Confessions of a Serial Dater by Adalade Brooks (ereader manga TXT) 📖

have taken my fear of fireworks as a sign and turned down the date. Unfortunately I just couldn’t bring myself to it.

I have a problem with turning down any sort of date that could possibly involve a boat ride, free food, or a nice Irish Catholic boy. Of course since my Fourth of July date would involve all three I just absolutely could not bring myself to turning it down. The date started out great. He asked me to meet him at his house early that morning, which of course I was thrilled to do (after all there is nothing better then a date that lasts all day). So my dad drove me the forty-five minutes up to his house to drop me off, and promised to see me late that night to pick me up. Perfect.

I arrived at the house and my dad left after a quick hello to his parents and the reassurance that every father needs (his “little girl” is in good hands). Once my dad left however, I started to realize that maybe my checklist (Boat, food, Irish Catholic) could use a little bit of revising.

Within ten minutes of me arriving for our date Will, his ten-year-old sister, his parents, his parent’s friends, and I were all in the family boat headed up river for breakfast. Now I can handle a first date with people around. I can even handle a first date with the guy’s parents around. I can’t handle a first date with everyone the guy has ever met around. Especially when his parents friends tell him he is too young to date.

By ten a.m. I was about ready to grab a fly swatter. I understand parents not wanting their children to date, but it is crossing a line when the parents’ friends feel the need to repeat their feelings about the matter every five seconds. Had I been his first girlfriend I would have maybe understood his parent’s friends being more uptight then his parents. However I wasn’t his first girlfriend. I was nowhere near his first girlfriend. How his parents’ nosey friends had missed meeting his last several girlfriends I have no clue, especially the one he had dated for almost two years.

As the day dragged on it became more and more obvious that either his parents friends were extremely drunk or had a very selective memory. Eventually I found out that it was both. His parents friends had not only met all of his girlfriends, but had gotten so wasted the night before that they were still quite drunk that morning when we picked them up.

After what felt like an eternity, the friends of the parents were eventually dropped off at their own house.

“Nice to meet you, you, you, what was your name?” asked the wife as she struggled to stand up.

“Her name was Chelsea,” Her husband responded as he fell over on his way to grabbing another beer. Now, normally someone forgetting my name would not have offended me, unless they were confusing me with my new boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend who they claimed to have never met.

“Nice to meet you too,” I attempted to smile as I passed the wife her beach bag and shoes as Will helped his parents’ friends up onto their dock.

“Well wasn’t that a nice day,” Will’s mom said as she smiled as she sat down and leaned back in her seat next to his sister. I smiled politely and then looked over at Will with wide eyes. At this he passed me my cell phone

Will: Sorry!
Me: For?
Will: Them
Me: Its fine
Will: My phone is about to die.

I felt Will’s arm around my shoulder

“I really am sorry. My parents friends are, well…” He whispered in my ear

“Its fine,” I whispered back.

“No its not”

“Yes it is”

“Okay I’m not fighting with you about this. Its fine”

“I promise it wont happen again.”

“That would be wonderful.”

“So you were mad!”

“Not mad, just a little put off. But I’m not fighting you on this. Lets just move on”

“Fine. I have a surprise for you. It should help make up for all of that,” At this point were almost back at his house and his mom and sister were moving about, gathering things up from around the rest of the boat.

“Really?”

“Yep. How do you like fireworks,” That was it. My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t breath. For a moment I thought I was about to see ‘The Light’

“You do like fireworks, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Shit shit shit! Come on! Why the hell did you just say yes? You’re going to get killed! “I mean…”

“Good. We have tons,” Wait, we, as in him and his family are going to light them! Forget me getting killed we are all getting killed!

How I lasted through the first forty-five minutes of the fireworks is a mystery to me, but what ever I did I blocked it out. However when it started to sink in that hell was forming less then twenty feet from my seat on their back lawn, I needed to get away.

“I’m going to go, and, get some more ice for my water,” It was lame, and I have no idea how I thought getting ice would keep me away from the fireworks for the next forty-five minutes of them.

“I’ll go with,” Thank god. Will is coming with. That means one more person that is less likely to get killed by these stupid things!

Inside I reached for the freezer door. An arm wrapped around my waist and spun me around. Kissing. Melting. Back against fridge. Kissing. Melting. Glass falling from hand. Kissing. Melting. Glass shattering at feet. Kissing. Melting. Water running. Reality. Why was there water running? We are nowhere near the sink! I pressed my palm against Will’s chest and pushed him away firmly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. But you may want to pick up that glass before you continue,” His mom said with a smile as she turned away. She grabbed the broom from the closet and handed it to Will. As she left the kitchen she stopped and handed me a new glass of water.

“I can tell you make him very happy. Keep it up,” she whispered as she walked back outside to the fireworks. Reality. It only takes a moment to slip away and it comes back like a pile of bricks.

I sank back against the fridge as Will put away the broom. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I wish I had run the first time I asked myself this question. Instead, I asked myself that question almost every day for the rest of the relationship. As ‘I love you’s were said, as fights were fought, and eventually through cheating. Every good time, and every bump in the road brought back the same question. What the hell did I get myself into?
Spiders, Handguns, and Mice

Blind Dates are great. When you are forty and looking for a spouse. Blind dates suck when you are in high school. Blind dates get significantly worse when your dad’s friend sets you up with his nephew who is barely passing his second year of an undecided major at community college.

Now I have nothing against people going to community college. Some of my best friends went to community college. The difference is that they all either transferred out after two years, or got a job, or became a nurse. Alex however was none of the above. Alex is now a super senior and working part time at a porn outlet.

Now, as if a date with a community college undecided wasn’t bad enough, here is the real kicker. Our date was cleaning out my parent’s house in Milwaukee. Cleaning dates are exactly what every high school and college kid dreams about. I mean what could be better then sitting in a crawl space going through boxes full of stuff your grandparents had rejected into a space that gets dusty every fall, floods every winter, and breeds mice and spiders in the spring. Plus there is no outfit more attractive for a first date then dirty sweats and a greasy ponytail.

All right, so bad college education aside Alex was decent. He had enough manners to open doors for people, he could uphold a relatively interesting conversation, and he was six foot five. Honestly the height was probably what held the ‘relationship’ together for the entire month that it lasted.

Being five foot seven it is fairly rare to meet a guy much taller then me and at that point I had never been with a taller guy. Dating shorter had won me much ridicule from family and friends and Alex presented an opportunity to temporarily deter the ridicule.


One thing to note about me is that in all aspects of my life I am quite the screamer (let your mind wander for a minute, and then please come back to reality before continuing.) I scream at spiders, mice, dead things, living things, people, and I have even been known to scream at the sand while playing softball. Yes. I am a screamer. This is something that guys for whatever reason seem to be quite happy about (Maybe it has something to do with guys always wanting to be the knight in shining armor that kills the big bad spider). Whatever the reason though I discovered on our first date that Alex was also quite the screamer.

“Oh my god! I am so not touching that!” I’m not the kind of girl that expects to date guys that are fearless, but as I looked over to see Alex screaming at a box, I couldn’t help but laughing.

“You have to be kidding me. It’s a box.”

“You come look in it!”

“Okay, fine. Just stop screaming,” Alex moved out of the way and I looked in the box that he had just been looking through. That is when I promptly lost it. I turned around in the crawl space and quickly crawled towards Alex as fast as possible

“Told you. I’m not touching it!”

“Well I’m not touching it! Why the hell would you think I would touch that! It should be burned!”

“What if we take them out”

“I don’t want to touch the box of them! What makes you think touching each one individually is going to be any better!”

“What if we just pick up the box and dump them all into a garbage bag”