The Wonderous Dating Game

by J. M. Mason

“Get out where?” I asked.

  I’ve been wondering if a marriage arranged by friends and family fails, is it partially their fault? It would be fair to say they made a big mistake choosing the person, so they should feel some responsibility for the breakdown of the marriage.

  Dating has been a wonderous thing since the first date when I was fourteen. I’ve wondered many times. Why do I want to put myself through this humiliation again?

  Socializing at my age must be a punishment of some kind, or I didn’t reach the expert dater status in the beginning. Yet, as I sit here pondering the reasons for courting, I’m unable to find a reason to justify the madness one must deal with when playing the dating game, so I concluded that it’s a punishment.

  Meeting boys was easier when I was fourteen. Of course, it’s best if I find a man, not a boy. Although raising a mate to my specifications has crossed my mind often as I’ve said before, which may be worth considering if things don’t go as planned for an adult male, if there’s such an animal.

  Chapter Four

  I use the age of fourteen as my measuring stick for dating. It doesn’t mean socializing ended at the age of fourteen. It means that my first date was an event that has stuck in my mind since the incident happened, making me very jittery about courting in the modern age. Is there such a thing as PTDD, Post Traumatic Dating Disillusionment?

  When I was fourteen, I went to a party at a friend’s house, met a boy, who then asked if I would allow him to ask my parents if it was OK if I went out with him. Sure, this was complicated and often frightening for the girl. Well, maybe it was harder on the boy than the girl, but I’m the girl, I liked it the way I stated the issue at hand before.

  Often Dad wasn’t amused with the gentleman caller who came to ask for a date with his daughter, but that’s when the fun began for Dad. I never knew until the boy came out of the house, whether I was going to go on a date. If he ran screaming from the house, I presumed he’d never be in my proximity again. I exaggerate a little. No one ever ran screaming from my house; they only left mumbling about not ever asking a girl on a date again and rubbing the center of their foreheads.

  I didn’t understand why the boy made this process so hard. The fact that they felt dealing with my parents was a horrible experience baffled me to no end. No one was hurt; there was no bloodshed in the making of any of the dates.

  As far as I knew, all the young man had to do was to answer all the questions issued by my father and hope they weren’t chased out of the house with an ax being waved in the air by Dad. What was so hard about that? To my knowledge, no one had an ax waved at them ever.

  I was happy to keep my head down and pray that the young man of my dreams remained alive and still wanted to go with me. I knew it was imperative I stayed out of the interrogation room and be ready to flutter my eyelashes seductively when the boy escaped from the chat with Mom and Dad.

  Rodney Atkins, who sings a song named Cleaning This Gun (Come on In and Sit Down),clearly states that the boy better bring his daughter home in good condition by the set curfew, because he would be up cleaning his gun.

  My dad meant it when he told the young man to treat me like the lady, he believed me to be, or he would have to answer to him for causing harm to his little princess. He smiled as the boy left the living room with beads of sweat on his upper lip. Dad continued to put an edge on the ax blade. It was just a coincidence; the tool was dull and was needed to split logs for the stove that night.

  I always loved it when he would take a piece of newspaper and run the blade’s sharp edge along the edge of the newspaper to see if it was sharp enough. It made such a beautiful ripping sound as it cut the paper like a warm knife running through butter.

  That was about the way it was at my house. Most of the time, it was Mom who would interrogate the young man because Dad worked rotating shifts. She only mentioned once that she could kill a deer with one shot and was an expert with the bow, as well, when she talked with the boys, my sisters and I would drag home to date. She told me it was her way to ease the mind of the young man, believing that all young men hunted.

  ‘Right between the eyes! Every time, right between the eyes!’ Mom was fond of saying with that smile of hers, as her blood-red lipstick flashed in the lights of the house.

  I had often wondered what the boy would’ve thought if she would’ve put her finger on her blood-red lipstick and made a mark on her forehead between her eyes when she emphasized her ability to kill meat for the table. Would they faint in fear? Now you know my thoughts can be wicked.

