What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

It's always a bad idea to think before the first date, "What could possibly go wrong?" Because, as shared experiences have told you, it ends with it going so wrong you can't even look at the person once it's over. It goes so wrong, you can't help but wonder what you ever saw in the guy. But once you think it, you can't take it back as if you're placing some toy top hat on a kitten. You're stuck with it for the rest of the night, until you are finally blessed with their lack of company.


Still, it feels all okay, at first. When he takes you to a restaurant, one you know really well, it's really hard to have dinner ruined. Especially when it's steak. And you don't care what people say, about how women shouldn't eat steak but a salad, because it's food, and you love food, and it's much more interesting than the conversations you're trying to start up with this guy. That's the sign that something's not right. That's the sign that you should cut it short, end on a somewhat high note.


But he insists that you shouldn't head back so early. Because you live in a dorm hall of sex-vamped, grown-up children who will know it didn't go well if you head "home" at ten in the evening instead of midnight. So he'll suggest a film. Again, really hard to botch a film. Unless it's "Jackass 3D". But it's okay, because both of you know that neither of you like that kind of film, so it's between "Prince Caspian" and "Tangled". You've had a bad experience with "Prince Caspian" (it gave you a paper cut that gave you a fever that gave you nothing but chicken noodle soup for a whole week), so with your natural stubbornness, you go to watch "Tangled".


And it goes well. Not really hard to ruin a film. That is, until he grabs your hand. It's no subtle twining of fingers. It's no meaningful look as preamble, trimmed with a smooch on your knuckles. It's that engineering-student awkward squeeze that first fills you with excitement (because it's the first time anyone willingly held your hand), but then leaves you with nothing but the climax of the film and clammy palms suctioned together. And so you sit, thinking that you have no choice but to stare at the screen and "Don't you dare pull your hand away, or else he will be offended and preach to the world how utterly terrible you are."


So by the time the film is over, you're eager to get back to your comfort zone, aka alone. But it's 11:30. And he's adamant that you not head back home until midnight, as if it's some convoluted telling of the Cinderella story. So he takes you to a coffee shop. Can't really go wrong with a coffee shop. Except you don't drink coffee, and their hot chocolate is so tiny on their menu, you look like a bitch who can't make up her mind holding up everyone in queue behind you. But you eventually find it, and you take your drinks over to a table. Now you're practically forced to converse. There's nothing else to be preoccupied with, unless you want to make it more awkward by staring quietly at your drink the whole time.


So you bring up Harry Potter, because you both like that. You mention that you find it hard connecting emotionally to scenes in films where an imaginary creature dies in the arms of the main character. You mention the word your mother used jokingly ("heartless"), and he thinks that since your mother used it, it's okay to use it. So he repeats it. But the only reason it's okay for your mother to say it is because it's your mother, and she was punch drunk on her voyeuristic misery. When the guy you started the evening having a crush on uses it, you can't but be reminded of all the other times people have used it. And now the evening is officially ruined.


But it's not over. No, fate likes to rub irony in your face, as if it will help cure your teenage acne. So you get talking about other things. You won't even remember what he's getting animated about, but you'll remember seeing in what would be in other situations as comical slow motion three things: his hand flies to make contact with his coffee mug, the mug loses it's lid and topples in your direction, and your jeans dutifully soak the coffee up so that it looks like you wet yourself really badly, and that you might need to be treated for some unknown but deadly disease. He doesn't stop apologizing, which makes it even more annoying, but you've got the touch of a saint in you, because you don't complain about it, even when a five-minute trip to the loo proves to just be useless patting against your denim-sheathed thighs, and you tell him that everything's fine.


When you know perfectly well that everything isn't fine. In fact, everything is so bad that you go home without so much as a hug. Just awkward farewells and half-hearted we-should-do-this-again-sometimes. The next morning, your room mates will want to hear what they believe to be dishy details. In the end, it's just you telling them, with overly avid detail and hindsighted laughter, how you jinxed it with the one innocent thought, "What could possibly go wrong?"