Ask

I went on a blind date years ago with someone a work colleague set me up with. The date was perfectly fine, but when we left the restaurant to leave—I was going to drive her back to where she was staying—it became clear that I had parked in a tow zone and my car was no longer present. This was around midnight, and so I had to drag this poor girl around as I called my father to come pick us up, get a bunch of cash from an ATM (he had to get it because I didn’t have 300 in my bank acct, yep lady I’m broke!) and go over to a very sketchy part of town to reclaim the car from a towing company. We offered to drop her home first, but I guess she was intrigued by the adventure and elected to come along.

Anyhow l was suitably embarrassed, having to call in my family to bail me out was something I was fairly sure was a romance-killer, not to mention having to go to a very sketchy part of the city at 1 am to deal with surly impound guards. But turns out she found it amusing and I guess it never hurts to show a little vulnerability, because we ended up dating for a year after that. We broke up based on distance and life directions, not any real conflict or dislike of each other. It definitely taught me to not sweat about macho crap as much, and just to be genuine, since surprise surprise, potential partners like honesty and knowing who you actually are!