  The boys always looked like she had poked them between the eyes when they left the house. They would come out of the room, holding their hand to their foreheads when they told me that my mom said it was great to date me. They rarely told me what occurred during the interrogation, no matter how much I threatened them, if I wasn’t listening at the door, I never learned what was said and done.

  Chapter Five

  As I said earlier, I met my first date at a friend’s house, and he asked my parents if it was OK to take me out. Easy, peasy. No-fuss, no muss. The good old days took a lot of stress out of being a young girl without making her look like she was naïve and desperate. The trick was to look like a lady, flutter the eyelashes and blush on cue, yet, I wasn’t good at these actions.

  I’m the girl who sits with her legs spread, dress hiked up above the knees, and laughs loudly. Scratching the itch wherever it was located on my body, not concerned about who may see me, is one of my favorite things. I’ve been known to burp loudly and leave a colorful cloud of smelly intestinal gas in public. It works best if someone is standing nearby to blame for being so crass. So, having to act coy was a chore for me, a talent I never became an expert at.

  My friends told me today’s dating isn’t as easy as it was in the good ole days, because there are many ways to meet one’s soulmate. I looked at them with wide-eyed wonder, praying that they weren’t crazy.

  My eyes widened more, and they felt like they would pop out of my head, fall on the floor, and run away screaming, as my friends listed the possible ways of meeting someone. Was I to make a checklist to review each time I tried one of the choices? Dating has become work without pay.

  Maybe it was time to run out and buy a new pair of running shoes to keep pace with the dating game. Why in the world would anyone put themselves through this uncomfortable pastime on purpose?

  I‘m still trying to find an answer to that question. My experience showed me that dating turned out to be a full-time job with a very demanding boss. I could no longer bat my eyes at a potential suitor, expect him to follow me home, and have eyes only for me. It’s now a competition for who can offer the most in a relationship, with the least amount of effort, thus my mention of the auction block. Whew!

  Whatever happened to, I’m a girl, and you’re a boy, let’s get together? This method is so much easier.

  Chapter Six

  My first date began with my mother. Yes, I said my mother. No, I didn’t have a date with my mother, although it may have been a lot more fun.

  Mom got it into her head that I must dress up with a garter belt to hold up nylons that had this infernal seam that ran down the back of the calf, trailed down the ankle, and along the bottom of the foot to the toes. The stocking was very uncomfortable to walk on, and the ridge refused to remain straight along the back of the calf.

  We didn’t have super glue back then; we were lucky to have homemade paste made with flour and water, which wouldn’t hold a piece of paper together, let alone keep the seam straight, when it dried it was white and wouldn’t match the skin toned nylons.

  Men thought garter belts were sexy. I noticed that men didn’t offer to wear them, until Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon played women in a hilarious movie, Some Like It Hot.

  It’s my opinion that the same man who invented the garter belt also created the bra. He had to be sadistic and hated women, to devise a torture garment. Often the bra squeezed the breast tightly toward the
middle, and other times the bosoms are pressed flat as a pancake. No matter what is done, it’s uncomfortable, to say the least.

  Suddenly I was struck with an idea that made me unhappy. Now, I’ll have to take time out of my busy schedule to find out who did invent the lowly bra and garter belt. I hate it when I become curious enough to get more useless information to pack into my failing memory, that no one wanted to hear at any party I attended.

  The bra was created to make the woman’s form look alluring, hold the girls above the waist, and make women maintain her modesty. It didn’t reach any of the goals it was designed to cover. In fact, in most instances, the bra had the opposite effect but was a great way to become embarrassed in public in more ways than one.

  A significant flaw of the bra was the straps. They were sewn on the back and had an adjustment metal clasp. The stitching easily ripped away from the back at the most inconvenient time, causing one breast to fall noticeably below the level of the other breast. It was important for the lady to carry safety pins with her everywhere she went.

