Thursday, March 9, 2017

Riske Business: Date Night at the Movies

by Adam Riske
A collection of my weirdest movie date nights. Leave your own greatest hits in the comments!

Katie
I was a junior in high school and went on a double date to see The Faculty. Halfway through the movie I decided to make my big move on Katie and picked her leg up off the ground and put it on my lap. Keep in mind there was a stationary arm rest in between us, so it was probably not very comfortable for her. Making things worse, my friend Charlie saw what I did and gave me a thumbs up. Once I got her leg in my lap I didn’t do anything with it because I didn’t know what to do with it. It was poor planning. I might have had one hand on her shoe at some point. Is that second base? We went out for about a month and she told me she wanted to break up, which was impressive because her reputation in high school was “cute, never talks.” She found the words that time.

Julie
My high school girlfriend, Julie, and I went to a few movies during our senior year. One of them was Magnolia. On that night she was more about spending time with me but I really, really wanted to see Magnolia. We get into the theater and there are no two seats together. I sat down in the first one I could find and looked at Julie like “you better go find a seat before they’re all gone.” She looked at me hurt. Three and a half hours later, she told me how she was upset with me for not leaving and seeing another movie where we could sit together. I said “Tonight was about me seeing Magnolia.” We broke up about a month later.
Girl in college (don’t remember her name)
I became friends with a guy from Korea in one of my college classes. He asked if I wanted to double date with him, his girlfriend and one of her friends sometime (the two ladies were also from Korea). I said sure. Cut to our date night and we go to the student union for a screening of Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet (HOT). I asked my friend “Tony” (that was the American name he wanted people to refer to him by in school) what he told the girl about me. He said “I said you’re exactly like Stifler.” I said “Why did you say that? I’m not like Stifler.” He said “She likes Stifler.” So I’m sitting there with my date and had to pretend that I was the Riskmeister or something for the entirety of the evening. She didn’t like my Riskmeister style and we never went out again.

Tricia
Tricia was my girlfriend for most of college and the girl I intended to propose to after I graduated. It never came to pass. The last movie we saw together was The Day After Tomorrow. I knew something was off that night because she was barely talking to me before the movie. I kept asking her what was wrong. She wouldn’t tell me. Then as the lights went down and the trailers were about to start she says “I love you. I just don’t know if I forever love you.” I let go of her hand and sat there for two hours or so watching The Day After Tomorrow and intermittently sobbing. She got up about 20 minutes in and went out in the lobby to call her friends. I had to drive her home after the movie. We didn’t break up that night (we did a few days later) but I do remember it being one of the worst nights of my life. Every time I see The Day After Tomorrow is on FX, I get the chills.

Stacey
I went with a big group of friends to see Super Size Me at the nearby dollar theater one night. One of those friends was this girl Stacey, who I had known for a few years (she used to date one of my other friends who had since moved away). I sat next to Stacey and we were making jokes to each other during the movie. I turned to her after one of those jokes and she stuck her tongue out at me. I decided it was a good idea to take my index finger, place it under her chin and guide her tongue into my mouth. We full-blown made out for like 45 minutes during Super Size Me. During one of the kissing breaks, I looked up and my friends Chris and Karla were staring at me like “What the fuck is happening over there?” After the movie was over, Stacey and I announced to the group that we were now a couple. We went out for a little while but it fizzled out quickly. I wasn’t over Tricia and Stacey would do weird shit that annoyed me. On our first official date, we went to a restaurant and didn’t order anything because she said she was nervous. So I was like “You’re just going to watch me eat?” You know, stuff like that. There was also one time she was very smothery when we watched Garden State and I hid in the bathroom for 20 minutes. I miss her. She might have been one of the ones that got away in retrospect.
Girl from the club (don’t remember her name)
I met a girl at a local club and we hit it off. For our first date, I suggested we go to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She said sure and we agreed to meet there. The date was going fine until I asked her “How long did it take you to get here?” She said “Three hours.” Turns out she lived in Springfield, IL, and drove all the way to Woodridge, IL (which is a little under three hours) to go on a date with me. The date was fine but I thought that was cuckoo/desperate and never called her again after that night.

