That Wasn't Hilarious

"Relationships are mostly you apologizing for saying something hilarious."
-- Brian Gaar

That Wasn’t Hilarious

     Carl Scott looked shocked. His big smile slowly started to turn into a frown. Julia Norris just looked confused. “I’m sorry,” said Carl. “I have a weird sense of humor. And almost everyone I know doesn’t understand it.”

     Julia smiled. “I understand it. My sense of humor is pretty weird too.”

     “Not as weird as mine,” smiled Carl. “I’m the king when at being funny. Especially when it comes to being hilarious

     “I don’t know about you being hilarious. But you are very funny. At least you have been since our date began. I just didn’t think this last one was funny.”

     “I’m sorry,” apologized Carl. “I can be funny sometimes. But I can’t be funny like everyone else. I’m spontaneously funny. I am also slapstick funny. But I’m not a one-liner kind of comedic funny.”

     “That’s not exactly true,” said Julia. “I think that you are very funny. Your sense of humor is one of the reasons why I agreed to go out with you.”

     Carl smiled sheepishly. “And I thought you went out with me because of my body.”

     Julia started laughing hilariously. And she couldn’t stop doing it. Her head kept flying all around her. So, did her arms. After about a minute of it, the look on Carl’s face said he was getting worried. “I’m sorry. It might have been a little funny. But it wasn’t that funny.”

     Suddenly, Julia stopped laughing. Carl started looking at the other couples at that fancy restaurant. Some continued to eat their dinners. But most were looking at them, at Julie. A few seconds later Julia joined Carl in his looking. They were looking in opposite directions at first. Then Julia and Carl came eye to eye with each other. And the looking stopped.

     Carl smiled first. Julia smiled back. “Your laughter is one of the reasons I wanted to see you in person. But you never laughed like that during any of our online video chats.”

     Julia sighed. “This time it’s me that has to apologize. Usually, I don’t laugh like that. But sometimes once I start to laugh I can’t stop myself from laughing. Even if it’s not that funny, or funny at all, I do it sometimes.”

     “You don’t need to apologize for anything,” said Carl. “If anyone needs to say they are sorry, it’s me. I’m trying to be my funny self. But I’m just not doing it today.”

     “You’re doing just fine,” said Julia. “I’m the one who isn’t handling this first date too good. And I don’t understand that. I didn’t have too much trouble when we were online video chatting. So, why am I having so much trouble tonight?”

     Carl smiled. “You’re not the only one having trouble with our first official date. Maybe we should have stayed with the online dating for a little bit longer.”

     “We have been video dating for the last six months,” said Julia. “Don’t you think that we should finally meet in person?”

     “I wouldn’t call what we have been doing as dating.” Carl smiled sheepishly.

     Julia blushed. “We didn’t do a lot of talking, did we? At least we didn’t know about each other.”

     “That’s why we decided it was the time we met in person,” said Carl. “And I do agree with you about that. We do need to get to know each other better outside the internet.”

     “The internet is the best way to meet someone nowadays,” said Julia. “But it’s also the riskiest way. That’s why we wanted to get to know each other before we met in person.”

     Carl smiled sheepishly. “But the only way we have gotten to know each other so far has been physical.”

     “Maybe that’s why we are having so much trouble with our first date,” said Julia. “We have been so involved physically that we don’t know how to get to know each other otherwise.”

     “If that’s our only problem, I know how to take care of that.” Carl smiled as he closed his eyes. When he opened them a few seconds later his smile got even bigger as he saw Julia naked. At least the top half of her. A look at to his side and he could see a little bit of her bottom half.

     Julia blushed again. “You’re looking at me naked, aren’t you?” She closed her eyes too. A few seconds later she opened them and smiled as she also saw Carl naked.

     “Now that we can see our true selves maybe we can be more like ourselves,” said Carl. “So, let us get to know it each other better.”

     “My eyes are up here.” Julia started laughing. “It looks like you still have only one thing on your mind.”

     Carl started laughing too. Just then a waiter came up and place two plates of food in front of them. After he placed them, he turned and walked away. It didn’t appear that he noticed that either one of them was naked. The other couples appeared to be not noticing it either. Some were looking at them. But it still appeared they were reacting to their laughter than their nudity. Most weren't paying any attention to them. They just continued eating and talking to each other.