  This created a hefty problem for the enormous ladies, no pun or disrespect intended, even a metal strap wouldn’t hold them above their waist, nor would Joan of Arc’s metallic armor help hold them up to the perky level.

  I don’t need anything to hold them up above the waist, all I require is a magnifying glass to find them; my breasts don’t even make a good bump under a T-shirt without a bra with a little or a lot of padding and falsies.

  Proof of this statement comes from when I had a breast biopsy. The area was so sore, wearing a bra was torture. I worked for two weeks without wearing the undergarment to work. Not one person noticed.

  My first bra, which was in vogue in the ’50s, was called the Bullet Bra, which should give you a hint about the effectiveness of the garment. The cups on the bras were stitched with concentric circles making the tip a point approximately the size of a pencil eraser.

  The result made the breast look like a sugar cone under the cute little sweaters. To my knowledge, not a single woman was able to fill in the whole cup. If they could fill in the cup, the breast was an unusual shape, more than likely considered a deformity, making it something people didn’t discuss in public anyway.

  As I sat before my computer wasting my time at work, I had a thought about the Bullet Bra. What if the bra had been made of metal, they would become weapons? The tips would be sharp because of the pointed cups, only a knight in shining armor would be able to hug a woman to his chest.

  A woman could become a serial killer with her metal bra, and the forensic team would have a hard time determining the murder weapon. They would try all kinds of things to make a case, to no avail. Oh, well, it’s just a dream.

  The Bullet brassiere had an embarrassing way of the tip sinking in toward the breast like those collapsible cups, making it necessary to pop it back into place manually, without losing dignity. Or the cups would fold over on one side of the chest, but it never twisted on both sides at the same time and pointed downward as if bowing to the men noticing the change in the profile of the woman.

  The profile was astounding to see when you saw a woman walking alongside of you. Thinking about how we looked makes me giggle today.

  The models walked onto the runway with their backs straight and their pointy breasts sticking straight out in front of them, models lead with their chest world round. As they turned to walk back the other way, their arms would brush the bra, and it would collapse inward. This is where the sudden twirl was perfected for the modern models.

  Short men beware of this dangerous weapon that was for beauty. It could poke out an eye, and you thought a BB gun was dangerous.

  The brassiere was constructed from cotton, not the brushed fabric we can get now, but muslin type cotton, that was stiff and often chafed the skin around the edges of the band. Some were designed with a mesh-like material that was very irritating to the skin.

  The hooking system is as it was when I was a girl; however, the elastic wasn’t of the quality as today. It broke down quickly if the garment wasn’t gently washed. Hell, it broke no matter what you did and at the most inopportune time. It drew the attention of those around the woman because the silly thing would make a popping, ripping like noise.

  There should’ve been a warning on the label that the garment would break down and cause embarrassment for the wearer. To my knowledge, labels didn’t warn anyone until the person who took a rectal medication orally with the metal wrapper still in place or other such silly things, because the person didn’t know the meaning of the words written in the smallest of fonts on the back label. Thus, the manufacturer must label items, not for the medical field, but the local yokel.

  Consequentially the fasteners made the garment dig into the chest and shoulders, causing pain until the elastic broke down, then the garment became very comfortable as the breasts wandered south. If you tightened the straps too tight in the hope of raising the breasts, the bra would crawl over the breasts as you lifted your arms doing ordinary tasks, making for an interesting profile, in that pretty sweater, because of the four distinct bulges.

  I know the description of the bra isn’t a pretty picture. However, this is the reason for any complaint I may have for the garment. Fourteen isn’t a great age for confidence, and when you throw in a piece of clothing that doesn’t know how to behave on a first date, it’ll cause lifelong trauma, for which I should’ve had years of mental therapy.

  My breasts were so small that I couldn’t find a cup small enough to fill the first two stitched lines on the bra from the chest on the most modest-sized bra available. This was an embarrassing point for me, sorry, no pun intended.