Jessica
Jessica was a girl I worked with and the only time I went out on a date with a coworker post-college. It’s usually not a good idea. We went out to dinner and then to my friend’s holiday party. All was well. Not a great date, but fun. Then at around 11pm, the holiday party was ending and Jessica suggested we go meet up with her friends at a nearby dive bar. I wasn’t in the mood to meet her friends yet so I suggested a movie. She said “Ok.” Then I took her to the movie theater nearby and asked her what she wanted to see. “I don’t care. You pick,” she said. Then I uttered the three words that sealed my fate “Two for Syriana.” After the movie was over she seemed mad, we never dated again and we had a chilly relationship at work afterwards. I made a mistake but to be fair I had to see if Syriana was going to make my top ten list that year. It didn’t.
A different girl from a bar (don’t remember her name)
I was at this bar called Hye Bar, which was down the street from the Music Box Theatre about ten years ago. I met this girl and we hit it off. We had a few drinks and things were looking pretty promising. Around 11:45pm, I said to her “Want to get out of here and do something fun?” She said yes. So I turned to my friends I was with and said “Do you mind if she comes with us to Leprechaun?” The girl looks at me and says “You don’t live around here.” I said “No, I live in the suburbs. You’re really going to like Leprechaun. They like never play it in theaters and the Music Box has a midnight of it!” She then said “I’m going to go back to my friends now. It was nice meeting you.” I may have miscalculated.

Erin
Erin was the Emma Stone to my Ryan Gosling. We had chemistry! It was palpable! It was hot! One night early in our relationship, she asked if I wanted to go back to her place to watch a DVD. I knew what that meant so I said yes. She put on Walk the Line, we watched a few minutes and stuff happened. The next time we went out she said “Do you want to go back to my place and watch Walk the Line?” I said “Hell yeah!” She puts the DVD in and I start taking off my shirt and pants. Erin starts laughing and said “No, I really need to watch the movie this time so I can return it to Netflix.” I said “My bad. I thought it was code for sex.” We dated for a little while. I screwed it up. She liked Sangria and Wishmaster. She was probably the one. Sigh. Now I’m doomed to a life alone.
Girl I met at a singles event (don’t remember her name)
I took a girl on a dinner date to the nearby mall Cheesecake Factory. We met there at 8pm and really had a great time together. We went back to my car and made out in the Cheesecake Factory parking lot while listening to the Silverchair’s Greatest Hits CD I bought at the mall that night. It’s getting to be like 11:30pm and she wants to go back to my apartment to spend the night. The problem was I was thinking we’d be done by 11:30 and my plan was to go to the midnight premiere of Rob Zombie’s Halloween at the nearby movie theater. So I had the option of having sex or seeing Rob Zombie’s Halloween. I chose the movie. I think she felt rejected because she never returned my calls.

A different Julie
Julie and I dated for a few months. We went on opening night to see Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After the movie ended I was inconsolable. I had never been more disappointed in a movie in my entire life. I was quiet as we walked back to the car. Julie broke the silence and said “That was fun.” Mr. Hyde came out and I said “What are you talking about? That was awful! I can’t believe you liked that shit.” On the drive back to her condo Julie was like “Don’t you think you’re being dramatic?” I was still being a douche so I said “How can you like that movie after seeing the other ones?” She said “I’ve never seen any of the other…” “WELL THERE YOU GO!” I said finishing her sentence. We broke up a bit later. No joke the day before I decided to break it off I had a dream and in that dream DENNIS QUAID told me I should break it off with Julie. When Cap Rooney wants to QB your love life, you let him!

What are your funny/unusual movie dating stories?

47 comments:

  1. Overall I would say your only true mistake was saying Leprechaun would be fun, personally I hate all the Leprechaun movies (yes ever back 2 da hood).

    My own story of date night at the movies goes to Angela seeing the crazy Denzel Washington time travel movie Deja Vu which we basically MST3K'd very quietly for the run time. Sadly our general interests kinda ended their and I just couldn't keep up with the anime conventions.

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  2. In the interest of brevity I'll share one recent story about a woman who was already my ex at the time. Now I consider myself a decent sort of fellow and tend to try to stay on good terms with my exes in the rare instances where I feel it's possible. She was dating someone else at this point and for whatever reason he really wanted to see Hardcore Henry.

    Now I'm not going to say I invited them to watch a test screening with me because that would be against company policy, but I will say that we were the only ones in the theater. Better judgement would dictate that maybe Dbox seats in a movie taking place entirely from the first person perspective weren't a particularly good idea, but then good judgement would warn one away from watching Hardcore Henry in the first place. Now I'm not typically prone to motion sickness but even I had to put the Dbox on mute about a half hour in. My ex on the other hand probably wouldn't have handled the movie well even without the seats moving around. A little ways into the movie she moves into the row behind us which are normal seats and lays face down across 4 or 5 seats.

