Detour: How to ace a blind date

Here are things I wish someone had told me about blind dates aka people creating situations where you have to make conversation with the guy in the suede jacket with elbow patches. Number one: I need to stay away from anything suede. Which is funny because all I wanted when I was 12 was a brown suede jacket and skirt combo. Number two: Leave your sense of humour at home.

It's funny, all your life you are told to have a sense of humour about everything from the mean girls in class boycotting you for an entire year to losing the love of your life to gaining 35 pounds. So that's what you do: you build a whole personality that laughs in the face of adversity and cellulite. People love it. Your friends love it, and your mom tells everyone what an epitome of strength and good humour their kid is. That is till you have to meet and greet with a boy you did not grow up with, who is not already madly infatuated with all your charms and fart jokes and thinks you're actually kind of an idiot. Suddenly you're standing on the side of the road, rain fallin' on your shoes, wondering how can this guy not love me already?

This entire year has been a race to meet my future husband before 30 comes calling. Okay, it was kinda like that, and it was kinda people that other people thought I'd really hit it off with, and frankly I was tired of saying no all the time and sounding like a bizarre cat-lady type telling everyone 'I'll meet him when it's time!' Just a heads up - this is a race that 30 won. I did meet some spectacular people though, who made great fashion choices and asked me inappropriate questions about my fitness routines. However, nothing prepares you for that first meeting, where you are trying to get conversation going because if you don't, you may have to stab yourself with a fork just to see if you're still alive. Here's a few observations you might find helpful.

• Arrive early so you don't have to worry about making an entrance, and keep your car handy, if there was no Batmobile, how would Robin whisk Bruce Wayne away from painful dates? I know nothing about Batman beyond the cartoon series, and Val Kilmer telling Nicole Kidman, 'Chicks love the car.' The '90s, what a blast.
• Bring a friend. This doesn't count if your friend is also his friend, because he will also bring a friend and they'll all know each other and...
• Bring a book. All these people who know everyone except you on this 'date' will have conversations that exclude you, and tell you afterward you din't seem into their very eligible friend. You might as well take this opportunity to read one of those supremely difficult Russian dudes. I recommend Dostoevsky.
• Try not to laugh out loud when your friend texts asking you if the 'douchy side-friend' is there. You'll end up laughing in the middle of the douche's loving stories about your 'date' crashing his car. 
• Five months on, try to hold the urge to put the word date in quotes and air quotes everytime you talk about it. 

I know, you're probably thinking I had no sense of humour about this to begin with. I did! It's just hard when someone you didn't really want to be introduced to in the first place completely wins you over by being smart and funny, and then politely, ugh, rejects you. You get over it in, oh about a few months if you're me, which you're probably glad you're not right now, and suddenly find the humour in the situation.

The only thing I'd like to point out is, I tried. Work or love, I tried, and somehow, even though I'm not acing anything just yet, it just feels like I might. Eventually.