  We didn’t have training bras when I became of age for a foundation garment of my own. Our boobs didn’t need training in my day. We just put those babies into the garment and hoped for the best.

  I guess boobies knew what they were doing back then; however, I’ve often wondered what the breasts were trained to do. Do they roll over and play dead, etc.? I know some mammary glands beg for attention from a man by being perky and bouncy. Men’s eyes bobble up and down as they watch with their mouths wide open.

  Interestingly, the tantalizingly torturous garment was a comedy act of their own for those of us who had to wear them, only because society says it’s proper to be fully dressed under that lovely gown. Yet, the lack of appropriate behavior on the part of the garment, it did its act whenever and wherever the urge presented itself, mostly when the timing was the most embarrassing for the wearer. Laughter ensued, even if it was covered up.

  Chapter Seven

  I was four feet, nine inches tall, and weighed eighty-nine pounds fully dressed. My mother was five feet seven inches tall and weighed one hundred twenty pounds. So, her clothing was too large for me. This fact is important because many of the things I wore on my first date belonged to her. The dress, slip, can-can, and panties were mine, for which I’m internally grateful.

  Again, my mother was the one that created a problem for me on my first date. She gave me one of her padded brassieres to wear. This was her solution to my problem, creating a more significant issue for me because she wore a 36C, I needed a 29-mini cup, bordering on a micro cup, that had ample room for growth.

  There weren’t enough tissues in the world to fill in the empty spaces between my breasts and the inside of Mom’s bra. My brother’s socks were on his feet, and they stunk to high heaven, so I couldn’t use them to fill the emptiness in the 36C cup that Mom lent me. I guess I need to be thankful for safety pins, washcloths, and facial tissue.

  Good news, Mom’s padded bras didn’t have the concentric stitching like the apparel I wore every day. However, the padding was foam rubber, having a chemical smell when one perspired, and the cups had the texture and firmness of an automobile tire and memory foam padding mixed, yet it wasn’t soft and cushy like memory foam because it was more on the tire side of the equation. The result was no way like the real breasts, no matter how much you
dreamed it to be. Could it be considered false advertisement? Yep, I believe so.

  A woman had to deem herself lucky if the rubber didn’t crack and break into pieces because it disintegrated quickly, creating a whole raft of new problems for the alluring profile, making the girls look like a rocky road to pleasure. Then to make it perfect, the foam rubber turned instantly to powder that smelled of rubberized sweat and sifted out from under the clothing, scattering at the feet with each movement. God forbid if you had on a black skirt.

  Thank God, I learned what the padded torture chamber was capable of before I left the house for my first social event of my life. If I hadn’t known something about my borrowed garment, the date could’ve been humiliating. I was very thankful that the garment was relatively new and didn’t break down during my date.

  As I was making myself ready for my night out, the cup popped, with an dull audible sound, into my breast, forming a concave hollow on the center of the cup. The indention was deep enough to use as a vessel to place a dipping sauce for carrots.

  All I did to create the hollow was reach for my hairbrush, and my upper arm pressed into my breast. When I reached up to brush my hair the cup popped back to its normal position with a different pitched, loud audible sound.

  The padded cups didn’t just increase the size of my breast, making me disproportionately large on top, it was able to communicate with those who happened to witness the beautiful thing of the not so wonderful bra. You couldn’t ask for something better at that time, because the padded variety of the undergarment was the Cadillac of feminine finery.

  I immediately knew there would be no hugging on this date, no reaching for anything, no natural movement at all. I wondered how I would remember all this on my first outing with a boy. Suddenly feeling embarrassed about the possibility of making a fool of myself, I shuddered.

  It was a fact I’d be mortified if the worst happened in front of the dreamboat. I was going to spend a quiet night with. All I could do was look helplessly at Mom, my eyes wide with fear, tears stinging them, threatening to fall like a river down my face to make a mess of my mascara.