    Now she's my ex so it's not really my responsibility to tell her we don't have to stick around and watch it. Her boyfriend and I both kinda turn around though and give a token "hey, you ok back there?" and when she mumbles in the affirmative we both just say "ok" and continue watching the movie. It's not the most exciting story. Nobody threw up, and no relationships ended over this, but it was a very surreal experience to watch a movie like Hardcore Henry two seats down from my ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend while my ex/his current girlfriend was laying down nauseous in the row behind us for probably around an hour.

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    1. I wouldn't go to a movie with an ex and her new boyfriend in a million trillion years. That's...my mind is blown.

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  3. I'm sorry I have no crazy stories, but all I can think of is how this column optimizes why single life is the life for me. It's better this way.

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    1. I venture out still - 50% because romance and 50% because campfire tales to tell my friends.

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  4. I once made out with a girl throughout the entirety of Don Cheadle's Traitor. You may remember this as the least sexy movie ever. That same lady broke up with me a few months later after we saw Quantum of Solace, which I responded with "Why are you trying to ruin Bond for me?"

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    1. It's like you were talking to your girl and the writers of Quantum of Solace at the same time.

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    2. Traitor "the least sexy movie ever" is very funny. That movie is like Showtime and Redbox had a baby.

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    3. I wonder if I would've been more or less upset if it was a good Bond movie. I was already mildly upset that I disliked the movie, so that's not good. But, I almost never revisit it, so I don't really care if it's ruined for me.

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  5. I took a date to see Titanic. It was awkward, not just because of the nude scene, but also because of, you know, all the dead people.

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    1. My Dad drove me and a date to Titanic when I was 13 (I started dating young). And then he decided to watch the movie with us. Theatre was packed, but he found a seat DIRECTLY BEHIND US.

      More awkward than dead bodies? My Dad shed a couple tears at Titanic.

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    2. I think you win the awkward award there, Will.

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    3. To be fair, you were 13 and shouldn't need date privacy then anyways. And Titanic was in the zeitgeist so who can blame your dad?

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    4. The real problem was seeing my Dad cry made me cry. And apparently my date's heart was made of cold stone. So in the end my Dad did me a big solid.

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  6. Juniors in high school date, so it's already destined for a spectacular failure. I picked the poor girl up outside her house in my beat-up '93 Chevy Beretta. She was dressed like one normally would for a later afternoon movie, I decided to spruce things up a little (yikes). We get to the mall and we mistakenly hadn't decided on a movie yet so we're standing there outside the ticket box trying to figure something out. I recall there was a movie I really wanted to see with her but it turned out she already had seen it. We ended up seeing The Pink Panther with Steve Martin (double yikes).

    So at this point I'm sitting there, feeling like the date isn't going very well and Steve Martin's zany antics as Inspector Clouseau aren't going to help much, when I recall what a senior in my gym class had told me. He said I should pull up the dividing arm rest between our seats to make things easier. As an impressionable young kid new to the dating scene and in a desperate attempt to salvage the date I decided to give it a try early in the movie. I pull it up and say something like "There. That's better, more room." And much like Adam Riske with the foot thing, I had no plan after that. We then sat there leaning as far away from the center as possible in fear of being sucked into the blackhole of awkwardness I had just created. Mercifully, for two reasons, the movie ended and I took her home. No 2nd date.

    Also screw that bar girl, Leprechaun movies are awesome!

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    1. Armrest is always a bold choice. If you went back in time, I would suggest finding a seat where the armrest is up between you two and then see if she lowers it. If it's still up when the previews are done, she's down to party.

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  7. I had dated the same girl through the last two-thirds of High School. We went to A LOT of movies in the late 90's. We were back home for Thanksgiving freshman year of college, and we went and got the tickets for Enemy of The State early (which I was super stoked for), then went to McDonald's for pre-movie eats. This was our routine. Lame, but it worked. Then she broke up with me there in Mickey D's. And then we went to the movie. And it's all I can ever think about when I've tried to watch it since.

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    1. Wow, you went to the movie with her after that?

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  8. My husband and I had been chatting online (AOL IM!) All summer and decided it was time to meet. I drove over to his house and we hung out. He suggested we watch a movie. Out of *all* the choices (Disney films and action flicks), I chose Seven. Then I proceed to talk about serial killers and their MOs.

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  9. My worst college date/non-date was when a guy took me to Taco Bell and then we snuck a bunch of MD 20/20 into Clash of the Titans. I blacked out about halfway through, probably for the best.

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    1. That seems like an appropriate drink pairing with that movie.

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  10. I love this piece, Adam. It was extremely funny and vivid and honestly I could have read like thirty more pages of this stuff.
    Movies have always been my biggest Awkward Date Zone. I think the worst recent one was on a second OkCupid date with boy who had a dog's name.

