A date by any other name.

Blind dates are usually against my policy. I can get guys to ask me out on my own, thank you very much.

More importantly, I always end up making a fool of myself on blind dates. Actually, I make a fool of myself on dates in general. It's a wonder I ever make it to the second date.

This week I went out on a blind date with a friend of a friend. When my friend had asked me if she could give this guy my number, she never told me his name, so when he called, I was fully convinced that he had introduced himself as "Robby." I was fully convinced of this throughout dinner as well. I was fully convinced right up until the point where he corrected me, saying "you know that my name's actually 'Bobby', right?" Yep, that is definitely the point where I became much less convinced. Flat out the opposite of convinced ("un-convinced"? "unvinced"?...). Flat out mortified.

I spent the rest of the date feeling sheepish and apologizing profusely. There is nothing worse than being called the wrong name. I mean, I guess it could have been worse. I could have called him "Steve" the entire night or something. At least "Robby" is relatively similar to "Bobby," right? For all he know I'm just dislexic...

In all of my awkward glory, I began to reminise to myself about past dates. There have been some doozies. Don't steal this stuff. It's true, and give credit where credit is due. When it shows up in my memoirs someday, I don't want to be accused of plagarism because one of ya'll out there in cyberspace stole anecdotes from my deliciously awkward life.

Prom. I was 17. I had braces. I was sunburned from being in the sun all day attempting to play golf with guys who grew up on the country club (I'm more of a McDonald's girl myself...no country club for me). I went with a guy that I hadn't really spoken with since the 6th grade. In fact, in our Provo-style all-day-long date, I think that I talked to him more than I previously had in my whole life combined.

We went to Tepanyaki for dinner (picture Beni Hana, but "Happy-Valley" style). The chef was Asian (duh, Rach, what'd you expect?). And, as I've recently experienced again, didn't speak much English --wow, I really should learn Japanese. I told the man that I didn't want any shrimp. I don't think he understood. Correction, I KNOW he didn't understand, because he still launched the shrimp in my direction.

As I reached my hand out to catch the shrimp in mid-air (I really didn't want to eat it...I hate the texture of shrimp), the neck of my dress also came forward. I missed the shrimp, but it didn't miss me. It went straight down my dress.

The shrimp was hot. The shrimp smelled, well, shrimpy...and I didn't like it one bit. I quickly excused myself from the table--amid stares from the 11 teenagers surrounding me--and ran to the bathroom. It was practically a surgical procedure to remove said shrimp. My dress was quite tight, so I had to completely unzip to get it out.

I returned to the table, slightly burned, slightly embarassed, and slight hint of shrimp emanating from my dress.

I have grown older since high school, but that doesn't mean that my dates have gotten any less awkward. I live for this stuff.