Recently I had a date that was so bad that in the course of the evening it actually circled around and became awesome in an epic, urban legend sort of style. My date, who I will henceforth refer to as Bozo, first swirled into my orbit when he liked my OkCupid profile. The Like led to a message, the message led to a text, and the text birthed a phone call which seemed promising in that the conversation flowed in an easy way, lifting up and touching down lightly. We talked a lot about music. He mentioned his divorce, but didn’t do that thing where divorced guys turn you into their therapist so they can lament their lives, monopolizing the conversation and shredding any chance of you ever wanting to sleep with them. He talked more about the Hurricane (Katrina, not literal) that had hastened the end of his marriage, and how he and his ex had simply drifted apart (literally, not the hurricane) when it became time to rebuild the foundations of their lives. He seemed fairly mellow about romantic relationships in general. He mentioned how once a potential girlfriend morphed into a platonic friend, and that friendship not only had endured, but flourished in the face of family like familiarity.

He seemed perfectly normal.

“We should go out,” Bozo said, “when are you free?”

I already had my weekend mapped out with music plans with girlfriends, but in a burst of feeling spontaneous, I invited him to come and join us.

“We’re going to have dinner in the city and then catch a show at Great American Music Hall,” I said.

He said he was in.

For our dinner, I picked out a New Orleans flavored restaurant in a nod to his Bayou background, and we met up in the bar before my girlfriend Hailie joined us. At first glance, all signs seemed positive. Bozo was dressed casually in black jeans and a simple white button down shirt, looked exactly like his profile picture and did not have serial killer eyes. He greeted me with a warm hug and admired my outfit in a manner that was not salacious. As on the phone, he seemed sweet and mellow, and perfectly normal. We moved to a booth, where Hailie found us, and continued our conversation, now flowing between the three of us, admiring the menu selections and talking about music and New Orleans. 

Seriously, a perfectly normal dinner. 

Except, Bozo kept excusing himself to the men’s room, and when he would reappear, he would say that there had been a long line and that he would give it a try in a few minutes, and then excuse himself again. He left the table three times before our appetizers arrived. 

I raised an eyebrow at Hailie. 

“Must be a long line.” I said. 

He returned to the table as the oysters arrived.

“Success?” I asked. 

“No,” he said, “the line was too long. I’ll try again in a minute.”

When Bozo excused himself from the table for the forth time, I noticed that he had his hand held firmly over the back pocket of his jeans, obviously gripping his cell phone How odd, I thought. 

He returned with a sheepish look and his cell phone in his hand. 

“My phone is blowing up,” he said, placing it on the table in front of him. “I just want to see who is texting me.”

He scrolled through his texts and let out an “Oh Man!”

“What?” Hailie and I asked in unison. 

“Wow.” Bozo said, obviously floored by what he was reading. “These are all from my friend.”

He glanced at me. “I told you about her, remember?”

I recalled our phone conversation where he mentioned the potential girlfriend who became the platonic friend and in my mind, our date ended right that second. Being overly enamored with your cell phone at the dinner table is rude. Being overly enamored with your cell phone at the dinner table because another woman is texting you is a deal breaker. Strangely, I found this situation rather humorous, so I slurped down an oyster and queried, 

“What is she texting?”

Bozo rapidly read through the texts as his phone continued to buzz as new texts arrived. 

“She says she is at home and she had a big fight with her boyfriend and that she thinks she made a huge mistake and that maybe she should be going out with me.” 

His phone buzzed as another text arrived. He read it and his eyes widened. 

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” Bozo asked and left the table, phone in hand. 

“He probably still has to go to the bathroom.” I said to Hailie.

“This date is bizarre.” Hailie said to me.

“Oh, this date is over.” I said to Hailie. 

Bozo returned to the table, more flustered than ever. He settled himself back into the booth and sighed, and then dove completely into the defining date death knell. He began to wax philosophically about his friend, the texting fiend. 

“So we dated,” he told us, obviously deciding that we were no longer having dinner but instead a group therapy session, “but she wanted to be friends. And there has always been…” he trailed off here, searching for the right words.

“Sexual tension?” I prompted. 

“Exactly. And now she’s fighting with her boyfriend.” Bozo trailed off again as our food arrived. He took a bite of his hamburger. 

“Would you mind if I bailed on the concert?” he asked. “I think I should just go home and text my friend, you know, be a shoulder for her to cry on.”

“Oh, I think you should definitely go home.” I encouraged him. I glanced around for our waiter. “I’ll get the check.”

“Oh no!” Bozo said, “We should have dessert first!”

When we got to The Great American Music Hall all I could do was laugh. Our other friends arrived and we told them our disaster date story. Halfway through the first set, Bozo sent me a friend request on Facebook. I held my phone up to my girlfriends. 

“Seriously?” I asked them. 

I shook it off, that strangest of dinner dates, and let the music take me over. I love to dance to live music. I love the pulse of the crowd and the waves of sound washing over me. I love bumping into other people and smiling as everyone grooves together. I love the smell of strangers. 

My girlfriends nudged me and tilted their heads at this delicious looking young guy to my right who was dancing alone, with his hands curled up to his chest, swaying, eyes closed, head nodding to the beat. His hair was blondish, and long, in that bushy, not exactly brushed hippy style. He had wide set eyes and a strong jaw and pouty, pretty lips. He opened his eyes and saw me looking at him and gave me a sly smile, and shifted his shoulders towards mine, just slightly, but suddenly we were dancing together. We kept shifting our bodies along with the music, and I let him creep his hands to my hips and drop his chin towards my neck. He smelled like a forrest. I tilted my head towards the side of his face and ask him him he lived. He put his mouth to my ear and with warm breath said, “Alaska.” 

His hands gripped at my hips and he buried his face against my hair. I leaned into him as I glanced at my girlfriends and mouthed Oh My God, and they laughed shaking their heads, because he couldn’t have been a day over thirty. 

And then his friend was grabbing at him and saying they were leaving, and he kissed the side of my face with that warm, warm breath and whispered good bye. 

Okay Cupid, I thought as I turned back towards the music, Thanks for the dance, it definitely made up for the dinner.