... And Carry a Big Shtick

For some reason or another this tale has been rattling around my brain lately. So I thought I would share it with you. Aren't you lucky?

When the Girl and I went on our first date, we hardly knew each other at all. We had just met randomly and had about 1.3 phone conversations. Such strangers were we that I didn't even know her last name. So I suppose that meant that we shouldn't struggle for things to talk about. We met at a decent-but-not-overly-nice resaurant and sat down to have some dinner. We were both clearly pretty nervous in that "I don't know this person" sort of way. So we concentrated on the menus and exchanged some chitchat about food and such. Once that was out of the way, I thought we were in desperate need of an ice breaker. So I said, "Look, I know I don't know you all that well, but I feel like I really need to ask you a very personal question. I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable, and you don't have to answer if you don't want, but I just have to ask."

"Umm. OK, I guess. That sounds scary. Should I be scared?" she asked.

"I'll leave that up to you to decide, but I feel like I really need to ask," I replied.

"OK."

"What's your last name?"

Now, you may be absolutely rolling your eyes into the middle of next week and groaning. Or you may be smiling and thinking about how disarming and charming that would be. That second reaction is more of what I was shooting for, but I would have taken the first one. I just wanted to calm some nerves. Luckily for me, the Girl leaned more toward the charming response, laughed, and told me the answer. It seemed to work, too, because we seemed to have a much easier time of it after that. That particular exchange might not really have been the key, but this is my story, and that's how I'm calling it.

Recently, the Girl and I attended a vow renewal ceremony for the main particpants of the first post-college wedding I attended, in celebration of their first 10 years of marriage. (That may deserve a story of its own at some point, but not right now. Suffice it to say that you know a relationship has strong underpinnings when, upon receiving a single red rose from the guy in question after one of their first outings together -- not a date, though -- the girl in question said, "You are nauseatingly sweet.") My college roomie, who knows me as well as perhaps anyone on the planet, was also at this ceremony, and it was the first time he and the Girl met each other. While he was chatting her up and getting to know her, it somehow came out that I didn't know her last name when we went on our first date. Upon hearing that, he looked at me and immediately said, "You asked her a very personal question." It was half statement, half question. He was pretty sure of the answer, but he needed to verify it.

So apparently I have a shtick. Are you really surprised?