The Creep Five

Today I retold a story that I have told many, many times.  So many that I decided to finally document this event and permanently enter it into annals of internet history.  This is the story of the creep five.

We've all had dating disasters- this story is no exception.  It happened about 6 years ago. I had been single for quite some time and was ready to get back into the dating scene after the end of a long term relationship.  To put it simply- I'm not good at dating.  It's awkward, it's uncomfortable, it's just not for me.

Enter, this guy.  Let's call him 'Schmaniel.'  I met Schmaniel at a friend's wedding.  We had a really cute story too- we both saw each other from across the room, each inquired separately about each other, yada yada yada.  We eventually began a conversation, and it turned out that we had a lot in common.  We quickly exchanged numbers and were extremely eager to begin the awkward 'getting to know each other' phase.

Over the following week we had several phone conversations.  These conversations got pretty serious, pretty fast, and always ended with me explaining that I am just getting over my ex boyfriend and will probably be slower paced about getting into another relationship.

Schmaniel lived about 4 hours north of me which posed a serious problem- we needed to see each other again- now.  Here is the plan we devised:  I was going to pick him up from the airport near me and drive him home (he was getting home from a vacation).  We would stay a night there, drive home to my house, stay a night there, and the following day drive to a concert that was conveniently located at about the half way point between our cities.

Here's how I was feeling at this point.

<------(Excited and hopeful)

And here is how it all went terribly, terribly wrong.

You know that feeling you get when you meet someone and you instantly connect, fall immediately into pseudo-love and you just cannot get enough of each other??  Well that feeling has an opposite: the feeling that the second you see this person you realize there is nothing there and you cannot get out of their presence fast enough.  I felt the latter. The second he got into my car.  Only instead of being able to walk away forever once the date is finished, I was stuck with him....for 3....whole....days.

I will not pretend that I am not partially to blame for the events that followed.  I could have stopped it.  I could have interrupted his, "Hi!  It's so great to finally see you again!!" with, "You know what?  I'm just not into it.  Let's just shake hands and I'll drop you off at home and we'll go our separate ways.  Good luck with your search!"  I did not do this.  I did not do this at all.

I would like to blame most of my temporary stupidity on the fact that I really, really, really wanted to get over my ex boyfriend.  It is not often that I am interested in dating someone, so in my mind, the part of me that wanted to be in a happy relationship was screaming, "Just give him a chance!  There was obviously something that you liked about this guy at the wedding!  Come ooooon!  You can do it!!!  WOOOOOO!!!!!" In other words I had a tiny squad of internal cheerleaders cheering me on.

So I should have told him I wasn't interested.  Instead I said this: 

"It's great to see you too!"  Fail.

The next hour was painful.  He seemed like a nice enough guy, I just didn't feel that I-don't-want-to-kick-you-out-of-my-car-this-second spark, you know?  Then, after about an hour of small talk he looked at me and said, "Sooo....do you want to be my girlfriend?"

No.  No, no, no, no, no I don't.

Is what I should have said.  

What I did say: ".....Ok?"  (Double fail.)  Now boys, maybe it's just me, but this is probably not the reaction you are hoping for when you ask a girl that question.  You are probably anticipating a, "I thought you'd never ask!" or a "Yes!  Yes!  A thousand times yes!"  Well that didn't happen.

Here's what did happen.  And if I didn't know that this wasn't going to work before, here's when I really knew this needed to end, stat.  Schmaniel looked at me, and then said, "Cool!......Now you ask me."

I am going to give this a minute to sink in to its appropriate and deserving extent.

...

..

.

Ok.  So not only do I really not want to date this guy, but now I have to REPEAT the question of monogamy back to him.  Here is where the fact that I was 20 and on the rebound comes into play.  Or at least that is what I tell myself to make myself feel better for actually doing what this fool asked of me.

Me:  "Um...do you want to be my boyfriend?"

Him:  "Yes!"

...

Him:  "Now let's high five on it!"

SIDENOTE:  Yes, this really did happen.  And yes, I wish I were making it up.

It's hard for me to even continue this story because with each word I type I am more and more mortified. But yes, I had just been asked to 'high five' in order to cement my newly founded relationship.  Ladies, gentlemen, if you are ever asked to 'high five' on a relationship, run away.  Run away as fast as you can.

So this happened.

.................

 <------ (Undeniable shame and embarrassment)

And here's how I felt inside.

Unfortunately, it gets worse...because here's what happened next.  As my hand touched his hand, something terrible happened.  Something that I didn't even know was possible.  

While I innocently subjected myself to the most humiliating high five I have ever received in my life, his fingers began to close around mine.  "no, no, No, NO, NOOOO!" - My tiny internal cheerleaders screamed.  Because, to my horror, this terrible high five had transformed into this:

And just like that, we were holding hands.  Awkward, uninterested, sweaty hands.  In the car.  We had high five-d on our relationship and now this was happening (refer to above picture).  The 'relationship' lasted 24 hours.  Which made the last 1.5 days of the trip extremely awkward (my bad).

And here's what I felt like.

From the moment it happened I knew that I would never live this down.  And so I decided to embrace it.  And tell whoever will listen.


And that, my friends, is the creep five.