     Looking down at the skimpy food on his plate, Carl suddenly stopped laughing. “Do they call this food? For the price that I am paying there should be five times as much food here.”

     “What did you expect?” Julia asked. “After all, this is a gourmet restaurant.”

     “A couple of small chunks of meat, one piece of broccoli, a small baby potato, and a small carrot stick.” Carl looked over at what Julia had on her plate. “You got the same vegetables as I got. But you only got one small piece of fish. “What was it before it was cooked? Was it a guppy or a goldfish?”

     Julia started laughing hysterically again. Only this time she couldn’t stop herself. After only a few minutes she stopped doing it. It took her a couple more minutes before she could speak again. “And you said you couldn’t do one-liners.”

     “I didn’t say I didn’t do them,” said Carl. “All I said was that I wasn’t very good at doing them.”

     “That’s not the way that it sounded a little bit ago,” said Julia. “It sounded like you never did them.”

     “If that’s the way it sounded, I’m sorry about that too. I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” said Carl.

     “You don’t need to keep on apologizing.” A few seconds later Julia added with a slight smile, “You’re not looking at my eyes again.”

     “Let’s get out of here,” said Carl. “We can go back to my place. I can think of something better to do for our first date than this.”

     Julia smiled sheepishly. “I know what you want to do. You want to make this a real physical relationship.”

     Carl pushed his chair back and started got up. Julia blushed as she saw all of him now. A few seconds later Julia got up. And it was Carl’s turn to smile sheepishly. Julia looked back at her food. Then at Carl’s food. “Aren’t you going to get that to go? You’re not going to pay for it and leave it here, are you?”

     “I’m not going to pay for it. This isn’t what we ordered,” said Carl. “Look at the menus. Those pictures aren’t anywhere close to what we asked for and got.”

     “You can’t go by those pictures,” said Julia. “Food never looks as big as it does in pictures and commercials.”

     Carl looked down at his food and sighed. “Besides, there isn’t enough food here to feed a dog. And I don’t have a dog. It’s not even enough to feed my cat.”

     “You’re starting to show your true self now,” said Julia. “Maybe we shouldn’t have a relationship after all.”

     “Does that mean you don’t want to have a physical one either?” Carl asked.

     Julia blushed. “Of course, I do. I just don’t think we are ready to start a relationship yet.”

     “I agree with that,” said Carl. “Let’s go back to my place and start a real physical one.”

     “That sounds like a great first date to me. But there is something that I need to do before we leave. I don’t care what you do, but I’m going to pay for my dinner. I’m also going to get it to go.”

     Julia started trying to get the waiter’s attention. He walked past them several times. But he didn’t respond to her gestures. Carl smiled sheepishly. “That proves it. Only you and I can see us naked.”

     “What does that prove?” Julia asked. “Just because he didn’t look at me, doesn’t mean he didn’t notice it. Besides, maybe he’s gay.”

     “I don’t think that he’s gay. He has been looking at you, and every other beautiful woman here. But he hasn’t been looking at you like you’re naked. Even if he were gay, then he would have been looking at me instead of you. And he wasn't done that either.”

     “That’s because we aren’t naked except to each other.” Julia sat back down. “I’m not leaving until I pay for my dinner and get it to go, even if I need to sit here until they close. Sooner or later they are going to have to want us to leave.”

     Carl sat down too. “That’s another reason I’m not going to pay for my dinner or take it home. The service here has been lousy so far.”

     “If you don’t want to stay, I understand. We always have the online video chatting,” said Julia.

     “I’ll stay, I’ll stay. I want a real physical relationship as much, if not more than you do. In fact, we could have one right now. That’s sure to get the waiter’s attention.”

     Julia started laughing hysterically again. Only this time she didn’t stop after a few minutes. After a few minutes more, the waiter finally came over. But before he could say anything, Carl did. “She’s going to be okay. She just can’t control her laughter sometimes. It must have been something that I said.”

     A few seconds later Carl continued. “Please, just give us our bill.” Then a few seconds later he added, “And two small take-home containers.”

     After the waiter left Carl smiled sheepishly at Julia again. “That was one way to get their attention.”

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