It's Not You, It's...No, Wait, It's You

Supernewlywed’s post before this one has me reminiscing about past first dates. The one that really stands out to me was a date I had my senior year of high school. It wasn’t until a couple of - ok fine, it was closer to 6 - months after I found out this boy (who later became my boyfriend) liked me that I came around and said yes to spending some time with him. After he asked me out, I got to thinking about what we should do/where we should go. I ended up picking the event for the evening and gave him clues everyday leading up to the date (it was only 3 or 4 days).

In my hometown there is a horse race track that is usually filled with old men smoking, drinking, and placing bets. It is free to get in and there is no requirement to bet on the race, which made this date very affordable. We ended up buying the program for $5 so we could see the names of the horses and pretend like we understood what their stats and odds meant. We spent hours watching the horses and rooting for the ones with cool names. When the horses weren’t racing we had some time to chat and if we ran out of anything to say we could just look around and people watch. I think we spent a couple of bucks on hot dogs and popcorn once we realized we would be there for a while.

There were many elements of this date that made it successful: it was inexpensive, had a casual atmosphere, was obscure enough where we wouldn’t run into people we knew (which can be distracting and awkward during a first date), entertaining, and fun. However, I think the key to this activity was that it allowed for conversation but didn’t rely on it.

I am interested to hear about other people’s first dates- good, bad, or ugly. Go ahead people- Comment. Let’s hear it.