Day 641: I had a date. | Blog Post Discussion | Forum

I had a date — Monday, January 30th at 6pm — with a girl. In Leesburg, Virginia.

And that is why I am writing this blog post 8 days later in a coffee shop in Colorado Springs, Colorado (and I’ve already been here 3 days).

What? You don’t see the connection? — Well, it’s probably not what you think, so I’ll explain…

It was Monday morning (of the aforementioned date). I woke up in Timonium (think “Baltimore”, if it helps) and then made the 10 minute drive over to LA Fitness (formerly Bally Fitness) in Towson for what has become my routine hour of cardio every morning since upgrading from my 30 minute routine on November 5th, 2011 in Miami, Fl.

Don’t be impressed — all that extra 30 minutes really means is that I get to catch up on more TV series on Netflix like The Walking Dead and Burn Notice — and soon another season of something else.

So I’m at the gym — staring at myself in the locker room mirror — but again, it’s probably not what you think…

Fortunately this scenario is explained by the fact an older friendly looking gentleman walks up and comments on the clippers I’m using to cut my hair.

“That must save on your barber bill!”
“It does! The only tricky part is the back — I don’t always get it right, but hey, it’s hair, it grows back.”
“It does if you’re lucky!”, he says with a smile and walks off.

I always feel weird cutting my hair in public — even when it is in what would seem like an “appropriate” place — a men’s locker room. But I’ve also cut my hair in even weirder places like pulled over at an exit in Montana (I don’t remember why, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time) — and then there was that time I shaved in Starbucks — or the morning I shaved in the parking lot of a TGI Fridays right before this happened.

And this may be hard for people to believe — just like when I tell people I’m shy — but I tend to think of myself as a rather private person. Yes, despite the fact I’ve been blabbing about my life online for the past 641+ days.

So — being the “private person” that I am (ok, go ahead and laugh) — it also feels a bit weird when I’m doing things like shaving or brushing my teeth at the gym (though those things are certainly more common than hair cutting).

So when a stranger walks up while I’m doing any of the above and talks to me or gives me a “nodding look”, it’s kind of a relief. It at least says, “Hey, you’re not being so weird that I’m going to totally pretend you don’t exist.”

So yes, I cut my own hair (as I have many times during my trip) — and then I shaved. All this in preparation of my date later in the day. And while I was doing so, I was desperately trying not to have any “whoops” moments — at least not so soon after the last one, which was a little over 6 weeks earlier.

That last one was a good one — I’d only been in the Baltimore area a few days — and awake for maybe as much as 10 minutes before mistaking the #2 shaving adapter (short) for the #5 (longer).

And before you can say, “BAZINGA!”, there goes a chunk of hair from the front of my head — “Whoops!”

So with a chunk of hair now noticeably shorter than the hairs surrounding it, the choice at this point was either to even out all the hair around it — and walk around with a style that just isn’t my style (I tend to look much more “serious” than I like when my hair is super-short and all the same length) — or to just ignore it and hope no one would notice.

I went for the “I hope no one will notice” option.

And while I can’t say no one noticed, I can say that no one ever mentioned it — but then, it’s not the sort of thing I would expect a stranger to do… “Excuse me, sir, who did that crazy hack job on your hair!?”

What my latest trim actually allowed me to do was minimize the damage I’d done to it 6 weeks earlier — which besides just wanting to look decent for my date, was kind of the point.

So with that wrapped up, I left the gym, hopped in my car, and started driving south.

My date wasn’t for another 7 hours, but I wanted to beat any afternoon traffic between Baltimore and northern Virginia. I also wanted to make sure my tire wasn’t going to go flat.

Why would it go flat? Well, my tire had somehow managed to “attract a screw” into it the day before.

I still don’t know exactly how a tire gets a screw in it, but about 24 hours earlier, mine did exactly that.

But since 24 hours had passed and it still hadn’t lost any air, I decided to do what I would’ve done if I hadn’t discovered the screw — I ignored it.

(For what it’s worth, this is not something I would recommend people do, but I considered what might happen and I was prepared to face the consequences. I would also like to point out, I actually visited a tire specialist who explained how I could fix it (Ha, like I have my own garage and a tire removal kit!) — or that he could do it, but he didn’t have time to fit me in that day…or the next).

So anyway — I had 7 hours to make the 90 minute drive from Towson to Leesburg, Virginia. What this basically meant was that if I hit traffic or got a flat tire, I’d have roughly 5.5 hours to deal with it — and I figured that was definitely doable.

The thought of cancelling my date if either of these things happened didn’t occur to me — as I was looking forward to meeting this young, attractive, athletic professional with whom it seemed like I had a fair bit in common — at least in writing. I mean, we had only exchanged a couple emails and hadn’t even spoken on the phone yet, but I had a good feeling. I was looking forward to meeting her at the coffee shop in Leesburg that we decided on – 6pm.

Twenty five minutes after leaving Towson, I turned onto Interstate 70 West. This highway runs over 2,000 across the United States. A mile goes by and I’m feeling good. 5 miles goes by and I feel like I have the whole world open before me.

And then, with just over 10 miles of Interstate 70 West behind me, something happened. But it’s probably not what you think…

I realized some things…

1. This would be my last day in Maryland.

2. I was no longer on my way to my date.

3. It no longer mattered what my hair looked like.

If it’s not obvious, #2 is the important one — with that single realization, my entire day and thought pattern changed.

I took the next exit, pulled into a gas station parking lot, pulled out my laptop, and wrote a very apologetic (and hopefully respectful) “date cancellation” email (totally not my style).

I hadn’t planned this, but it felt right — even if I had the unpleasant task of being viewed as a total jerk for cancelling a date on the same day it was to happen. I felt that cancelling our date now would actually be more respectful than going on a date when I already had the strong sense I’d be leaving.

And because she preferred to get to know me in person, we hadn’t actually communicated much. To put it another way, neither of us had invested much in each other yet. And honestly, if we’d known each other better and felt more “connected”, I wouldn’t have so easily been pulled away by the allure of the road — I would have wanted to see where things went — my curiosity often gets the better of me.

That said — as I sat there typing that email, I was still uncertain of how she’d take it — I mean, it is a kind of jackass move cancelling a date only a few hours before it was to happen…

40 minutes later I had my answer…

“It’s no big deal. We really haven’t communicated very much so I guess the timing was bad. You don’t have to take blame silly. Sometimes things just don’t work out. Good luck on your travels. Hope you find what you are looking for. : )”

And that was it.

I had a date — but it wasn’t with a girl in Leesburg, it was with the open road.

And that is why I am now writing this from Colorado instead of Maryland.