Twas Brillig

(Big thanks to Shellie of Little But Loud who is graciously hosting Soap Opera Sunday this weekend. She will have a list at her blog of all the other participants this week. For more Soap Opera Sunday information, read this.)

I have to start out this particular bit of soapiness by explaining that I was 21. I was attending Southern Utah University (well, I was enrolled at SUU. To say I was attending would be an overstatement, since I only showed up for class about 4% of the time…) and I was going through boyfriends like they were kleenexes. Oh, and like most 21 year olds, I knew everything.

One of my Provo-based friends was getting married, so I grabbed my friend Liz and drove my shiny teal Ford with its 6-CD changer (I had never even heard of a 6-CD changer until Daddy gave me this car for Christmas just the month before) up to Provo to attend the wedding reception and to hang out with my family for the weekend and show Liz the big city I hailed from (hey, compared to Cedar City, any town with a mall is a thriving metropolis).

After the wedding reception, my brother J called me to say that while I was in town he wanted to set me up with his friend, who we will call “Blake.” Truth is, I was dying for J to set me up with Blake. I’d only met Blake once, but he’d made a huge impression and I had been kinda holding my breath ever since I’d first seen him for a chance to go out with him.

But, I had Liz with me, and I couldn’t just leave her stranded in my parents’ basement while I went out with some guy I barely knew. I explained that to J, and he said that he’d figure something out and call me back.

Which he did. In record time, Blake had arranged a massive group date. J would be set up with a girl named Lindsay, Liz would be set up with a guy named Jesse, and two other couples would be joining us too. That’s ten people, all out on first dates, most of which were blind dates.

Blake had gone to an awful lot of trouble just to spend some time with me…

I was so excited.

When we met up with everyone, I just about had a heart attack over how darling Blake was. He had this perfect, almost angelic face. His green eyes were squinty, as if he were permanently smiling. And his hair? Short, perfectly groomed, and fuschia. That’s right. Fuschia. I confess that I was highly intrigued by this boy who gave off the essence of absolute innocence and purity, but with just a little shock of rebellion in the form of fuschia hair dye on his head.

We were divided up into cars– J, Lindsay, Jesse, and Liz all went in one car, the other two couples went in another car, and that left me and Blake to go by ourselves in his… um… vehicle.

It was a truck, I guess, but not like any truck I’d ever seen. It was like a truck had gotten stuck in a shrinking machine and was miniaturized. It had peeling black paint and a cracked windshield and the heater didn’t work very efficiently (I remember that last part acutely because it was January. In Utah. And, like any sensible girl on a first date with a gorgeous guy, I was dressed to be cute, not warm).

As he started the… um… truck, his radio blared “music.” Bluegrass “music.” He then told me— perhaps in response to the “trying-to-be-polite-but-really-hating-this-music” expression on my face— that he could never really be interested in someone who didn’t share his passion for bluegrass music.

Two possible responses came to my mind. The first one was something like, “well, then you’d better let me out here, because I’m clearly not the girl for you.” The second possible response was, “Boy, looking the way you do, I’d gladly poke holes in my eardrums and let you listen to whatever you want, as long as I can stare at you all day long.”

Deciding that neither response was quite appropriate, I settled for something eloquent like, “hmmmmmmm… .”

“It could be worse,” I thought to myself. “I could be on a date with an ultra-conservative Republican or something.” It was about at that moment that I noticed the “Vote for Alan Keyes” paraphernalia in his… um… truck.

Oh. Mygosh. I was on a date with a crazy ultra-conservative Republican.

Shoot.

Me.

Now.

And yet, he was so so so cute. And kind. And enthralling. And cute.

His cell phone rang— it was J, telling us that the restaurant that they’d planned on had a super long waiting list. As they discussed possible alternates, I heard Blake say, “no, not Italian. I don’t like pasta.”

Oh. Mygosh. I was on a date with an ultra-conservative, “truck”-driving, bluegrass-obsessed friend of my brother’s who didn’t like pasta. It was as though the heavens had created my exact opposite, and expected me to adore him.

And I did. I adored him.

The ten of us ended up going to an Indian restaurant, which was insanely delicious, and after much witty banter (seriously, Blake and I were both on a roll that night), we all went back to J’s house to watch a movie. J wanted to watch something that was Rated R and almost everyone was fine with that. But two of the girls had made personal decisions not to watch Rated R movies and they were really uncomfortable. They asked nicely if we could please change the plan and watch something else. The response from almost everyone was one of jeering and ridicule and “hey, if 8 of us want to watch this movie, then we outnumber you and you’ll just have to deal with it.”

It was then that Blake piped up, and said, “we’re NOT going to force anyone to watch something that they’re not comfortable with! We’ll find something else!”

And I think it’s just possible that that’s the moment I fell in love with him… though I hadn’t realized it yet.

His statement was so decisive and authoritative that all mockery ceased and they simply found a different movie to watch that everyone would be okay with.

Sometime during the movie, Blake reached for my hand, and we spent the next two hours holding hands, painfully aware that while there was definitely something going on here, our differences were far too gigantic to be overcome.

…to be continued, of course…