Blind dates are a hell of a gamble.
It’s bad enough when you weren’t able to scrounge up a date for yourself, but it’s another animal entirely when your friend has decided that they’re going to set you up with someone based on what they think that you like. And while this isn’t inherently an awful thing and, sometimes, can lead to some pretty surprising compatibility, the odds of success are inherently (and abysmally) low.
But like Captain Solo, and less famously Fayzan’s friend Brennan, once said: “Never tell me the odds!”
But what Brennan had neglected to tell him, even after spending all that time talking him into going through with it and meeting this girl, was that he hadn’t even met the woman that he was setting her up with.
“What do you mean you’ve never seen this girl before?!”
“Calm down, it’ll be fine. She’s Muslim, you’re Muslim… it’s all kosher!”
“Halal, Brennan—You mean it’s all halal.”
“Whatever you just need to trust me, Monique wouldn’t set my buddy Fayzan with some dog she pulled in off the street.”
And Fayzan had never, in his life, had wanted to trust his friend Brennan more. Because if he was wrong, if his girlfriend had set him up with one of those snooty upper-class women that she traipsed around with at the Art Gallery, she was going to be sorely disappointed by the thick brown boy who could only talk about video games, Star Wars, and comic books.
Likewise, if she had just scraped the bottom of the barrel of her social circle in order of scrounging up a date for her boyfriend’s dateless best friend, then this was going to be a very awkward dinner that didn’t merit the price at the end of the receipt.
The Miyazaki Sushi House was, like, the be-all end-all as far as sushi places in the South went. Fayzan wasn’t too worried about his religious diet (that much should be obvious, judging by the way he was squeezed into these stupid khaki-colored jeans that Brennan had talked him into wearing) as much as he was impressing this mystery girl. Or rather, if the cost of impressing this mystery girl was worth suggesting that they got to the Miyazaki Sushi House.
The last time that he’d been here had been with Kimberli—and things hadn’t exactly ended well for him there. Just coming back here was enough to make him feel uncomfortable with the idea of dating anyone again, especially if it was just going to end up like it had with her.
Or Katherine. Or Tamera.
Two years after his last “serious” relationship had ended, and Fayzan didn’t have so much as a date to show for it either. Comfort weight had hit him and his confidence pretty hard, leaving him weighing in at just over two hundred and thirty pounds of coffee-brown blubber. Out of shape from his high school days of running track and further softened from years at a desk job, Fayzan wasn’t exactly going to be featured on the cover of GQ any time soon—a fact that he was all too aware would annoy or disappoint most of Monique’s Friends List on Facebook.
In fact, the more he thought about the various ways that he could disappoint his blind date, the more he thought about just calling the whole thing off right then and there.
But this was the first date that he’d been on since the breakup. Since his Junior year of college. As sad as that sounded, it meant that he wasn’t really in any position to turn down a dinner with anyone. Tindr hadn’t been all that great of a starter between any of the women in his area. And neither had Bumble or Hinge or Match… some of those he’d actually paid for too, so that was a huge burn.
Okay, just… don’t be weird.
He took a deep breath, one that caused his button-up to rise slowly out from underneath his belt ever so slightly, and tried to center himself without looking as frazzled as he felt.
It’s gonna be fine. It’s just dinner.
Trying to clear his mind of as much negativity as possible, Fayzan’s deep breathing grew slightly in volume. His eyes closed, he almost looked like he was in prayer. It was… awkward enough that the people at the high table behind him had made a comment about it. He had heard it because his mind was so clear.
Whether it’s good, or whether it’s bad… it’s just dinner.
All he had to do was to get through a few hours with this woman who he’d never met. Or that Brennan had never met. All he had to do was survive a night with a woman that Monique had hand-picked for him, and thought that they would hit it off. Although given how little Monique knew about him (or really, anything for that matter) that didn’t exactly instill him with confidence either…
He kept eyeballing the entrance, which was behind him. So every two minutes or so, he would pretend like he was stretching so that it wouldn’t look too terribly obvious that he was watching the door for anyone who may or may not have looked like they came from Monique’s friend group. No astonishing, runway ready Instagram models had come in, so Fayzan just kept stretching.
He said that she would be Muslim, so I think she’d stand out in this crowd…
Being “spicy brown” in a Red State was about the worst kind of hell for people like him. Besides all of the casual racism, it meant that he almost never saw anyone like him just walking down the street. The idea that a Middle-Eastern woman was going to just waltz into this sushi restaurant and sweep him off of his feet sounded like a page right out of his mother’s dream come true, but it at least gave him something to look forward to. Brennan hadn’t been much more specific than she’s Muslim, dude, you know!
Fayzan had been about five minutes away from calling it quits, standing up, and walking out of the restaurant—literally already trying to figure out a way to tell Brennan she just wasn’t the one, dude, when his date walked in through the double doors...
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