Living Happily Ever After
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First Date

Date: May 21, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If you’re a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it’s real embarrassing if someone tries to kill you.” (Jack Handy)

Who can forget their first date?

My mom fondly recalled her first date many times over the course of my life: she was 5 years old, and went to a movie at a movie theater with a boy and his parents. She was a friendly gal, and dated a lot during her childhood and early teens, and then it was recommended by L.D.S. church leaders that dating be delayed until the age of 16 so she stopped dating–until she turned 16 years old!

I remember my first date: Derek.

It was late August 1983 after I had turned 16 years old. The boy I’d had a crush on since the moment I first laid eyes on him (at 14 years old) had asked me out and my friend, Carrie, had come over to help me get ready. I talked and hung out with her while I did my hair and makeup and decided what to wear–and she gave me a pedicure, which I promptly covered up when I put my Topsiders on! It was the 1980s, so of course my hair was something to behold, and accented by the skinny tie (anyone remember wearing those?) that completed my ensemble. We saw the movie, “Strange Brew,” and had a great time. It was a first date with no regrets, or embarrassing moments, that I can recall.

My daughter’s first date was an entirely different experience: Eric.

She went to a school dance with the boy she sits by in Chemistry class, a fun and casual friend. Watching my daughter get ready, and helping her, was a total flashback to the 1980s as she was headed to a decades-themed dance and she and her date had chosen 1980s exercise wear. I helped her find a Jelly belt, tear her sweatshirt to hang off the shoulder, find neon-colored tank tops to layer, get her hair in THE  high side ponytail, with her green eyeshadow (what can I say, we couldn’t find any blue eyeshadow in the house!) and with her hot pink headband (just like Olivia Newton John’s in “Lets Get Physical.”) It wasn’t in the original plan that my daughter drive on the date, but due to car troubles of other parties involved, she ended up driving her car. And accidentally, while slowly backing up, she backed into a friend’s car.

It was dark. Neither she nor her date saw the other car. Thankfully, she backs up really slowly. Thankfully, no damage occurred to either car or to any living being. In fact, the driver of the other car got out, hugged my daughter and told her it was no big deal. I was very relieved there was no damage to people or automobiles; but my daughter was so mortified about the whole thing she wasn’t even dwelling on that. That event overshadowed every other aspect of her first date. That event was what she talked about when she got home. Even late the NEXT evening she was still worrying about it, alone in her bedroom, so I went to check on her.

She was absolutely humiliated, mortified, and didn’t want to show her face anywhere, ever, again. I tried to help her put it into perspective so I said, “Sarah, you can survive this. Just think of other hugely embarrassing things you’ve overcome.”

“Like what?” she asked.

I was stunned. Had the events of 2009 faded that fast in her teenage mind? I clarified, “Like discovering a family member stole millions of dollars, was heading to prison, it was all over the national media, we lost everything and had to watch the government come into our home and take our possessions, some people were mean to us, other people were kind to us yet we had to rely on the charity of others…ALL of those embarrassing moments we endured. If you can survive that humiliation, you can get through anything! This is nothing compared to that.”

Adding that last sentence reminded me that embarrassment and humiliation is all in your perspective. It was also a mistake; add it to the many that continually stream from my mouth, far too often, as I say what I think pretty much as soon as I think it. Call it one of my many weaknesses.

My daughter countered that her experience was far more embarrassing than the one I referenced. I was stunned! I couldn’t believe she really thought that, but she did. She drove her point home (no pun intended, lol!) when she added, “And Mom, if you think criminals, Ponzi schemes, publicity, divorce, prison, crime, government seizure and everything else is more embarrassing than backing into another car on a date…you don’t know ANYTHING about teenage girls!”

Wow. How could I have gotten so old and so far removed from being a teenage girl? And how could I have failed my daughter like that?

You see, one of the great things about being my mother’s daughter is that no matter my embarrassing moment, when I returned home mortified about something that had happened to me, my mom could totally commiserate and share an embarrassing moment from her life that absolutely outdid mine, made me laugh and made me feel so much better about my humiliation! In fact, she survived such mortification that as an adult, friends would call after something embarrassing and ask, “Tell me a story about your mom to make me feel better so I can get through this most recent humiliation.” I thought that’s what mothers are for–and I wasn’t able to do that for mine! (Although I must be blinded by my past, because I could swear 2009 is the ultimate in humiliation. I can’t see myself ever being embarrassed about anything again, after that one!)

So I quit trying to reason with my daughter, stopped attempting to help her put embarrassment into perspective and just empathized with her. I promised that someday, we will look back on her first date…and laugh; we’ll even be the better for it, and we’ll be strong.

“But I learned that there’s a certain character that can be built from embarrassing yourself endlessly. If you can sit happy with embarrassment, there’s not much else that can really get to ya.” (Christian Bale)

Now if we can only be totally hot when we have as much character, strength and wisdom as Batman, we’ll be absolutely set for…The Unexpected Life.

