To Chug or Not to Chug

In 2003, online dating was not a very big thing, nor was mobile data plans. T-Mobile had a service on their data. There were no pictures, just some instant messaging, games, and connections. Through this wondrous doorway, I met and started chatting with a girl from a small town near where I lived. We had many things in common and enjoyed chatting late into the night. This went on for 3 months.

Our face to face meeting was at a local IHOP. Of course, I was nervous and she must have been as well because she was bringing a friend with her. After walking in the door, I saw a table with two girls sitting at it and my eye immediately drew to one of them. She wore glasses and had a red pixie haircut. As I sat down and introduced myself, I found out that the one who I was attracted to was the friend. I felt bad, but made the best of it and enjoyed their company for a couple of hours.

A couple of weeks later the girl I had been talking to decided to go back to her ex, but told me her friend was interested in me, and I was in her. So we setup a group get together at a local bar where she could bring her friends and I mine, that way we would both be comfortable. The bar was a nice little place which had cheap beer on certain nights to help bring in the local college crowd.

I came in to see her finishing her first beer, and I got my beer and tried the normal awkward small talk as we sat or stood around tables with our friend’s at them. I was so nervous that I got through my first beer pretty quickly. It just so happened to be at the same time she had finished her second, so I knew what to say to break the ice.

Very nervously, I said, “Make sure I never have a chugging contest with you,” knowing that was an opening to the challenge. I returned to our tables and of course, she challenged me. Our friends all were rooting us on. She was able to down her beer within seconds, where I took about a minute. Everyone laughed at how I had no chance at all. We all sort of laughed and she walked back to get another beer. One of my friends asked if I was feeling ok as I looked a bit sick, then told me to go get some air.

I bolted for the door and walked down a few doors to the relative secrecy of a shoe store doorway. They were closed for the night and I was pretty well hidden from everyone else as I slowly belched space into my stomach. I turned around to walk a bit when Sarah stood right in front of me. She offered me a cigarette. I responded with, “Never touched the things.” While holding back the burps and feeling my stomach fight back.

“Oh, it is a bad habit,” she said, “I’m really glad you broke the ice first cause I was so nervous. I have never—" I cut her off with a wave of my hand and took two steps away from her, turned and expelled 2 beers and some partially digested potato salad in front of the shoe store doorway. I turned back and she was, of course, no longer there. I no longer had anything to throw up, but the urge to increased knowing that I had just done it in front of her.

After a few moments of breathing, I walked back into the bar to some chuckles at my expense. Fast forward almost 14 years, and Sarah and I are married and have 3 kids and still laugh at the remembrance of that night.

#MyWorstDate