Silence Is Not Golden (Guest Edition)

I'm currently still on hiatus (what's new?) but my homeboy, The Charismatic One was gracious enough to bless me with a guest post. He's a talented writer who covers a lot of thought-provoking issues on the daily. Check him out...


- Mr. Smart Guy

Have you ever been excited to go on a first date?

I know I have.

Peep the process.

You got your outfit together. You know, nice button-up, crispy pair of jeans, polished Cole Haan’s, you know the routine. You’re excited for a number of reasons (i.e. just ended long relationship, first date in months, boredom). You have high expectations (i.e. hoping you won’t prefer to watch paint dry than to be on this date) so you hop in the shower, get dressed, hop in the whip and you’re off…..

You get to your date’s house, she emerges from the apartment doors and you realize that they she indeed is NOT as attractive as you remember so to start off you’re already behind the proverbial 8-ball.

So now you’re already in a bad mood while she remains oblivious to your discontent. You offer the perfunctory courtesy of opening the door although you don’t want to and as you take that Green Mile walk over to your driver side door you’re inevitably thinking to yourself “what the heck was I thinking???”

You get in the car and you guys are off.

You’re now on your way to your first destination the standard spot, the movies (Thank GOD some places are dark!!!!) all the while praying to yourself (PLEASE, don’t let me run into someone I know so I don’t have to forced into the uncomfortable position of having to explain why I’m with this sea donkey!!!!)

But you can’t ride the entire 20 minutes to the theater in absolute silence, right? (So you were thinking…)

So, because you’re the man, you’re left with the daunting task of creating a conversation out of thin air. You ask a bunch of the standard, albeit pointless, questions with a disinterested attempt to get to know your date better (i.e. “when was your last date? What type of guys do you date? Am I’m gonna get some????”  Wait - that’s not standard…) You know, just a bunch of questions that you have absolutely no interest in what the answers are you just want to have a good time, see a movie you pray is worth the price of admission (which is paramount considering the fact that you could have filled your tank up with the cost of movie tickets/popcorn/pop and goobers), and hopefully, if the stars owned by the sex gods inexplicably align, you may get you some.
 

Unfortunately, you have to engage this young lady in some type of dialogue. It ends up with you asking all these questions and she answers them as if they were close-ended questions that didn’t require any elaboration (apparently she forgot to restock her vocabulary with words other than yes, no and sometimes). Naturally, with this type of verbal greatness, your repertoire of qualifying questions has been depleted and in arrives the moment you’ve been dreading the entire day; awkward silence. Now you’re frantically trying to figure out what to do next so you turn on the radio, just in time to hear Usher make his confessions, to break the ice.

It doesn’t work.

Now because  you’ve exhausted your standard line of questioning, and because she has clearly left her dating etiquette at her home, somewhere between getting dressed and walking out the door (especially the part about reciprocating conversation) you have to drive the remaining 15 minutes in absolute silence.

Instead of a wonderful evening of dinner, movie and butt-naked hot oil massages, you’re looking forward to the part of the date that requires you to say “goodnight” (i.e. Can’t WAIT to never see you again!!!!) You’re now at home, excited about the prospect of getting into your own bed alone (cause even it can’t be colder than she was) and putting an anticlimactic end to this night as you contemplate what you’re going to say during the eulogy of this date to your friends……

Silence is NOT always golden….

-          The Charismatic One