We were having a great first date. The restaurant was lovely and quiet, we were eating a delicious dinner, and we were sharing lots of laughs. We clicked. Then it all went south… literally. Here’s what happened.
- His expression suddenly darkened. The guy gets up to go to the bathroom and when he returns, his smile is gone and he looks like he’s about to deliver some bad news. There goes my mood. Ugh, and I’d thought the date had been going so well! This was just my luck.
- I worried I’d done something wrong. Obviously, I couldn’t help but worry that he was going to let me down gently. Maybe he was going to say he’d thought things over in the bathroom and he didn’t want to see me again. I braced myself for the bad news and willed myself to take it with grace.
- It was actually about him. This really was a case of “It’s not you, it’s me.” The guy sat down and told me that he was having strange pains in his balls. Wait, what? Apparently, they’d started on his way to the date but he’d tried to ignore them. Now, two hours later, the pain was becoming intense and he couldn’t deal.
- Talk about TMI. While he was telling me that, I thought this was a classic case of TMI. What, was he telling me that he had blue balls or something? I was ready to grab my purse and hightail it out of there. I didn’t need a guy rushing me to the bedroom. Then he added, “I think I’ve just found a lump in my testicle.”
- OK, this is not happening. How the heck could this be happening out of the blue? I always thought first dates were in a weird bubble of their own, completely closed off from the rest of the world. This was proof that fate was crashing our date in the worst possible way.
- I leaped to his side to help even though I was freaking out. I told him not to worry and that we’d go to the ER and they’d see to him. I wasn’t going to let him go alone, of course. That would’ve been really cruel. Besides, the guy was really scared and I would’ve been too if I were in his situation. I didn’t want to freak him out by appearing freaked out but I couldn’t help but feel really worried about this medical emergency in which we found ourselves. What if it was something serious? Had I just met a great guy only to lose him to some nasty illness?
- It was the first time I drove to a second location on a first date. In the past when guys have suggested I go over to their place after the first date, I’ve always given an excuse. But now I was driving us to a second location: the freaking hospital. Pity it wasn’t a romantic location, but what can you do?
- The wait was torture. We sat waiting for a doctor to see him and it was really scary but weirdly, in-between the sick people crossing our path and the scary “what if?” moments, we bonded. It felt like we’d been dating for years, like we were a couple sitting in the ER supporting each other. It was so crazy to think we’d only met a couple of hours previously. He told me how much it meant to him that I was there for him.
- He was OK, thank goodness. The doctor called him in and it was time to figure out what was going on. The guy asked if I could step inside with him because he was so nervous so I did. Weird fact: I saw the guy’s balls during the examination even though I tried to look away. In any case, that didn’t matter because he didn’t have anything serious happening with his testicles! Thank goodness the doctor said he just had a very common but benign lump that was NBD. Phew!
- What a strange way to start a relationship. We left the ER feeling much lighter than we’d entered it and the guy suggested we go out for dinner right away. I was excited that he was interested in me and I thought it was a fabulous idea. We desperately needed a re-take of our first date. We had a great time—in fact, it was even better than our earlier date and at the end of it, when I walked him to his car that was still parked at the restaurant from earlier, he asked if I’d like to see him again. I definitely did. It was a crazy and weird way to start dating, but it would also make a great story one day. As he liked to say, “At least no one could say we were boring on our first date.” Yup.
