I met this guy out one night with a friend of mine, his name was Andrew. We talked a bit and he kept looking over to our table at Ozzies. I was singing a few songs and we were chatting We'd been hanging out for half the night and the other half I would catch him looking at me. So, when my friend's cab arrived to take us home, I went up to his table to say goodbye. His friends said "You can't leave yet, he finally signed up for a song!" I made my apologies and said I had to go, but I slipped him my number on a napkin and told him to call me.
He was tall and had dark hair and light blue eyes. He invited me out to dinner the following Friday. On my way to meet him for dinner, he called me three whole times to change the venue. I wasn't familiar with the area he picked out, and every time I would start getting close to the ending destination on my GPS of the place he picked, he would call me and say “Change of plans”. When he did this for the third time I said “okay this is the last one you get so make it a good one!” So finally, he picked a small Italian restaurant with nice décor and low lighting. It was going well I thought. I wasn’t sure if he was my type because he didn't seem to be displaying too much evidence of a sense of humor. I kept dropping my best witty banter throughout the conversation but he didn't catch on. He was definitely educated and well spoken, so I thought, “hey, why not give this a minute and see what he’s all about.”
We ordered a couple of drinks, he got a beer and I got a glass of wine and the conversation starts flowing. We got to talking about things we like to do around Seattle. I mentioned going to movies, trivia nights, dive bars and of course my number one activity…karaoke. He stopped and got this very serious look on his face. “OH yeah, YOU like karaoke!"He exclaimed as his expression changed to far too much joy on his face. He asked me what I liked to sing and I rattled off a few of my go-to songs: “Well I like Nancy Sinatra ‘These boots are made for walking’, Blondie ‘One way or another’, and of course the crowd pleaser of Four Non Blondes ‘What’s Up’.” He grinned from ear to ear and began what would be the most excruciating and uncomfortable 4 minutes of a first date in history. He proudly began singing the last song of the list, “What’s Up.” He started softly then gained momentum as well as decibels as he continued singing and belted out this song. At last he ended with the chorus of “And I said Hey, yay yay yea-ah Hey, yay yay. I said Hey! What’s going on?” I looked around the restaurant and saw all the people in the room looking our way. One man at a table in the dimly lit corner behind us had a fork full of linguini already wrapped and suspended in air approximately 4 inches from his mouth but he was not moving it. My guess is he was frozen by the ethereal voice of my date.
When I was sure I could not have sunk any lower in my chair and donning a crazy awkward smile on my face (my eyes were bulging from embarrassment), finally the torture came to an end. He wrapped up his best female vocalist of the ‘90s impersonation and smiled at his accomplishment, apparently sure I would be very impressed that he knew all the words. Impressed I was not. But he must have mistaken my horror for happiness because it was at this time that he informed me of his affinity for Neil Diamond songs. He then began to sing again doing his best to mimic the pop icon with his own personal rendition of “We’re coming to America!” I decided then and there to stop moving or even breathing, thinking maybe he was like a T-Rex and if I held perfectly still he would forget I was there and leave. Alas, this did not work. I got my phone out of my purse, and feigned concern. I quickly took the last sip of my glass of wine, made my apologies and said I “Have to run, but it was sooooo nice to meet you!” I walked - slash - sprinted out of that Italian restaurant and never looked back. Now that's "What's Up!"
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