Primp and Prep

Charlotte is sure I am making plans to meet and ax murderer and wants to get a nearby table with her son Griffin on the evening of my date with Jack.

I am sure I won't need the assistance, but it would be a hoot to see any poor soul's face the moment my very tall, very athletic, very deep-voiced nephew stepped in to assist with my date's removal from his bar stool and eventual face plant on the sidewalk.

Still, Jack seems really nice and easy going, so I am sure there will be no need for any wingman assignments being pressed into duty. Besides, I always buddy up to the bartender. This one will know that I am on a date with a stranger and know to look for signs of trouble.

Charlotte wants to know what I am wearing.

A g-string and a tube top, Char.

Seriously, I have to think long and hard about this. I want to look pretty and appealing, but do no want any desperate displays of skin and cleavage. I would pick a summer dress but none of them seem appropriate for a early evening pub meeting. It's not a cotillion and it's not a dinner date and it is not a high end establishment. It is drinks in a fun chain pub in an industrial town. I don't need to break out the Hyannis-wear and pearls. We won't be bumping into the Kennedys.

I raid Hil's closet (which sends Charlotte sailing over the edge for a brief moment.) I raid my 14 year old's closet because she has raided mine and all of my fun, hip clothes are now hanging next to her Uggs and Abercrombie.

I find a pretty peach top with some interesting detail - sleeveless and cropped to come just to the belt loops of my white skinny jeans. I have the perfect sandals. Flat and metallic, and easy to run in if I have to make a dash for the door. It is pretty, sexy, conservative and flatters me. I may have to recycle this outfit for other casual summer occasions.

My Girls Weekend at the beach begins Friday morning. I can not wait to see how this date goes. I will either have lots of good news or lots of advice to ask for from my gal pals. I am hoping for the former but it is a complete crap shoot.

I usually end up in relationships with people that I have known for a long time. I can't even remember the last time I went out with a complete stranger. By the time I'd gone on any sort of romantic date, I'd known the person for months, years sometimes. Decades in some cases (for all the good it did me in determining Scott's character). Maybe Charlotte is right. Maybe I am meeting an ax murderer and am blissfully unaware and not even nervous because no one gets nervous about a date when all of their dates have been with people they've known for a long time.

It is clear that I have no idea what I am doing.

Maybe I am really just so desperate for companionship that I would do something hare-brained. I wonder if those kooks who start writing letters to Federal Prison inmates and eventually marry them and maintain a life of solitude except for conjugal visits start out on eHarmony? Is this a gateway to other really bad social crisis decisions?

I decide to go through with it anyway. Every relationship starts somewhere, right?

Sure, Liza. Whatever you tell yourself..

In advance of the date, and in preparation for Girls Weekend, I decide to go a day early for my pedicure and eyebrow wax. While I am at it, I decide to get a mani, too. May as well put my best hand forward as well as my foot. The technician is elated. I never get manicures. She asks what the occasion is.

I tell her. Her elation all but evaporates.

Not a good sign.