Conversation for Dummies: Meeting Dave, Who Lives with His Parents and Gulps Hot Cocoa

For years, my conversational skills stunk.

Though improved, I still have a tendency clam up or prattle on. When it comes to chattin’ up the men folk, I’m mime-like articulate. This is something I have put painstaking efforts into improving.

In my early 20s, I Googled advice. I was an awful conversationalist. I never knew how to lead a conversation, or ask questions without sounding like I was rattling off a qualification form. After throwing myself to the wolves on multiple occasions, eventually I felt somewhat confident.

As a semi-confidant gabber, I met Dave. If I had been a conversationalist in training, then Dave was a conversationalist in need of electroshock. Within moments of meeting him, I went into overachiever mode. This is a small-scale song-and-dance routine in extroversion that I rarely pull out. I’m awesome in overachiever mode. I go “on” and I don’t stop until the fat lady sings…which usually means I’ve cranked up the radio and am on the way home, decompressing. Unfortunately, this is exhausting. It’s only an act, and it’s for the most desperate of times.

Dave asked me out, but asked to meet on a Sunday afternoon. He left the location open, but not the time. Dave needed until at least 2 p.m. Lunch was behind us and dinner too far ahead, so coffee, it was.

I met Dave at Starbucks. With the prevalence of franchises, this felt only more personal than McDonald’s. Our date was slipping in the quality department, because he was late. As I self-consciously sat around, sipping my coffee, I thought about location. Dave and I lived at separate ends of a county. Already, I resented driving to strip-mall heaven, the general “in between our places” area to meet. I also grew increasingly itchy about the “late” factor.

Dave eventually arrived. I was starting to feel bad about my “late” irritation and was letting it go. However, I noticed he did not look for me when he walked in. He didn’t really look at anything. In his elastic-waist leather jacket, he marched to the counter and ordered a small hot chocolate. Then he stood and stared at his thumbs while it was prepared.

At this point I started sympathizing. I recognized all these awkward moments as my past, before I enrolled in self-guided social boot camp. This period started a few years after I began working for a new company…and no one talked to me. I didn’t talk to them, so it wasn’t their fault. Most of them were older than I was. We had little in common. Still, I needed to start at least acknowledging their presence, because instead of coming off a little shy, I was coming off as an uptight jerk.

Dave finally plopped down in a chair across from me and said “Hi,” with a nervous giggle. I tried making conversation. While we (meaning I) talked, I questioned my literary skills. Dave, if memory and Internet profile served me correctly, was a year younger than I was, but looked like a man in his early forties. He was a professional, but looked like a beaten down laborer. Something about his face screamed “I eat LOTS of meat and vegetables out of a can, smothered in Velveeta!” He lived with his parents. It wasn’t temporary or transitional. Why was I out with him? He had asked, and I said I would give anyone who asked me out a chance.

Embracing anything I could about Dave – because after all, I was supposed to be giving people a chance – I asked him about travel. The only person he had mentioned (other than his parents) was his best friend, who lived in Oregon. I had once taken a bus through Portland. That trip was also in the late '90s, so it was a city filled with Doc Martens, hats, coffee, and singer-songwriter types. All of these I am fond of. Perhaps he had been to Portland!

“No, it’s really expensive," he said.

If I worked full time, and lived with my parents, I would be visiting my pal in Portland bimonthly. I would even buy souvenirs for my parents. As it turns out, Dave was saving up funds to buy a house. Since I semi-follow real estate, I decided to pick Dave’s brain. Unfortunately, we still had nothing in common. While I preferred old neighborhoods with classic charm, Dave loved everything about new construction and the outer ring ‘burbs. Everyone he knew lived there, and by everyone, I think we may have been talking about his parents.

I tried swinging the conversation to family related topics. Then we/I chatted about pets. He didn’t know if he liked pets. He’d never been allowed to have one. I chattered on for a bit and Dave, sweating like he’d run a marathon, chugged his hot chocolate in massive gulps. Perhaps the heat was killing him, a combination of nerves and cocoa under his jacket.

I asked him about other places he liked to go. He had never heard of the restaurants I mentioned, he wasn’t a drinker, and he hated bars. When I mentioned movies he came up with.

“Movies are so expensive."

That was it for me. Life isn’t free, but it’s worth it. I couldn’t believe this cheap recluse was bothering to spend cash on a dating website. I was done. As Dave sucked on his disposable coffee mug until the sides caved in, I politely shook his hand. He smiled (for the third time in thirty minutes), I left. After working my conversational skills to the max, I shook off overachiever mode and drove home – exhausted. I picked up a six-pack along the way.

The six-pack was from a microbrewery.

It was expensive, and I shared it with a friend.

I’m a lucky gal.