Man, how do I screw up something so simple as an anniversary date? And it started off so well. I had been planning this date in my head for a couple of weeks. But the planning wasn’t 100% final until that day. I was going to buy my girl a New dress and pick her up with a driver and we would go have dinner and dance. That’s sounds like a romantic night that my girl would like right? what a perfect way to celebrate 1 year of dating.

When work was over on Friday, I went straight to one of her favorite dress shops. And nothing in this store is cheap. I looked at practically every dress in the store and I finally decided on one that I thought she would love. The sales lady agreed and I threw down my credit card. The lady even gift wrapped it for me. Perfect! Now the plan was to sneak it into her house and leave the box on the counter so she would see it when she walked in. I knew she wasn’t home because I made her a hair appointment. I stopped and got her a card and went to her apartment and dropped it off. Ok, step one was complete. Dinner was going to be at a place with a Cuban theme. She had been telling me lately how bad she wanted some Cuban food. I called Uber car service and they picked me up and I went to pick her up. There she was. Looking good standing outside waiting in the dress that I bought her. She could barely get in the car because the dress was so tight! Bam. Success! She loved the dress and we were on our way. She commented to me, “Wow, you wore a jacket???” Haha, it was going to be a good night. We arrived at the restaurant at about 7:40 or so. The place was packed but we managed to get a table right there by the stage. Yes, the stage. She had also told me that she wanted to salsa dance and this place just happened to have a salsa band playing that night. I was on it. I was giving her everything that she had been talking about lately…Everything was going well. It was just the two of us. We were talking, laughing, smiling, drinking… it was all good. I finished my food a little quicker than she did but no worries. We would just chill until the band started. Surely, the band would be starting soon. Well, this is where I couldn’t read the room I guess. It was a little after 9 and she went to the ladies room and came back and I remember saying, “Man I wonder what time the band starts.” She said someone had just told her that they start at 11p. I was like 11? And somehow I got it in my head that 11 was just too damn long to wait. I was thinking what the heck are we going to do for an hour and forty five minutes? So, at that point, I decided that we were ready to go. We would head back to my bar where we go EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. I was calling an audible, a last minute change. Fellas, never call an audible on date night without checking with the sidelines. I really didn’t ask her if she wanted to go. I just screwed up by thinking that was way too long of a wait for me to sit there with my beautiful girlfriend. There would have been nothing wrong with staying there for another 2 hours. But in my head, 2 hours sounded like 2 years! Sure, We could have easily ordered another bottle of wine or something. (we weren’t driving.)  But 2 hours just seemed like an eternity to me at that point and I made the (wrong) decision. She got quiet and her attitude changed. I’m so stupid, I couldn’t even figure out why. Everything had gone pretty freaking perfect. But NOW I realize that the reason she got mad was that she wanted to spend more “one on one” time with me and she wanted to hear the band too. When we got to my bar, we are “together” but she spends half of the night meeting listeners and taking pictures of me posing with other girls. I spend the whole night saying hi to people and telling the employees what to do. She is actually a VERY good sport about all of it. I know that gets old to her but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I was just thinking about how 2 hours was way too long to wait to hear a salsa band especially considering the fact that I’m going to look pretty stupid trying to salsa dance. (Hello AL, This was your idea!!!)  We went back to MY bar and she barely said a word in the car. We sat at the bar for a while and she was still quiet. No more laughing, talking, smiling… and I STILL couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I took some pictures with people and I even sang my Karaoke Montage thinking that might cheer her up…yea, right. but my Karaoke wasn’t in the original date plan of the evening. (Isn’t it funny how clear things seem the day after?) It wasn’t until I dropped her off, yes, I dropped her off. Because at this point, I was getting mad at her for getting an attitude with me…”What could I have possibly done wrong???” So, I didn’t want to spend the night at her place at that point. Now we were both mad. She was mad at me for leaving before the band started and putting an early end to our date night, (but I didn’t know that.) And I was mad at her for getting all quiet and not telling me what the deal was. UGH, man…this night started off so well and it ended up with us mad at each other.

The morale of the story is: “Always call ahead to see what time the band starts.”