Worst Date Ever

February is the month of love, and even though Valentine’s Day is now in the rearview mirror, I am reminded of my junior year Nifty Fifties Dance date.

I was new to my high school, having just moved 1,200 miles from Indiana to Florida. I was not happy about the move and was doing my best to be a loner. I didn’t want to meet anyone. I wanted to be miserable. I guess you might say I was copping an attitude. But, it wasn’t in my character to keep up the ruse for long as I was too outgoing and social. 

Within a few short weeks of the start of school, posters began appearing in the halls announcing the first dance of the year. It was a themed dance that invited attendees to dress like their parents would have in the fifties. Grease, the movie, was not in production yet, but the Broadway hit musical and songs were already well known. Thus, in the lead up to the dance, there was lots of talk about poodle skirts, saddle shoes, greased back and teased hair, and leather jackets.

I was beginning to meet people here and there in class and through the Drama Club I had joined, but wasn’t expecting to be asked to the dance. So, it was quite a surprise when Dan, who lived down the street from me, stopped me in the hall a few days before the dance and asked if I’d like to go with him. I said yes. 

After agreeing to go with Dan, he disappeared down the hall without explaining whether he planned to pick me up, or whether we would meet at the dance, or anything. I was confused about what to do but decided everything would somehow work out.

On Friday, I was still in the dark about the details of my date, hadn’t seen Dan at all since he’d asked me out, and was beginning to wonder whether I’d made the whole thing up. I also was not feeling well. As the day went on, cold symptoms grew worse, and by the end of the school day, my nose was running, I was coughing and sneezing, and I may have even been running a low-grade temperature. But, I didn’t know how to get in touch with this boy, and was in a complete quandary about what to do.

If COVID has taught us anything it is that if you are symptomatic...stay home. But in the mid-1970s, the thought of staying home from a school dance, unless you were dying, was an anathema to teenagers. 

After school, and still not sure about how I was to meet up with Dan in order to go to this dance, I called my friend Ginny, who I knew was a good friend of his. I explained everything to her, said I really wasn’t feeling well and was thinking I shouldn’t go, but didn’t know how to tell him. Ginny said she’d call me right back. After a few minutes, the phone rang, and Ginny said she wasn’t able to get in touch with him. She told me, however, I had to go to the dance. “He probably assumes you will meet up there because I don’t think he has the use of the car. Older brothers, you know.” I didn’t, but this made sense to me, and Ginny was right. As a new girl, I didn’t want to stand him up. He might say terrible things about me if I did. Ginny went on to say, “Look, I’m on the dance committee and in charge of collecting the entrance fee. If you haven’t heard from him by quarter to seven, call me, and I’ll swing by and pick you up. Then, you’ll at least have me to hang out with so you’re not alone.” I liked this idea.

After taking some cold medicine to stave off my symptoms, I rummaged through my dress-up box. Mom had, long ago, thrown some of her own high school clothes in it for me to use in Make Believe play when I was a little kid. I knew just the dress I wanted to put on—a red and white polka dot print with a full gathered skirt and crinoline. I didn’t have saddle shoes, but I had some white Keds and short white ankle socks. I pulled out some of Mom’s old chunky costume jewelry and selected a necklace and matching clip-on earrings. I then put my hair in electric rollers. I used a teasing comb to add more volume, used a bunch of hairspray, and then styled my hair into a pageboy bouffant. I added a white ribbon, headband style, to finish off my Nifty Fifties look. 

My nose was a little red from blowing it so often throughout the day. I used powder to try and minimize the inflammation. I put some Visine in my eyes to clear them up and checked the time to see if I could take another cold tablet. I popped one in my mouth, swallowed, and then called Ginny.

After paying for my entrance, Ginny instructed me to sit over on the gym bleachers so I could watch the students as they came in and hopefully meet up with my date. Kids arrived mostly in pairs and groups, with the occasional person arriving alone. No sign of my date, and I was starting to feel like that last cold tablet wasn’t working at all. I even felt a bit light-headed. 

Just as I was about to give up and ask Ginny if she could run me home, Dan appeared with a group of four other boys. I sat up a bit straighter on the bleachers and when I thought I saw him look my way, I waved. But there was no reaction. The group of boys sauntered into the crowd and started to mingle. Dan didn’t even look like he was trying to find me. I had to do something, I thought.

I mustered up the courage to walk into the now dancing crowd to find him. He wasn’t dancing, he was chatting with a couple girls I didn’t know. I walked up and shyly waved and said, “Hi.” He nodded and then told the girls he’d talk to them later. We walked back to the bleachers and sat down.

“Did you walk over?” Dan asked. We all lived just a few blocks from the school.

“No, Ginny picked me up,” I said.

He fiddled around clasping and unclasping his hands, and rolling them around in a washing hands motion. I breathed deeply and let out a big sigh. We sat there silently for another few minutes until he suddenly turned to me and said, “Well, enjoy the dance.”

He got up and walked off into the crowd. 

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As I sat in utter disbelief, questioning, again, whether he had actually asked me out on a date or not, I concluded that I was simply not feeling well enough to care. I dug around in the bottom of my purse, found a dime, and went to the pay phone just outside the gym entrance to call my mom. I told Ginny I was leaving and she said she’d call me the next day. 

Over the course of the rest of the school year, I would occasionally see Dan in the hallway during passing periods. I pretended as if the entire date had never happened, which really wasn’t much of a stretch for my imagination. He never again tried to talk to me. 

When yearbooks get passed around at the end of the school year, sometimes you have no idea who is going to end up signing yours. So it was a big surprise when, looking through the signatures, I found that Dan had written:

I’m glad I got to know ya this year cause your a really cool chick. You’ve been great over the year and I’m looking forward to see ya next year. Have fun this summer (but don’t get caught), and maybe we can do something this summer. Good luck in the future, and be yourself.

Maybe my cold meds sent me into an alternate reality that night of the Nifty Fifties Dance, or maybe he wrote the exact same thing in every girl’s yearbook. But whatever the case, my memory of that night is that it was my worst date ever.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2021