Thought I'd post of one of my personal favorite blog entries for the JoeUser crowd. So here's my story of what is, without question, the best date I ever had; though, to be honest, it wasn't really a date. A date would imply that I went out somewhere with a girl, but instead I just went to this girl's house with the premise of spending Memorial Day together.

Backstory: This girl and I had been "together" for what may have been fourth months at this point. We become an "official couple" a week or two before Valentine's Day (only reason I remember this is because I went through hell trying to figure out what kind of Valentine's Day gift a week or two relationship warranted), but we became interested in each other during our drama class, a class which I took about four of five times throughout High School, in the previous fall. We then spent more time together around February in a larger drama production which we practiced after school most days. Our first go-around of the "relationship" lasted about a month and a half, at which point she broke up with me to "save me grief." I was more grieved by this action, so a week later we become "official" again. That lasted another month, then I broke it off for some reason or another. In the two or three weeks to follow, I dated a close friend for about two weeks, asked her to Prom (I was a junior), then dumped her about a week before Prom, got back together with the girl this story is about, and we went to Prom together. At Prom, we attempted a first kiss (yes, a first kiss had not happened up to this point) which kind of failed miserably due to bad timing on both parts; we then sang a few songs from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack together on the way home, I drove back home, and then we talked online for another three hours. Now fast-forward to Memorial Day (whenever the fuck that is).

The Story: I got to the girl's house, and was all nervous as hell. I had never been there before, and had heard horror stories of tales that had occured under the roof of the place. This occured well before my addiction to a certain painkiller, so I didn't exactly have any drugs to ease any of my obsessive-compulsive/anxiety disorder habits either. It was a dark time.

So, I got into the house, and aimlessly walked around talking to this girl, playing little games with her two younger sisters and her younger brother (the brother either disliked me or feared me, but the youngest sister and I got along very well). It was about an hour of uneasiness as I ambled around from room-to-room, trying to keep up with my girlfriend, and figure out what, exactly, my place was in this situation. I don't think I ever did. Keep in mind I was here for about a total of six-seven hours.

Discussions came and went with various people, mostly my girlfriend's family: her sisters, her mom, her dad, and the conversations I actually had with her were probably fewer than those I had with everyone else. It was a very weird, a very odd, and very uncomfortable night. We ate steak for dinner, and I'm not a huge fan of steak, personally, I think it's good, but there's so much fat on most steaks that it takes an inordinate amount of work to actually eat all the meat on a steak; I don't mind working for my dinner, I do mind working to eat my dinner. Anyway, I cleaned the fucking thing right the hell up; chowing down the fat and all. By the time I was done, my plate was fucking clean. Then I looked around at the rest of the plates, and everyone had these massive piles of fat on the sides of their plate, and there was mine, clean as all day. Her father looked at me and asked me something along the lines of, Did you feed anything to the dogs?

I looked around, terrified, and meekly responded, "I, uh, a-ate it all, sir."

He laughed at me, picked up his plate and walked away. I gave a quick glance at my girlfriend, who just laughed at me. It's a good thing I had grown comfortable with the "I'm a dumbass" feeling over the years, or I may have been forced to hide in a corner somewhere.

More time was spent in uncomfortable, awkward conversations with parents and the like, until it was time for the bonfire. Now, apparently, the family saves shit all year for a Memorial Day bonfire, and they had a ton of stuff stacked in this firepit in their backyard. They exchanged talks of fire permits for the night, a topic that was relatively alien to me, since I lived way the hell out of town where we can pretty much do fuck-all without anyone every bugging us, so the idea was relatively interesting to me. Anyway, the father brought out this large, very dead, very dry tree, set it in the pit (amidst the large amount of other shit), and lit the thing. The whole thing caught fire faster than I could even comprehend, and I'm a pretty big fan of lighting shit on fire. It was beautiful. I just sat in the ground, with my arm around my girlfriend, her head leaning on my shoulder, and enjoyed the absolutely huge, mesmerizing flame which had warmed my entire front to an almost intolerable temperature.

Over time, the crowd dissipated, and eventually my girlfriend and I were left to ourselves as rain slowly started to fall from the midnight skies. We made our way under a nearby tree and enjoyed the fire from a distance. We talked about the night's events, she continually laughed at my various screw-ups and oddities for a while, until we had our first real kiss (and more) under a tree, with a perfect bonfire warming us, while rain fell all around the tree above. It was truly one of the most perfect moments I've ever had in a relationship; it was really one of those kinds of moments you hope every day that you can have again with someone else. And, to be honest, I haven't had anything close in the nearly three years since that night.

Though my relationship with that girl went rapidly downhill in the weeks to follow, but that's just typical me right there.