or movie or whatever it was, suddenly started darting behind cars and pillars, holding his hand in a pistol shape in some kind of one-man Secret Agent game. I did not see him again.

A few years later, I had a drink with a guy I'd met at a party, which is as close to a blind date as I've ever gotten. At the party, he introduced himself as an Irishman with some complicated backstory I can no longer recall. Also for reasons I can no longer recall (other than he must have asked), I tipsily scrawled my number on a piece of paper and forgot about it until, months later, a guy called me and said we'd met at a party and he wanted to get together. I searched my memory but came up with nothing for several minutes. Finally, I had a vague glimmer of recognition, but something was off. He no longer had an accent. "So, ah...you're not Irish, then?" I asked. He explained that he and his buddy had decided to be Irish that night (?), and yet FOR NO GOOD REASON, I still agreed to meet up with him.

We met at a low-lit lounge and sat at the bar. The guy, it turned out, was a stand-up comedian (meaning, of course, he was unemployed and living on people's couches). He spent the first hour or so trying out his material on me. It was not funny. I mean, not even the slightest bit funny. I winced and cringed and basically wanted to die; I don't think I laughed or even smiled once. The guy got up to use the bathroom and somehow managed to get into a near-fist fight in the process, and while he was gone, the bartender winked at me and gave me a drink on the house, and another fellow down the bar offered to buy my next one. Clearly, even to passersby, it was a bad date. And at some point, a weird, possibly homeless man wandered into the bar and, after loping unsteadily around for a while, came up behind me and started to run his hands through my hair. Which was really the end of the evening for me. My date rather chivalrously asked if I wanted him to "take down" the crazy dude, but I demurred and hightailed it out of there. A few months later, I saw my date on a Hair Club for Men commercial.

But neither of these dates remotely compares to one I witnessed.

Some years ago, I was out to dinner with my then-boyfriend at a cozy French place with a fireplace and a solicitous matire-d'. We were enjoying a bottle of wine and having quiet, couple-y conversation, when we started to notice that at the next table a sort of situation was in progress.

As far as we could tell, our neighbors were on a blind date and had met on the Internet (since this was a while before Match.com and its ilk, it seems most likely that they met in an AOL chat room, which somehow makes the rest of it less surprising). Both of them were probably in their late 40s; the man was slightly heavyset with a dark beard, and the woman was...well, she seemed a bit librarian-like. I believe she was wearing one of those calico dresses with puff sleeves and one of those doily-looking things around the neck.

So there they were, going through the awkward motions of getting-to-know-you-chitchat, which was generally unremarkable (did you run into traffic getting here? do you recommend the duck?) until the man asked her, loudly enough for us to hear, "When was the last time you got laid?"

For a moment, everything seemed to pause. My boyfriend and I froze, utensils halfway to our mouths, and stared at each other in disbelief and wonder. Would she throw her wine in the guy's face? Would she run from the restaurant, leaving her coat and purse behind in her haste? Would we be able to refrain from laughing long enough to hear her response?

She was silent for a while, and then she quietly replied, "Um....welll....I don't really feel comfortable--"

"NINE MONTHS for me, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?" the guy bellowed, bulldozing over her attempt to squash the conversation before it went any further. "I am so f****** horny right now. Before that it was over a year. A YEAR without getting laid. Man. I bet it hasn't been that long for you, has it? Although if it has, I bet your [insert lewd speculation here]."

"Well, I-- I really would rather not talk--" she stuttered in a timid, almost apologetic voice.

"Are you wearing pantyhose right now?" he asked (smooth segue, man, real smooth).

"Um, sorry?"

"Because what I would like to do is take you back to my apartment and watch you take those pantyhose off while I [insert lewd act here]. Yeah, that's what I want to do. Maybe we should skip dinner, you think?" he said, loud enough for about five tables to hear.

"Could you please keep your voice down? You're making me very uncomforta--"

"I KNOW WHAT WE SHOULD DO. Let's go to [The Circus] -- you know that place? It's a swingers' club. You don't have to get with me, babe, you can get with anybody. We can have a real nice time. You just have to let me watch you take off that pantyhose of yours first..."

At this point, half the restaurant was listening. People sipped their wine and ate as quietly as possible , stifling their surprised laughter; when another table, unaware of the scene that was unfolding, laughed loudly at some private joke, everyone else glared in their direction. I was surprised that no one shushed them. The waiter scurried about, trying to be discreet; he appeared desperately uncertain whether to interrupt them to take their orders or just hover nearby and eavesdrop along with the rest of us.

"I think I would like to go home now; you're making me very uncomfortable," the woman said, reaching for her purse. She was sitting so far from the table that she could have joined us. Meanwhile, he was leaning forward, his elbows almost in the bread basket, he head lunging toward her.

"I'll take you home, baby. We don't have to swing tonight. Let's go to my place, and then I'll take you home....AFTER."

She started to move more frantically, folding her napkin and diving into her wallet for cash. "No! No. I'll get a taxi--"

"Here, I'll help you -- hey, I'll ride with you and we can have a drink at your place, heh heh heh..."

Before he had a chance to get up, she shoved her chair back and raced to the front of the restaurant. The maitre-d' had her coat ready and tossed it to her as she fled out into the frigid night. The man threw a few bills on the table and rushed after her. "Wait! Hey, wait for me! I'll go with you!" he called. By the time he reached the door, she was gone.

He shrugged at the maitre-d' and eased into his coat, donned his hat and stalked out the door. I wouldn't have been surprised if the restaurant had erupted in applause, but instead everyone exchanged glances of disbelief, feeling an odd camaraderie, and we all returned to our meals. I think every person in the place felt a bit more grateful for their dining companions, more thankful for being, at that moment, safe from the wilds of the dating world.

How about you, Internet? What was YOUR worst date?