Jupe is Bad At Boys, Part 4: "Pick a Date"
When I went to JesusCollege, there was a campus-wide phenomenon known as the "pick a date". A pick a date was a fundamentally terrible idea that worked like this:
A hall (read: the RA) decides they're going to do a pick a date.
Every girl in the hall goes through their list of male friends/acquaintances/people they accidentally bumped into in the salad bar line once and says
"i ship this one with my roommate!!!!"
And then the dude and the roommate go on a group blind date with the entire hall, who also all have blind dates.
Everyone regrets it immediately.
My first year at JesusCollege, I roomed with an adorable girl who was one of those perfect poster-girl home-schooled Christians who is loving and warm and bakes brownies for the hall and offers to talk through everybody's problems and gets up early to hit the gym and somehow finds time to volunteer with like 3 different missions groups, work on campus, and major in nursing.
She had no idea what kind of person to pick for me, since we might as well have been different species. So my RA got to choose instead. She did the smart thing and asked some of my friends (most notably alternatewarning hey look you're in this story), and they suggested one of our mutual dude friends that I had had a mild crush on for a while. He's a chill dude, and a group outing with him would have been fun.
Regrettably, he had just started dating (hush hush!) one of my other besties on campus and so he was basically now off limits.
"I'll just pick someone," said my RA.
The day of the pick a date arrives. I finally meet The Mystery Man.
He plays video games! Good, they got one thing right.
"What kind of games do you play?" I ask.
"Oh," I say, "...That's cool."
We arrive at the ice skating rink where the pick a date is being held.
"I love ice skating!" I say.
"I can't skate," he says.
"Oh," I say. ".....I'm just gonna do a couple laps and then I'll. Come talk a bit."
And that is how the night went.
We decided to end the excursion with ice cream, but it was late so everything that wasn't incredibly sketch was closed for miles, but we finally found a lone Steak 'n Shake, which I had never been to before, open until forever o'clock. There are so many milkshakes on the menu. I see a banana and chocolate one and go "omg i wonder if it's like the jamba juice chocolate mood"
it is not like the jamba juice chocolate mood. It is like soupy banana candy flavor with sad chocolate milk. It tasted like regret and resolve to not repeat the experience.
Which is why I really cannot explain why I did it again.
The second time my roommate and I had actually chosen each other instead of being randomly assigned. We made a silly tumblr about our roommateship to document all of the ridiculous things we did. We jived. I was fairly confident she could pick someone I'd get along with.
However, as we can tell from several weeks of stories about me ruining everything, I am especially bad at boys.
Here is a short summary of the night:
my date thought it would be in good taste to put on a terrible hat and his mom's sunglasses, roll down the windows, crank up the stereo, and sing along (badly) to "I'm Sexy And I Know It"
The group activity was a photo scavenger hunt.
a sCAVENGER HUNT WHAT ARE WE 12????
I was grumpy from cold and period cramps and ruined everyone's """fun"""
i had to call my dad and get long-distance car advice from a man who is incapable of summarizing anything succinctly
i had an opportunity to go on another pick a date my last year. i declined. I'm finally getting some common sense, like 8 years too late.
