"Inked Girl and the Geek"
Dating has been compared to a game, a sport, a hunt, a dance, and it is all of those things most of the time. This time, it was more like skydiving without a parachute. We met on a Friday night, Sasha and I.
Somehow, I let my mother intrude on my dull non-existent love life. She was so focused on her only child giving her grandkids that she failed to see that she didn't birth Matthew McConaughey.
I'm not trying to play the victim when I honestly say that I am not much of a looker. I never have been. I was the scrawny kid with the big head, the brains, not the brawn. The kid you didn't want on your team in P.E. and the guy girls looked past or through.
It didn't matter that I was a straight-A student. I graduated high school early, was the youngest and top of my classes in university, and lived out my reward of most likely to succeed by becoming a well-known computer programmer.
I was simply a book that looked so boring on the outside that no one was interested enough to open. That changed when I met Sasha on that Friday night.
My mother talked me into making a dating profile.
Don't judge me. It's impossible not to feel bad about yourself after your parent drills into your head how lonely you'll be for the rest of our life if you don't put yourself out there.
Anyway, I made the stupid profile and got a match. Her name doesn't matter; she was only a stepping stone in finding the love of my life. I'll just say she was pretty on the eyes, could keep up a conversation, and I was desperate.
After a few weeks of talking, we decided to go out on a date; meet face-to-face. I wouldn't say I was excited, but my fear of being alone lessened.
We were to meet at a new Italian restaurant in town. I, of course, arrived first; I've always been a stickler for time.
I get seated at our booth, and at the table across from me, there she was: Sasha. Her honey-brown skin was covered in tattoos, her two-toned curls falling effortlessly to her shoulders. She had full lips painted in her favorite burgundy lipstick that inevitably became my favorite color on her too.
When most guys talk about seeing a woman for the first time, they say it was her eyes or smile. But it was neither for me.
The moment I locked eyes with Sasha, she'd already been looking at me.
Sasha saw me, and as crazy as the thought was initially, she liked what she saw. So much that she struggled to keep her attention on the guy, she was on a date with.
Even sitting down, I knew he was bigger than me. He was attractive, one of those alternative guys, from his gauges to the piercings in his eyebrows. He looked just like Sasha's type, yet she couldn't keep her eyes off me.
ME!
I'd never realized how insecure I was until that day. Sasha, a girl way out of my league, was eyeing me down like the beginning of a romance in a rom-com, and I didn't believe it. I shrugged it off, told myself I was crazy.
Even though she stole smiles at me every second that she could. I gave an awkward one in return every time, beating myself up by said awkwardness while praying to God my date would show up.
Little did I know, she would never show. I texted, I called, but in the end, I was stood up.
Not only did I look like an idiot, but I felt like one too. After all, I shouldn't have expected anything less.
