Perfectly Unexpected

Word Count 2,250

There weren’t many things in life you genuinely didn’t like - all in all, you considered yourself a positive person. But you wouldn’t be a human being living in a modern society without ever coming across some aspects of life you could definitely do without.

Like Brussel sprouts, for example. Or ingratitude. Or, when looking at society as a whole, phenomenons like social injustice. Sure, you weren’t a perfect person, and you certainly didn’t want to end up as a hypocrite pointing fingers at others while simultaneously not practicing what you preached.

Yet that certainly didn’t stop you from standing up for your beliefs in front of others - a character trait which kept your circle of friends relatively small, but that was fine with you. Having a handful of truly trustworthy and honest people in your life was better than having a few thousand superfacial acquaintances – at least to you, it was.

Besides the previously mentioned things, there was something else you really, really didn’t like.

Blind Dates.

Now, of course blind dates weren’t generally a bad thing. But, much like listening to a song over and over again until you came to hate it eventually, blind dates had been pretty much ruined for you.

All thanks to your best friend, Jewels. You loved her, you adored her, but sometimes, you just really wanted to strangle her. More times than you could recall, she’d convinced you to go on a blind date with a guy of her choice. Each time, you’d tried to talk her out of it, but she would have none of it – and in the end, she was more persistent and you were too much of a harmony junkie to rebuff her.

The first few times, you’d been genuinely excited for your dates. When it came to dating and relationships, you were pretty “old school” – you loved the concept of meeting someone through shared interests, the idea of fateful encounters – of romance just in general, really. Of course you weren’t naïve enough to believe in something as ridiculous as the concept of “love at first sight” (well, maybe you were, but you certainly wouldn’t tell anyone about it).

Yet you still couldn’t help letting your expectations running rampant in those few seconds before your blind date would eventually walk in and crush all of them within mere minutes.

One time, Jewels had set you up with a guy she’d met on the subway – seriously, who does that? – and while he’d seemed interesting enough at first, he’d proceeded to shamelessly flirt with and swoon over all of the female waitresses and fellow guests during your date, leaving you sitting there to mend your wounded pride while he ended up getting punched in the face by the boyfriend of a lady whom he confessed his “eternal love” to.

Another time, you’d ended up with a man who was quite a few years your senior, but other than that, pretty much the full package – beautiful red hair, a few scars that only added to his charm, a stunning smile, and some humor on top of all that. It could’ve been perfect – had you not found out about his wife and child by coincidence a few days later.

You could vividly remember how furious you’d been and how Jewels had sincerely apologized, assuring you that she’d just met the guy through mutual friends and that she’d had no idea about his little double life.

But none of that was quite as devastating as your latest blind date – and, as you’d promised yourself after that evening, your last. You should’ve known something was wrong with the guy as soon as he managed to use about 10 different curse words within the first five minutes of conversation. But you didn’t want to seem snobbish or superficial, so you’d tried to give him a fair chance.