The Week of Love: A Lovely Moonlit Stroll (or was it?) {A Guest Post}

2/11/2014 The Anti-Austen 1 Comments

Nothing is more romantic than a moonlit walk with the man of your dreams, right? Unless of course that moonlit stroll takes place at 3AM through a dark forest terrain, not knowing exactly where you’re headed.

My first date with the guy I was interested in started as any other, with a text at about eight o'clock at night, asking what I was up to, and if I wanted to go on a date. Ah, romance. After believing myself to be in store for a romantic evening filled with flirtatious banter, I found myself surrounded by high schoolers. Yes, my "homme romantiqe" had invited me on a group date along with two of his brothers and their dates, all of them still in high school.

Now with my perpetual optimism, I figured I could still make a good thing out of this, so was far from disheartened. Our big activity was to play indoor soccer at the local park's racquetball courts. It was all fun and games until I got hit square in the face with a soccer ball. Surely this kind of thing only happened on America’s Funniest Home Videos. So far on this date I had just come across as uncoordinated and pitiful. But my momma didn't raise no quitter! I would charm the heart of the fair prince!

After soccer was finished (to my relief), it was decided by the group to head up to a local hiking trail that led to caves to be explored. We set off on the trail armed only with one flashlight per couple for what I thought was a mile at most. Six, it turns out six was a more accurate number. And this wasn't just a nice leisurely stroll through trees, there were rocks to be climbed and creeks to be forged. My relief when we got to the caves was short lived when I was informed we would be climbing DOWN into the first cave. My claustrophobia set in, and I felt myself on the edge of a panic attack. Dulling my panic down I was able to successfully navigate myself through the tight spaces and shelves I'd rather not bring up the memory of now.

Five hours after the start of the date, we still weren't finished. That's right, we had to walk back the six miles to our vehicles. My luck was still holding out when wouldn't you know it, we got lost. Without my dates boy scout compass (always be prepared my eye!), we ended up walking about a mile and a half off course in the complete opposite direction. At this point I felt like I was in a horror movie, and something was going to start picking us off one by one.

Luckily, we got scent of the old trail and backtracked to our car. My date finally dropped me off at home eight hours later.

Mi amor and I went on a few more dates, albeit not as exciting as the first. Even though this would have been a great first date story to tell the kids, we eventually parted ways as likely friends, but not before he left me with a few scars.

Literal scars.

My shoes that night left blisters on my ankles.