Speaking: Pt. 2 Through her Teeth

Once, as an acting exercise, one of my directors asked me about my worst date ever and I told her this story:

I had liked this guy for months.  I didn't know much about him, except that he was gorgeous.  At the time, I thought that's all that mattered.  If two people were attracted to each other physically, the rest of it would have to be worked out.  Relationships were hard fucking work, and that work started on day one.  He always thought I was terribly naive; for once, he was right.

We had been out once before for coffee and all I remember from that date was a constant condescending look that said, "You're making a mistake dating me."  He spent the next 8 months giving me that look.

So on our second official date, we decide to go big and get dinner.   We sat in a corner and stared at each other.  Just stared.  We were suffering through the kind of silence that can only be endured with the help of an intense physical attraction.  I was pondering the cheesy fresco above his head when he suddenly bursts out, accusingly, "I only speak when spoken to."

I meet his eyes and think, we were sitting in a comfortable silence, weren't we?  Sometime in high school I had confused "comfortable silence with friends" with "any silence".

"Tell me a story," he says.
"Tell you a story?"  I ask incredulously.
"Yes."
"About what?"
"You're telling the story."

I miss the comfortable silence, I thought.  The next hour or so were spent racking my brain for things to say, and getting brisk one-liners in return.  As I poked at my undercooked fettucini I started to focus my mental energy on what we'd do when we got back to the dorms; I honestly didn't realize how badly the date was going.  Again, I kind of thought that's how those things went.

Our longest conversation was over the check:

"Why won't you jut let me pay for you?  I'm trying to do something nice."
"I just... like to be independent."
"So what, from now on you'll just pay your own way?  I want to do nice things for you.  Why can't you just let me do this, it's important to me.  I'm trying to be a gentleman."
"It's important to me to pay for myself."
"Why are you being so contrary?  I'm trying to be a good guy here!"  He didn't sound like it.  He sounded mad as hell.
I don't remember who won that one, but he sulked about it all night.

Then he saw his friend from across the restaurant and went to say hello.  "She saw us together," he said to me later.  "She said, 'Why are you here with her?  She talks through her teeth.'"  His tone made it clear that she didn't approve of me and he kind of agreed.