Silent Night

Story Sent in by Sidney:

At first I thought Linda was cool. I found her profile and we had a lot in common. Our dinner date, however, was a different story.

We were both athletes (she runs, I bike) and we talked about staying hydrated. A pretty G-rated conversation, right? Then when I mentioned Gatorade she said, "Could we stop talking about that?"

"What, Gatorade?"

She winced like it was actually painful for her to hear the word. "Yeah. Change of subject, please. Right now."

"O... kay. What are you up to this fall?"

That was good. We talked about our respective plans and Thanksgivings and the holidays and families and–

"Could we not talk so much about family? I'm sorry. Change of subject, please."

The first time was okay. The second time was stupid. I asked, "What's wrong with talking about our families? I'm not asking you where they live, where they work, what their social security numbers are–"

"That's it, I'm going to leave. I can't..." and she actually stood up to go, just like that.

Crisis mode kicked in and I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa... fine! We won't talk about families or Gatorade or–"

"I said not to mention Gatorade!" she snapped.

"Fine! Then you tell me what we should talk about."

"I don't know. I'm not good at these things."

You think? I then talked about movies I had seen lately. Guardians of the Galaxy immediately came to mind and I mentioned to her that I had liked it.

At once she went stiff and said, "Can we not talk about Guardians, please? I'll leave if I have to."

I said, "I give up."

The rest of dinner was silent and awkward beyond belief. She made no effort to speak and I certainly wasn't going to chance offending her with talk about clouds or puffins or leaves or whatever else would set her off. We paid separately for our meals and I bid her a hasty goodnight.