Dating is a lot different now than it was when I was footloose and fancy free. Now people date on line or on their phone with an app. We had to work up the nerve to actually speak to someone. For me, a very shy person this was particularly difficult. I would rehearse the phone call for twenty minutes before I would call. Then inevitably I would get a busy signal. Remember those? I dated one girl who had to be first at everything. She would insist that we sit in the front row at a movie, so that no one would see the movie before her.
I dated a girl with anorexia nervosa. The fist date went great. I took her to see the movie Gandhi. We went back to her place and she asked me if I wanted to split a raisin. The nest date I almost lost her. I took her kite flying.
I remember another time I met this girl at one of my Comedy shows. She was a very exotic Liza Minnelli type. She had bright red lipstick, and she started to kiss me right before I was supposed to go on. Luckily I went into the Men’s room and noticed that I looked like Bozo the clown. I managed to wipe off her war paint just in time. At the end of the show, she asked me if I would take her dancing. She had me take her to The Southside Croatian Club in Pittsburgh. We got there, and it was almost empty. She said, “Let’s dance,” and we were the only two people on a very huge dance floor. She began a modern dance solo that Martha Graham would have been proud of. Like an Olympic Gymnast, she kicked and swirled her way to each of the four corners of the dance floor while I stood there looking helpless and feeling foolish and in fear. I begged her to sit down for a moment and have a drink. As the drinks came, she leaned across the table and declared, “I just got out of a mental hospital.” I recall thinking to myself,
“She is still hot,” so I was not yet deterred. Within about fifteen minutes, the place was full. All I noticed were the angry looking men, all clad in leather jackets with enough gold to beat me to death. They clearly did not think I was one of them. She asked for one last dance, and this time she began to bump into people left and right, causing these friendly looking people to curse at me. I somehow managed to convince her to leave, and when we got to my car my battery was dead. I miraculously got a jump and took her home with no headlights because my alternator went out. I never did see her again. If only I had had an app.
