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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my daughter and I made some delicious Dole Whip over the weekend, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons I learned from an embarrassing date.
Have you ever been the reason that a date was a dud?
Today’s Fun Fact: Yesterday, July 17 marks the 61st anniversary of the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. I had no idea this weekend was an important date in the history of Disneyland when I decided to make up a batch of homemade Dole Whip? What is Dole Whip? Dole Whip is a delicious pineapple soft serve frozen treat that can only be found at Disney parks and at the Dole Plantation on Oahu. So here are some fun facts about this wonderful treat! (source: Eater.com)
- Dole Whip is dairy free
- You can get it in a cup or as in a cup of pineapple juice as a float
- It’s rumored that Dole Whip was invented by the VP of research at Dole in the 1950s
- It didn’t rise to fame until Disneyland added it in 1976
- At Disneyland it’s sold at the Enchanted Tiki Room and at Disneyworld you can get Dole Whip in Adventureland in the Magic Kingdom
- You can make your own variety using easily found recipes online, or you can purchase the commercial dry mix online and just add water
What I Learned Yesterday
I’ve been happily married for over 17 years now so it’s been quite a while since I was doing the dating thing. That’s a part of my life that I hope I never have to do again. I know that the dating experience is different for everyone, but as I look back on that part of my life now, I just shake my head. What I mean is, when I look back at my 18-23 year old self, I shake my head at myself when I realize how dumb I was.
I think most of us at that age think that we know everything, we’re invincible, and we can do no wrong. That’s certainly how I felt. For reason’s I can’t quite figure out, I never had trouble getting dates or finding girls to be interested in me. In fact, that was part of my problem. Now, I never had lines of girls beating down my door, (let’s not be ridiculous) but I mean that I almost always had a girlfriend, and when one relationship ended, it didn’t take me long to find someone else.
This was a big problem. When I had a steady girlfriend I was always faithful and never did anything inappropriate with another girl…at least not in real life. In my mind, I was almost always keeping my eye out for who I would go out with next should things not work out with my current girlfriend. You may recall my story way back in episode 3 where I lost all of my friends and my girlfriend because I was so self centered and demeaning to the people around me.
I eventually matured and grew out of the desire to have a backup in mind should things not work out, but that didn’t come along before I had a few humbling moments.
Shortly after graduating high school I started dating a girl we’ll call Penny. We dated for several months before she dumped me. No worries. I already had my eye on a girl we’ll call Jenny. As my luck would have it, Jenny had recently dumped her boyfriend and was suddenly available. I took advantage of the opportunity and Jenny and I soon became an item. We dated for well over a year and things got pretty serious. I really liked her and thought that we might have a future together.
However, that wasn’t enough for me to keep my mind focused on her. I had my eye on a couple of different girls should things with Jenny and I not work out.
Well it’s probably no surprise, but Jenny eventually dumped me. I was truly sad about it and even tried to work things out with her, but it we both eventually agreed to call things off. We handled the breakup quite well actually. We both worked at the bookstore and one day my boss thanked me for keeping my relationship with Jenny professional while we were at the store. We’d been broken up for a couple of months by that time so apparently we’d both done a good job of keeping that part of our lives from interfering with work too.
So after things with Jenny ended I had to decide what to do next. I’m not totally sure what happened next. There was another girl who also worked at the bookstore that I was interested in asking out. Well call her Maggie. As I recall, Maggie approached me one day and asked me out, but I’m not sure. I may have actually asked her out. What I am sure of is that whoever asked the other person out, the answer was yes. So the next Friday night we went on a date.
I picked her up and took her to a local Italian restaurant. We already knew each other pretty well since we’d worked together for a couple of years, but there was still much to talk about. I’ve never been very good at conversation, but even the world’s worst conversationalist is savvy enough to not make the mistake I did that night. I must have told Maggie 5 or 6 stories about things that Jenny and I had done together. It seems like every chance I had, I brought up Jenny. Clearly I wasn’t quite over Jenny yet, but talking about your ex while on a date with another woman has to be among the stupidest things you can do.
Believe it or not, I really thought nothing of it at the time.
After our date was over I took Maggie home. A few days later I approached her at work and asked her out again. She said no. I was a bit surprised because I’d had a nice time and thought that she had also enjoyed herself. A week or so later I again approached her and asked her out. She smiled and said no. I was again surprised but I was certain that I’d just caught her at a bad time. So a few weeks later I got my nerve up to ask her out again. I approached her and told her that I wanted to ask her a question. I also told her that if she said no, I would never ask her the question again. She acknowledged me, and I asked her out. She said no. I was surprised. I again told her that if she said no, then I wasn’t going to ask her again. She looked me square in the eye and said, “OK.”
Well, that was it. I got the message. She did not want to go out with me again.
Here’s what I learned.
I’m really not sure why Maggie never went out with me again. It very well may be because I talked about my ex girlfriend all night. I mean, that is a pretty good reason not to go out with someone again. I do know that she was smart to turn down my invitations.
I mean, as I look back on it now, I’m embarrassed by not only my behavior on our date, but by my behavior in asking her out. How arrogant of me was it to tell her that I was giving her one last chance to go out with me? Oh, how I wish I hadn’t been that guy.
But I was that guy.
This story is full of simple lessons. It’s one that my kids get a kick out of and they’ll even ask me to tell it to them again from time to time. Even at 11 and 13 years old they are smart enough to know that you don’t talk about your ex when you’re on a date with someone else. I’ve also used this story to teach them about being prideful and make sure they know how to treat someone they are interested in dating…when they’re 30 of course.
So I think that’s the biggest lesson for me. We all make mistakes. The important thing is that we take time to reflect on these situations and learn from them. I learned no be humble. Actually, I was humbled. I had to learn that the HARD way. I learned to focus the conversation on those around you and not yourself. And I also learned that if you want to have a true, meaningful, and honest relationship with someone, then you need to keep not just your physical person, but your eyes, heart, and mind focused on the one you’re with. Once I did that, I found the love of my life.
I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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