The Day After My First Date

Date: June 16, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If you think there are no new frontiers, watch a boy ring the front doorbell on his first date.” (Olin Miller)

Or try re-entering the dating scene after being married, and out of it, for 20 years!

The day after my first date (not the first date of my life, when I turned 16 in 1983 and saw the movie “Strange Brew” with a boy I’d liked since I was 15 years old)–the first date of my newly single, unexpected life in 2009, my pastor and his family invited my children and I over for Sunday dinner.

After we were seated around the table and the food had been blessed, he turned to me and asked what I had been up to. I decided then was as good a time as any to be honest about my foray into dating, so I said, “You won’t believe it, but I went on a date last night!”

I don’t think that is what my pastor expected to hear. He choked on his soup!

When he recovered, he asked me what I’d done for my date. I told him I’d gone to a singles dance at a local university. He and his wife exchanged a look across the table…and BOTH of them choked on their soup!

The conversation turned to other things, but after the children finished eating and left the table, they told me to be careful. As part of their church assignment, they said they had chaperoned those types of activities and had heard a lot of scary things went on at those type of gatherings. My pastor admonished me to never go alone as the parking lots were especially “dangerous” for single women.

Instead, he encouraged me to try a different type of single activity–Sunday night meetings where guest speakers presented spiritual messages to the singles group and everyone stayed afterward to eat refreshments and mingle. He said the type of people who attended those activities were a better caliber of people. He made me promise I would try one of those.

If there is one thing about me, it’s that I am committed. When I give my word, I follow through. That promise nagged at the back of my mind for a few weeks until I finally decided to try one of the Sunday night meetings, just so I wouldn’t have anything hanging over my head. One night, on impulse (there I go again!) I went to a Sunday night gathering. But instead, afterward, I was the one who wanted to choke!

I went alone. Although I was meeting some single men, the online thing wasn’t helpful for meeting single women. I researched the location on the internet and drove off to the building. I wasn’t expecting much. I imagined the gathering would take place in a small room of a church building, with maybe 13 people in attendance. I planned to sit through the talk and then leave as soon as it was over. I was shocked when I pulled up to the building and saw the parking lot was full, and that cars were parked on the streets too! I saw several people walking in. Clearly, it was going to be more than I anticipated.

I walked toward the entrance, alone, in the dark. I could see a man actually running toward the building. I started to wonder what I was doing. I felt 12 years old again, watching a boy RUN to not be late to an important event. I started to shake my head and laugh that this was my new life at the same moment the man ran past me. Then he stopped, turned around, walked back to me, shook my hand, introduced himself, and turned and ran into the building! The door slammed behind him just as I arrived at it. I opened the door for myself and went in.

The meeting was not being held in a small room of the church building. Instead, it was in the chapel and overflow area and it was packed with people. “Are there this many single people in my city?” I wondered. I was shocked. (I found out later that Utah County has approximately 40,000-50,000 singles. I guess I moved to the right place to meet single people. I just had to figure out how!) The next thing that shocked me was the age of the crowd. It seemed like everyone was older, gray-haired, and looked like a grandma or a grandpa. I thought of my mom, who had been widowed and single for 20 years–NOT of myself! I felt like the youngest person there, and I could have been (or it could have been that whole age denial thing going on there too.)

I sat on the back row and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. Every time I looked up I saw people quickly look away. Every time the outside door opened, I noticed a sea of heads turn in the direction of the door to check out who was entering the room! I wondered if people were there for the message or to people watch instead! I was betting on the latter. The expression from the 1980s, “meat market,” came to mind. Weird to see grandmas and grandpas doing that though!

The message was about marriage. The speaker said he had gotten married because he had worked to make that a possibility, and that marriage was possible for everyone if they just wanted it bad enough and worked hard enough to make it happen. He was a lot older and more experienced than I am, so he may know more than I do about that, but I had only one thought as I sat there: what about those people who were married, and did all they could to love and serve and support and trust their spouse, and ended up single through no fault or plan of their own? I wondered where I fit in. Or, if I even “fit” at all.

I didn’t feel like I did.

As soon as the meeting was over, I escaped out the door as quickly as I could and drove home. Alone. In the dark. I had kept my promise but I have to say, I didn’t leave feeling encouraged. The message had only raised questions that I’d never thought of. As much as I try to keep my chin up and remain optimistic, my thoughts as I drove home that night were this: I was destined to be single the rest of my life, and so was everyone else I’d seen at the meeting. Nothing made me feel more hopeless about remarriage than that Sunday meeting, my initial impression of the people in attendance, and the message…unless it was a singles dance!

But I’m not a quitter. I believe you can’t judge something by your first impression. I felt I owed my pastor one more shot at a singles gathering before I made up my mind about it.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m a glutton for punishment.