It was the worst date of my life

Until tonight, I'd never been on a blind date. The closest I'd come to that was meeting bloggers whose posts I'd read for months. I'd seen their pictures. I knew things about them that they didn't share with their friends in some cases. Definitely not a blind date.

Tonight? Absolutely a blind date.

K and I still don't really have friends here. Our retired neighbors and K's much older coworkers don't exactly offer many options for buddies to hang out with.

K has a new coworker who's around our age who seems pretty cool. The one time I met his wife, I liked her too. Trouble is, she's British. She's in the process of getting her visa, but until that happens, she's primarily in London, flying back to the U.S. only for short visits. Boo.

CG told me about a military wife network online, so I joined. I found the forum for our new area and asked if anyone would want to meet up. People answered! Four of us set up a meeting for tonight.

This afternoon, one of the ladies had something come up, so she couldn't make it. There were still supposed to be three of us meeting up. I had high hopes.

Turns out I had false hopes. The third girl didn't show, so it was just me and one other lady, Jill. Jill was nice, but I really don't think we have much in common. She was kind of weird, and sometimes her mannerisms and the things she talked about made her seem child-like.

The conversation wasn't very good, and there were several awkward pauses. It was definitely not one of those instant friendships, but I was still hopeful.

She was a Navy wife. I have no idea how old she is. She had a young face (maybe 30s), but the way she dressed and her hairstyle made me wonder if she was in her late 30s or early 40s.

I asked if she had kids. She said she had four-legged kids. The word "furkids" kind of freaks me out, and none of my friends have ever referred to their pets as their kids. (My response to the kid question is always, "Nope, just a dog.")

Jill knew I don't know anyone here, but she told me stories about her friends. She referred to them by name, even though I had no clue who she was talking about. She gave me random factoids. Six of them (including her) had June birthdays. Sarah suddenly stopped being her friend, but it was her (Sarah's) loss because they would've taken her out for her 21st birthday. Emily moved to Michigan. Good to know.

Sometimes the things she had to say seemed pretty negative. She told me how she'd gotten kicked off the board of a (volunteer!) military spouse committee. I've heard those can be catty, but that's still a weird thing to share so early.

Several times, Jill mentioned her husband's deployment. The Army typically has much longer deployments than other branches, so I intentionally kept from mentioning K's deployment(s). After she mentioned her husband had gotten home in April, I finally took the bait. "How long was he gone?"

"Seven months," she said. "It was a long time." I bit my tongue. (Eventually, she asked about K and if we'd been through deployments, so I had to answer then.)

She told me about the trip to Hawaii that she and her husband had taken in May. Her sister, who also lives on the East Coast, had called her while she was in Hawaii. She asked her sister what time it was. Confused, her sister said 8. Jill told her sister she'd call her back in the next couple hours. (Another riveting story.) She didn't explain the ginormous time difference or that she was in Hawaii because she knew her sister would tell their parents that she was in Hawaii.

"Wait, your parents didn't know you were in Hawaii? And you didn't want them to know?"

She nodded. "Are they big worriers or something?"

She told me that they still don't know she went to Hawaii. I never could figure out why she'd kept it from them. I got distracted because she told me about how they also don't know she went to Dubai for five days. She went there to meet her husband while he was docked in Dubai. "Did you not tell them because it's another country?" I asked. She told me they probably would've said she didn't need to go, since there was a chance her husband would dock before or after her trip, so she could miss him altogether. "So what? He's your husband. That's understandable. If the Army had told me I could fly to Kuwait and spend even 24 hours with my husband, I'd have been on that plane come hell or high water!"

Why on earth would a grown, married woman feel the need to keep from her parents (who she said she has a good relationship with) that she went on f*!king vacation?!

It was then that I let myself write this lady off. There was just too much that didn't make sense, and there was too much negative. I'm not opposed to being acquaintances or to meeting up with other people and having her there, but I don't think we'll become close friends.

Bummer.