    Human Cody, who was a wretched first date, asked if I wanted to see Nice Guys with him, promising he'd pay for the tickets. He was late, asking if I could get the tickets and he'd pay me back with cash after the movie. He kept repeating the jokes he liked during the entire screening. I hated it. After the movie, he suggested we get a beer, which I very much needed. I had two beers, he had four and said he was "strapped for cash" and had me pay the tab. The movie was obviously great, but the company was trash and I was out like 60 bucks.

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    1. I could write a book on my 19 years worth of bad dates. These are just the movie ones. I stopped taking dates to movies around 2009 because I didn't want my curse and my favorite hobby hanging out anymore.

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  11. This article was awesome. It was sad and funny. Your Tricia story was pretty painful but the "I may have miscalculated" line cracked me up. Your move during Super Size Me was pretty freaking smooth.

    I was dating Danielle. We meet about 2 weeks before. It was at a bar in downtown Milwaukee on Water Street (the bar name was 1225 Water). She came up to me & started grinding on me. I was 21 but my experience with women was lacking. So, I was pretty smitten fast. She suggested we go see Hearts in Atlantis. The movie was out for a couple weeks & we were the only 2 in the entire theater. Now, this is a sad movie but she is getting frisky. Next thing I know she is riding me like Seabiscuit. Yup, I had relations as Anthony Hopkins looked on. We "dated" for a few more weeks but I had to stop seeing her. She was way to wild for me but I'll never forget that movie night.

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    1. The Milwaukee Grinders are overrated anyways.

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  12. Kind of a weird story, but I had a recent ex tell me to go see 500 Days Of Summer (a movie I ended up loving). I think that was her way of telling me there was no way we were getting back together.

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    1. Sorry man. I had a girl tell me once she knew we had to break up after she had a realization while watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch. People use art as a weapon sometimes.

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  13. Riske - I've gotta say I loved reading this and your video store memories. I know there are only tangentially related to films but I find them endless amusing.

    My own worst experience was taking a girl on a first date to see The Thin Red Line when I was 15. I think I was trying to look smart by taking her to a Malick flick but it was just super awkward. That film is like 3 hours and I felt every second of it. Afterwards we left the theatre and didn't speak for about 5 minutes. Then I made some excuse and went home.

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    1. Yeah you gotta be in Malick space for that one. Date space is a different animal.

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  14. That Tricia story is brutal man...god damn Day After Tomorrow!

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    1. It's ok. She married some loser and lives in a dumb house with three kids that shoulda been mine.

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  15. Lmao...'two for Syriana'...I wonder what else was playing at the time. The question is did you already see 'Brokeback Mountain' pre-date? Also, looks like Chronicles of Narnia might have been a possibility. Fascinating stories, thanks for sharing.

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    1. I know I saw Narnia by then because the Syriana thing happened the first weekend of King Kong (which I had already seen). I don't think Brokeback Mountain came out in wide/semi-wide release yet. Should I have gone The Family Stone?

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  16. Stunned that Silverchair actually put out a greatest hits CD.

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    1. They have almost exclusively deep cuts

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    2. Real talk: Silverchair's "Straight Lines" is probably one of my favorite songs.

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    3. Real talk: The entire "Young Modern" album is incredible. Ana' Song is the bomb too but that's from an earlier album. People who got off the chair made a mistake.

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  17. Well, no one can say you didn't try. Holy shit that's a long list.

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  18. I look forward to fthisdate.net

    My first ever date was a movie date. I took a girl to see The Golden Child (don't judge, Eddie Murphy was a big star, and what did I know, I was just a kid). I was totally awkward, didn't know if I was supposed to hold her hand, or put an arm around her, or give her space to watch the movie, or what. I don't think I impressed her, but I did experience my first kiss afterwards.

    Took my girlfriend to see My Cousin Vinny. The people in front of us were whispering and joking during the movie. My gf wanted me to say something to them, but they weren't really bothering me so I *didn't* want to say something to them. Ultimately I did not say something, so the movie experience consisted of my gf periodically looking at me and elbowing me, trying to prompt me into action. I, trying to avoid confrontation, did my best to ignore both them and her. She was not impressed, we had a fight afterwards about how I needed to better defend her honor.

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  19. One guy took me to see Jarhead on Valentines Day, which I enjoyed but the cinema was packed and I had to deal with where I could put the rose I received without squashing it which was awkward.
    Also I went with my ex to see Spectre in Gold Class (fancy, expensive aussie cinema) as his idea of a revitalising the romance date night and I fell asleep in the third act....

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