It's Your Mom. She Sounds Upset.

Story Submitted by Carla:

I had recently turned 18 and moved away to college when I met Andy, a handsome, 24-year-old grad student.  When he asked me out to dinner, I was excited to accept.

Our date was at a restaurant, and once we were seated, we found that we had a lot in common. We were so immersed in conversation that we forgot to look at the menu, and it took us a long time to eat and order just because we were having so much fun talking.

In the middle of our meal, the hostess came up to me, looking upset and confused. "Excuse me," she asked me, "are you Ms. Larson?"

I replied, "Yes."

She said, "Your mother's on our phone."

Worried that something might be really wrong, I apologized to Andy and followed her to the hostess stand to take the call. On the way there, I checked my phone, and suddenly realized what had happened.

Earlier that day, I had told my mother that I was going out on a date.  Having perhaps heard some bad date stories of her own, my mother had been nervous for my safety and asked me to give her my date's name, his number, and the name of the restaurant in case something happened.  She worried too much sometimes but had always been respectful of my freedom and privacy, so I had agreed.

Apparently, since I'd been out with Andy for a few hours and hadn't checked in, my mother had become convinced that something horrible had happened to me. My phone, which had been on silent, was bursting with missed calls and increasingly frantic texts.

When I took the call at the hostess stand, my mother was so relieved to hear from me that I couldn't tell at first what she was saying. After a minute it became clear that she had been afraid after she couldn't get in touch with me or with Andy and so had called the restaurant and was about to call the police...

Wait. She called Andy? With a sinking feeling, I turned to look across the room for Andy, and sure enough, he was looking at his own phone with an expression of horror.

I hurried back to the table, apologized profusely, and tried to explain the situation.  To his credit, Andy was very nice about it and laughed it off. Still, I was embarrassed and I'm sure he was uncomfortable, and we finished our meals quickly and quietly. I was young and really liked him and had vague hopes that it might have been salvageable, but I wasn't really surprised when I never heard from him again. I was totally the bad date!

I still think that when you're going somewhere with a near-stranger it's safest to make sure someone knows where you're going and who you're with, but these days I make sure that I give my dates' contact info to my best friend, and leave my mom out of it!