#FirstDate #FirstDates #FirstDatesIRL #Dating #CountyWaterford #Dungarvan #GrattanSquare #Ireland #LEGO

I had hired a car to give myself the ability to go on a few First Dates in early October 2020. This was a rare treat for a number of reasons – 1) Although I had been in Ireland for almost 2.5 years, there was still so much I hadn’t seen, 2) In the early days of COVID, we could only go 2KM from our home, 3) While I was doing my best to adapt to car-free living, I did miss going wherever the road would take me, even if I was on the wrong side of that road! As I drove away from that First Date with a smile on my face, I started listening to a Dr. Demento Podcast. Dr. Demento started broadcasting “mad music and crazy comedy from out of the vaults and off the walls” over 50 years ago! I started listening to him regularly in the late 70’s.  However, my earliest recollection of his show was hearing “Plastic Jesus” by The Goldcoast Singers late one Sunday night. Looking back at the Dr. Demento Database (http://dmdb.org/), that might have been as early as 1974. Anyhow, the show I was listening to as I drove back to Kilkenny was a Halloween themed show. This was the perfect soundtrack as I drove alone through the backroads of Ireland on a dark and wet night. Imagine listening to the following recording when the good Doctor reads the warning on the label – “Warning: Do Not Listen to this Record in the Dark or Alone“…

Back to FirstDate41 – we texted back and forth for a couple of weeks. Neither one of us had set up a second date, but all seemed to be going well. That is until one evening when she asked how I was doing. I told her that I was “Zooming with Bingo. Every Monday until they find a cure.” I had just started organizing an online bingo for a couple of fellas I know. They were good with ideas, and they knew I was good with technical things. So, I was asked to set up Zoom meetings, sell bingo books online, and run the game in every way possible. We did this every Monday Night (and a few other nights of the week in 2021) from October 2020 to June 2021. It was great for the people that loved bingo, and it was a nice way for me to make money when that was hard to do. FirstDate41 responded with “Sorry to bother you ! Enjoy the zooming.”(sic) A few minutes later, the game was over, and I responded with “Not bothering at all. Just finished.” But she never received that message as she had BLOCKED me on WhatsApp! I honestly don’t think I did anything wrong. I can only speculate as to why she overreacted like that. I know that some people like to use messaging as a way to be in contact 24/7, but I think it’s a bit ridiculous to expect that type of instantaneous conversation, especially when I was in the middle of a live zoom meeting at the time. Whatever the case, I’m glad I dodged that bullet. It is kind of amazing that somebody would bring hand-crafted gifts on a first date and then randomly block on WhatsApp a couple weeks later. Both of those actions say a whole lot more about her than it does about me. Unfortunately, this was solidifying my opinion of dating Irish women – a not very complimentary opinion.
(Last Dated – October 2020)