First and foremost, I want to say that this entire date and the decisions prior to the date were just a string of poor decisions on my part with no logical explanation whatsoever. With that disclaimer, please enjoy the hilarity resulting from my poor decisions. I hope you find this story funny and can laugh as the poor decisions that teach me important life lessons, and hopefully you can learn these lessons through me instead of first hand.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a date with some guy you’ve met off a dating app, but it can be nerve racking, especially when you haven’t been in the dating game for a while. This was my first online date ever, so you could imagine the anxiety that was building up. Prior to this, I had dated two coworkers, one was working at the same location that I was and the second was from a different location though same company. (Side note, a lesson to anyone who is thinking about dating a co-worker or a colleague? Don’t do it)

So here I was, young and dumb and I had met this Jordan off Tinder that I had gotten along with really well. Sparks were flying and I was infatuated with him. After two days of talking for hours straight, I decided to ask him if he was interested in me. He decided that he only wanted to be friends with me and I had wanted to cut contact then and there, but being the catty and unsure young adult that I was, I decided to tell all my friends about it. Through heavy persuasion, my friend Jenna had convinced me to ask him on a date “as friends”. I worked up all the courage I had and decided to follow through with asking him out, and to my surprise he agreed to this friend date.

I had butterflies in my stomach. I was so excited to go on a date with Jordan, but it wasn’t until the butterflies had faded that the sudden realization that I was going on a date with a complete stranger had hit me. What had I gotten myself into? What if he was a murderer? What if he didn’t look like his photos? What if he thought I was ugly in person? What was a hopeless young adult to do! Well, the answer was simple, try to back out of the date, but thankfully my friend Jenna had gone through several online dates previously and had an arsenal of tips for me. In hindsight, these tips probably aren’t the best, but I appreciated them nonetheless, especially when I was going into anxiety overload mode. Together, we came up with a game plan and found the best way to not get murdered on the first date.

The Game Plan

1. Get to the date location on your own and park right in front of the café doors.

Why would you do this you may ask? Well, according to Jenna, this would allow me to leave on my own if the date wasn’t going well, and that was a valid point. I then asked her why I had to park right in front doors. Jenna’s explanation was that Jordan would have to walk by the front door in order to get into the café and if I saw him walk in and he didn’t look like his photos, I could excuse myself from the date right away.

• Arrive extra early

Why would I arrive extra early? Jenna was convinced that I had to arrive earlier than Jordan just in case he was an early bird. This way, if he was an early bird, I could still watch him walk into the café.

• Find out if he was driving there or getting there by other means

If he was driving, Jenna told me to look out for his car. This way I would be able to watch him get out of his car and confirm that it was him before going into the café to meet him. If he was getting there by transit? Ask for his outfit and watch for him then. Again, the same reason so that I would be able to leave if he was unrecognizable from his photos.

• The emergency call

I was to provide Jenna the date and time of my date and all details pertaining to it. I was to keep her in the loop regarding when I saw him and when the date was about to start/when I was about to meet up with him. She would then call me 15-20 minutes into the date and if I gave her our code word that we agreed upon, she would fake an emergency and she’d get me out of the date.

Now, I know this all seems extreme and wildly immature, but keep in mind, I had heard enough Tinder horror stories to prevent myself from becoming another statistic. I was also admittedly, wildly immature, but it’s always better to be over prepared than under prepared. So with the game plan set out and all the courage I could muster, I was prepared to go meet Jordan, who was hopefully my prince charming. Again, I was young and naïve.

The date

The date was scheduled for 8pm. As per Jenna’s advice, I decided to show up extra early. How early you may ask? I showed up 45 minutes early to the date. I thought this would be fine, I would just hang out in my car and play on my phone. I park directly in front of the entrance and I start playing on my phone. Two minutes had passed and it starts getting hot in the car. I completely neglected the fact that we were in the middle of August and in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave. It was in this moment, I realized I made a very very bad decision. I couldn’t turn on my car and idle for 45 minutes to enjoy air conditioning, that wouldn’t have been very environmentally friendly. So I power through, it’s only 45 minutes, it couldn’t have been that bad right? Wrong. Oh so very very wrong. I was literally suffocating myself.

I open the car door to start letting some air in, there still wasn’t enough circulation. So I open another car door and stand outside my car to get some fresh air. I did this for approximately 20 minutes before Jordan texts me and tells me he’s 5 minutes away. I hurriedly close all my doors and scramble back into my car. It’s only 5 minutes I tell myself. I can survive in the car for 5 minutes. At this point I’m in the backseat of my car and I can see his car. He parks.

I think to myself, oh thank god, please get out of the car now so I can see what you look like. Except, he doesn’t get out of the car. I text him, asking him if he’s in the café yet and he replies no. He’s waiting for me to get here before he starts heading into the café.

            At this point, I have been sitting in the sweltering heat in my car for about 10-15 minutes. Oxygen is running low, I am sure I am about to die, either from the sheer embarrassment that I have huge sweat patches under my armpits and I look like I’ve run a marathon, or the fact that I have been camping outside a café for 45 minutes waiting to see what this guy looks like only for my plan to back fire on me miserably. I have two options as this point. I could lie and tell him that I was in the café and still lure him to walk in front of me so that I could bolt, or I could just head into the café now and tell him that I’m there and he’ll walk in after. I calm myself down and decide that I was tired of camping in the car, so I pluck up whatever courage I have left and head into the café. Plus, I still have my back up back up plan where Jenna will call me 15 minutes into the date.

            Jordan walks in and thankfully he looked like his photos. I could still feel my heart in my throat though, I swear I was going to throw up in front of him. He orders his drink and he sits down and we get to talking. That date went really well, and I ended up dating him after that. I did tell him that I was trying to scope him out in the car before our first date to which his reply was that I am an idiot, and I don’t disagree.

Moral of the story?

            Just act like a normal person for your first date, whether you guys met off Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, whatever dating app, or even in person. You’re going to have to go on that first date eventually, so just don’t make it as weird as I did. All of the anxiety was self-inflicted, but at least I got a funny story out of it.