I remembered something and wanted to share.

When I was 19, I went on a first date with a guy I sort-of-kind-of knew (could recognize on sight, knew his social network and name, basically). On this date, he took me to the courthouse, because he had such extensive old traffic/parking tickets that I believe his license was either suspended or about to be suspended, and he had to make it so he could legally drive. He'd let these problems build because he didn't have a car until that week. I'll reiterate: at one point I had to sit outside a courtroom and wait as he went up in front of a judge.

At the age of 19, I was totally like "Oh, man, I understand, yeah, you should fix that right away and I'll just tag along. I don't mind making conversation with you in the courthouse!" Because I was 19. There were no red flags, I really wasn't bothered by this turn of events at all and was in general totally along for the ride.

In retrospect, I am like, "Dear god, man! You couldn't have postponed the date for a few hours or days until you got that taken care of? What was going on in your head that you thought it was a good idea to take a girl, on a first date, with you to court???"

It's funny how our feelings and perspectives change (in this case, for the better, I think), as we get older, but our recollections of how we experienced the past didn't. This clearly should have been at the top, or near it, of my terrible first dates story-list! But because at the time it phased me not a whit, it wasn't. I am adding it and putting it right at the top.

Now I wonder what other awful experiences I tolerated at the time because I was too young and starry-eyed to know any better! 19 was an extremely naive age for me.