Smooth Move

During some of the time in CT, I attended some of the church activities, including Sunday services.  Most single people were about 10 years younger than me, so the gap made the date pool rather slim.  There was one woman there who was rather attractive, but I noticed some finger jewelry and rings that might suggest she might be married.  Also, she always attended church with two children, so I had simply dismissed her as possibly having a non-member husband.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later I was put in a situation where I started talking to “Brenda” her, and I noticed she appeared to be acting cautiously flirtatious.  I rather clumsily blurted out something about her children, but she laughed, and just told me that she was baby-sitting them for a sibling, and she was very much single.  Her school studies prevented her from socializing much, but after a bit of talking I managed to ask her out on a date.

Fast-forward to my date with Brenda.  I took her to a nice little restaurant and we enjoyed conversing and discussing awkward situations our lives had taken us in.  Brenda was nice, attractive, and very kind hearted, but also a bit “churchy”.  Not that it is a bad thing, but I could foresee many instances where our personalities and sense of humor would clash in some epic ways.  I could tell that whenever I discussed dating, or anything having to do with physical affection there was a overzealous religious knee-jerk reaction of shame or judgment.  Perhaps those are too strong of words, but there was obvious tension in there when I had assumed they were simple adult conversations.  Nothing filthy or demeaning, just simple matter-of-fact life events associated with dating.  We were both in our late 20s, so I didn’t see a problem.


As the evening progressed, despite a few awkward bumps in our conversation, things went well.  We attended a haunted house, rode some carnival rides, enjoyed holiday lights, etc.   The haunted house was memorable since a masked person jumped out of the shadows with a chainsaw revved up and charged me, Brenda, and another couple in front of us.  The guy in front of me pushed his date/girlfriend towards the chainsaw wielding attacker, and hid behind me.  He had a flight response, whereas I definitely had more of a “fight” response, and had already crouched into an offensive/defensive posture.  The lady really let into her boyfriend, and proclaimed she would be hanging around me from now on.  We all had quite the laugh.


At the end of the night I went to go drop her off at her place.  On the drive she seemed a bit different, and a bit more reclusive.  It was an odd shift from just before as we were having fun at the haunted house.  As soon as she got in my car her body language shifted, but I tried not to let her know I noticed.  When I dropped her off we chatted for a few minutes at her doorstep, and she seemed to want to talk more, but also had to get up early for school.  There was some tension and hesitation there, so what the hell… I kissed her.  It was nice, she was relaxed and well receptive.  I might have kissed her, perhaps a second or two too long, because at the end, she turned rigid and pulled away rather abruptly.  Everything became super awkward from there on.  I apologized if I had come across too strong, but she said it was fine.  “Everything is…. Fine!”  Yet her body language said otherwise. 
I probably misread the situation, and I beat myself up about it quite a bit afterwards because she avoided me from then on and didn’t answer texts.  However, it wasn’t until a significant time later I realized something as I went out to my rental car to retrieve my contract information to deal with a scratch on the bumper I got from some careless grocery shopper.  I went into the passenger side door, which I don’t believe I had ever done in that vehicle, and proceeded to get into the glove box to find said papers.  Then I saw something between the door and the seat.  More papers!  Assuming they were rental documents, I went to investigate.  Nope.  They were NOT.
Plot interrupting sidenote:
In some of my time while staying along the east coast, I had to adjust to some of the higher temperatures and humidity.  I spent many hours of the day sitting in front of a desk, and there were no trails or places where I could be physically active and I started getting fat.  I made use of the gym at my hotel, but I found that I started chafing a lot… down there.  Prior experience made me hesitant upon shaving or dissolving hair once again, and didn’t want the maintenance required for other solutions.  Out of an act of experimentation and frustration, I went with wax to take care of EVERYTHING in one swoop.  Two evenings of pain, tears, blood, and ice later I had removed every last hair.  After the awful pain and misery, I was rather pleased with the results, and everything felt a bit more free, smooth, and hygienic.  Once the main work was done, there was a little upkeep here and there, but it seemed worth it to me to keep myself in such a groomed state.

Sorry if that was TMI, but back to the story.  The papers on the ground was an oversized pamphlet of hair waxing instructions that somehow escaped the box from the last waxing kit I had purchased.  Then it hit me.  My date came in and out of that door a few times that afternoon and evening.  I’m sure she must have seen it.  I recall during the date, I was rather scruffy looking, and one could have wondered what I was doing with a waxing kit, and where I would be waxing.  It only really leaves one area in question based upon my outward appearance.  Perhaps Brenda might have been wondering why someone like me would be waxing such an area.  Some stereotypes exist for a reason, and from a lot of the female LDS singles would often piece together bits of information and formulate the worst possible scenario.  From my poor date’s perspective, it is possible she viewed me as hoping to get lucky that night, or maybe suspected me of being in a certain film industry, or just some really odd weirdo.  Maybe worse.  Who knows?  Well, just a theory anyway.  She might not have noticed it, and simply didn’t want anything to do with me because I might have behaved like a jerk at the end of the night.