Bad dates happen to good people: Andrew Bailey shares one of his first experiences dating.
_______
I never started dating until I was ordered to by a psychiatrist. I was twenty-one. I had to stop avoiding women. I had to become normal.
I’d taken myself out of the whole coupling game for five years. I had a rather difficult case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I would obsess over intrusive thoughts. At first religious thoughts, then moral thoughts. I thought I was a rapist, a murderer, an abomination before God. It made me feel terrified that I might hurt people. So I avoided people. Avoided them because I liked them.
But, because I liked them, I also didn’t want always to avoid them. So I made all these rules. For example, I could not invite people to hang out but we could hang out if they invited me. If I invited them maybe I had some subconscious plan to hurt them. If they invited me it was okay, so long as I repeated to myself, “You’re a good person. You can make it two hours without hurting them. Great. You’re a good person. You can make it one hour without hurting them. Great. You’re a good person. You can make it 59 minutes without hurting them. Great. You’re a rapist. Great. No. I’m not a rapist and it’s not great. It’s like the worst thing except murder. Murderer! Let it pass. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Great. Great. I’m doing great.”
Hanging out with people wasn’t great. But at least I didn’t avoid it.
“You have to date women,” the psychiatrist told me. “That’s the main part of your therapy.”
“I just don’t know if that’s a nice reason to date someone. Shouldn’t it be for love or something?”
“It should be because you want to do it. Date women. It’s normal. It’s natural. You’ll be happier for it.”
I was genuinely excited when I came out of his office. Naturally, I’d always wanted to date women. Finally, I’d been ordered to.
It was not easy asking someone out, however, especially given my rule about never being alone with anyone if it were my idea. But I figured it was actually the psychiatrist’s idea, and so I asked out Nadia, a girl I knew through a mutual friend.
♦◊♦
We met at the movie theatre. There was a part of me that felt guilty about being on a date at all. It felt dishonest not to warn someone I liked that I used to obsess about rape and murder. Not telling her that felt wrong. But the psychiatrist had stressed that I should tell no one these things, especially not on a first date. I was harmless and my thoughts were my own.
I decided that the golden mean was to say everything else that was wrong with me. If she couldn’t put up with those little things then there’s no way she’d put up with the darker stuff. Besides, part of what you want from a first date is to find out what’s wrong with the other person. I was making that simpler.
On the other hand, I ought to be able to talk about my dreams and ambitions as well. Not doing that would be dishonest too. So, in the seven minutes we had until the movie started, she learned that, “I like movies, and want to write screenplays and maybe act, I wet myself in class in the first grade, I pick my teeth and ears and sometimes let people walk all over me, I’m passive aggressive, I like James Joyce, I’m pretentious, I’m great at basketball, I’m clumsy and hopeless at practical things, but I was always in the gifted programs at school, I’m learning Latin because I think they should still teach it, I waste time on the internet looking up pictures of celebrities (not porn), and I’m not sure if I still believe in God so I feel hypocritical going to church though hypocrite’s the wrong word because that just means to claim righteousness when you are not yourself righteous and I know I’m not righteous I mean I’m very non judgmental I mean two people came out to me even and you can’t say that about many people from Langford and my voice goes too loud if I get excited and…”
It goes on. Seven minutes is actually a very long time.
The movie started. I thought, “Fuck me. I’m 21 years old and I can’t even get through the first seven minutes of a date without completely ruining things and breathe! Enjoy the movie. Enjoy the date. You’ve already fucked it up, so you might as well enjoy it.”
I did enjoy it. After the movie I was actually charming and funny. I even let Nadia talk. I salvaged enough self-respect to ask her on a second date. She accepted.
Three days later she called to cancel. I couldn’t blame her. The date had gone comically bad, even if I did manage to be not completely crazy for not completely the whole thing. I just couldn’t forget the darkness that was part of me. Nor can I. Darkness is part of everyone. But over time, after many failed attempts, I did learn to overcome my nearly crippling obsessive-compulsions on dates. Now I’m merely awkward.
Which is normal.
_____
Read Andrew Bailey’s book!:
Photo credit: When I Was A Bird/flickr
Have not yet tried to date with OCD- I’m thinking it should be an interesting experience!
Just because he is a comedy writer now doesn’t mean this is not a true story.
Actually my mother has really bad ocd they really do obsess over very strange things
Well, if this were a true story and not made by a comedy writer then I would applaud the guy for being courageous enough to go out on dates and try to better himself!
I found myself alternately feeling bad for him as well as a little mad because those things are obviously not real. Just some kind of thought or something that really just means nothing and should just be ignored.
I would say keep going out and go from being merely awkward to dashing, I think you can do it!