In one moment, my biggest weakness with women had been exposed. I snapped at a girl and made her cry. You see, I have a temper, and a bad one. People who don’t know me well may not know this about me and be surprised. People who know me very well know this, and know it all too well. It’s all well and good to snap at a guy, because a couple hours later you can say, “hey man, I was a jerk. Sorry about that” and y’all are cool and can go to a baseball game, work on a car, drink a beer or whatever. You can’t do that with a girl. If you snap at her, she will cry and she will remember it forever. Any chances you had with her are sunk. Time and time again, this has torpedoed my relationships with girls and amazingly, it has not chased off Adriene yet.

So it was in the nebulous non-relationship that I had with this girl my freshman year of college. The funny thing is that everything seemed to be going so well. We had gone on a couple dates and had a good time and there was no pressure for commitment or obligation yet. As a part of our “deal”, she had gone with me to my fratnernity formal and so now I was obligated to go to her high school prom, which was fine by me. A couple weeks before the dance, I was having a conversation with my old friend Ashley Smith, who I’ve mentioned here before, and she said she was looking for a prom date as well. Since she went to a different school and the dance was on a different night, I told her I would take her if she was unsuccessful in finding a date (I was a “backup plan” if you will) After re-assuring my friend David that was not trying to make a move on his ex-girlfriend, I was now set for two proms in two weekends. Boy, did I think I was the ladies’ man.

The dance with Ashley had a humorous twist because I would be doubling with the girl that she had set me up with earlier in high school. Even better, she would be going with a good friend of mine. This all sounds like it would be awkward, but it wasn’t. We had a great time. At the end of the night, we all went back to Ashley’s house where we watched movies until late in the night when we all fell asleep on the floor. I remember waking up in the morning and the first thing I saw was this same girl that I had gone on a blind date with some several months ago asleep on the floor across the floor from me and thinking, “Now here’s a situation I would’ve never pictured just a few weeks ago.” The whole weekend was a very positive experience and I’m glad everyone had a good time.

All of the good feelings however, evaporated in the next week when I went to the second prom. We were going with three other couples and for one reason or another, things got off to a poor start for all of us. By the end of dinner, everyone was in a less-than-festive mood. When we got to the dance all the girls disappeared, I guess to regroup, and the guys were left hanging. Perhaps I didn’t enjoy getting left alone, perhaps the food wasn’t sitting well in my stomach, perhaps I was disappointed that after six months this relationship had seemingly made no progress, perhaps I was just tired. When my date returned, I guess I had reached the tipping point and I snapped at her that no I was in fact not having a good time and tears and arguing ensued. Within that one moment, I had undone six months of work and my greatest weakness with women was exposed for everyone to see. By the end of the night, we were on friendly terms again after I had apologized for my temper, but there was no need to say it. The relationship that had no definite beginning would have no definite end, because after that I never asked her out again and she never brought up wanting to go out with me again. We still did stuff together, like we did before the dance, but it was clear that this would be a friendship and nothing more.

This was all just as well I guess, I had accepted a summer internship in Florida with IBM and she was going over to Germany to be a nanny for the summer. I don’t think either of us were willing to put forth the effort for a long-distance relationship, but it was coming to a head and something was going to have to give before we left. Over the summer, we exchanged letters across the ocean and still kept in touch for years after she returned to the States and went to college. She was even kind enough to come to my wedding many, many years later.

I’ll never forget that night when I lost my temper, though. It’s threatened to undo me more than once with women and it’s only by God’s grace and a patient wife that it hasn’t ruined my marriage yet. In my dating life however, this wouldn’t be the last time I was my own worst enemy.