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SAFE DATING OR SIDEWALK SERENADES

March 23, 2024 by
Safe dating is the goal for everyone brave enough to step out of their comfort zone, get off the couch, and open the front door.
Whether long term, short term, husband-wife, blind date, or one of those high school reunion prince and princess things you hear about, safety is paramount.
But, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been on a date where jumping out of a moving car was an attractive option.
Remind me about it later, but first:

There’s something about a sequence of songs that makes me laugh because of the questions they bring up.
Do the bad boys eventually turn good? Ever?

 

A Case Study

 

I knew a guy in NW Portland who cruised 21st on a bike.
I saw him over the years and gave him the nickname Ten Speed. I stopped to talk the day he fixed a flat tire on the sidewalk.

 

Me: I like the way you ride in traffic. You keep up.
Ten Speed: It’s not easy. I’m 32.
Me: 32? I’m twenty-six and you look younger than me.
TS: Like a high school student’s age?
Me: At least college aged.
TS: That’s what I tell the girls.
Me: Oh, right. Me too.
TS: How many proms have you been to?
Me: One. I wore a black tie and tails and a boil on my face.
TS: Sure you did. I’ve been to thirty-seven proms. The one next week will be thirty-eight.
Me:
TS: I didn’t look like this in high school, but the most popular girl asked me to the prom and it was the best night of my life.
Me: She asked you?
TS: Maybe she lost a bet with her cheerleader friends I don’t know, but she asked me and I went. It was the highest high. I wondered if the same feeling happened when a girl goes to the prom with a handsome guy? Turns out it does when you know what you’re doing.
Me: Thirty-seven proms? How does that even work?
TS: I started growing into my face by senior year and asked a junior to the prom. She said she’d love to go with me her senior year. And we did. After that it was all referral. There’s a list.

 

The Change-Up

Me: Of high school girls?
TS: Of nervous dad’s who don’t want some Jimmy hanging around to ruin their baby’s GPA and college plans. There’s a lot of them and they like me.
Me: That’s the list?
TS: They know me before we me and I bring their precious home safe and on time. The dads tell other dads.
Me: What’s it cost?
TS: I’ve own a tux.
Me: For the dad’s.
TS: I’m a fair negotiator. Their daughters have the time of their life at the prom with no harm done.
Me: No harm?
TS: I’ve got rules. And a girlfriend. I’m thinking about the future. I might retire, but I’d like to leave the list in good hands. Maybe you?
Me: What, a dating service?
TS: No, just you pretty boy.
Me: As interesting as that sounds . . .
TS: You don’t have to tell me now.
Me: Your list? You should keep it until you’re forty, then take a look when you’re fifty, sixty, you get the idea. It’s more than a list if what you’re saying is a real thing. But doesn’t it get old?
TS: The prom where my date isn’t the center of attention will be my last. It’s a challenge at my age.
Me: Right. Alright. See you later, Ten Speed.
TS: What did you call me?
Me: Ten Speed.
TS: It’s an eighteen speed.

 

Safe Dating While Shining

In my single days I didn’t own a car. Mid-twenties and no car.
I know what you’re thinking, ‘What a catch.’
But it was part of my background by that time, public transportation.
I rode the bus and the Broad Street line for my Philadelphia commute.
The only car I drove then was an ambulance.
Two years later I rode the subway from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan and back to Brooklyn for my commute.
I rode Tri-Met, biked, or walked in Portland and was glad to do it.
I was a hipster before hipsters were cool?
Whatever, the thing to know is that I was in the passenger seat if safe dating involved a drive around town.
Besides, I lived in NW Portland where people drove in just to walk around. Why would I want to drive anywhere else?

 

So there I was in the passenger seat of a car circling the top of Council Crest.
And not just any date.
I met Rose the summer of senior year while she was visiting North Bend. We were a Safe Dating poster couple.
We wrote each other during freshman year in college, and continued when I enlisted in the Army instead of returning for sophomore year.
She came to Philadelphia for a convention, and to see me.
After that we didn’t write each other. She was way ahead of me on the timeline for a serious relationship and needed me to speed up.
For the good of all, I ghosted.

 

Five years later she’s visiting her friend in North Bend during reunion weekend.
There’s nothing I like better than high school reunions, and I was there unattached, but I had a few women on my mind.
Okay, one woman on my mind, the one I met at the altar 370 years ago.
She wasn’t a flame yet, but a flicker, the flicker you get before the love torch fires up.
But I didn’t know that then, not alone at the ten year high school reunion where I met the young woman from a few years earlier.

 

Safe Dating Or Safe Jumping

After mingling the night away, I headed back to my studio apartment in NW Portland.
The museum was opening a new exhibit on Tuesday after a big push to finish on Monday.
That night I got a phone call from Rose. After visiting her friend in North Bend, she was visiting someone in Portland.
And she wanted to come over.
Instead, I gave her the museum address and said I’d meet her there.
My new flicker had also planned on going but it wasn’t a date.
Her: I love Native American baskets.
After I’d finished my work Tuesday, I joined the opening crowd.
I spotted my future wife in a purple short sleeved top and beige slacks; on the other side of the gallery I saw my visitor wearing the same outfit.
Which one do I go to first? They answered when they both walked up to me.
To avoid any lady problems in my workplace, I agreed to see Rose the next evening.
She picked me up outside my apartment building on Lovejoy and we aimed toward Council Crest.

 

The Talk

Rose: I’m going to tell you something I think you need to hear. You might not think so.
(I’d never jumped out of a car before, but this is a green light.)
Rose: We never agreed on anything, but I believe there is agreement with certain actions.
(I reviewed certain actions and came up with a passing grade, but not the honor role.)
Rose: I believe in commitment when I see it, and I see it.
(She’s looking at me, not the road.)
Me: Maybe I should drive?
Rose: God is driving this car and I’m shining to you.

 

We drove, but didn’t park after I mentioned something about jumping out in case God was too busy to drive.
She bumped the brakes at stop signs and stop lights so prevent my escape.
Eventually I talked her down by telling her about the woman she’d met at the museum opening.
After hopes and dreams, then more hopes and dreams, she circled back to my apartment and parked in the Burgess lot.
“She sounds like a very nice girl. We need to say goodbye upstairs like we did in Philadelphia,” she said.
“Let’s say goodbye here, Rose. Thank you.”
My safe dating solution?
Instead of going inside, I walked down the road against traffic to avoid a clear path.

 

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About David Gillaspie

I am a writer. This is my blog story day by day.