By Chris Townsend
April 23, 2025

I didn’t think I’d be here. But here I am, staring at the menu, pretending to care about what I’m going to order, while my mind keeps racing back to that conversation with my friend.

It all started with a simple text: “Hey, so I have a question for you.”

I should’ve known from the start that something was off. My friend’s never been one to just ask casual questions. But I didn’t expect her to drop the bomb like she did: “I’m dating a guy, and his friend is looking for someone to go on a date with. We were thinking you might be a good fit for him, and we could all go out together as couples.”

I didn’t know what to say at first. I wasn’t sure if I was even open to the idea of a blind date. The whole thing felt weird. But she’s my friend, and I trust her. She’s always been there for me, and I guess I thought, why not? Maybe it would be fun. Maybe I was overthinking things.

But honestly, I didn’t know how to feel. She’s dating someone new, and now she’s setting me up with some guy I’ve never met. His friend. A stranger. And if that wasn’t enough to make me question my decision, the whole race thing was hanging in the air. She didn’t mention it directly, but I could feel it. The discomfort, the curiosity, the unspoken “thing” that made it feel a little… awkward.

I agreed, though, because it seemed like the right thing to do. I didn’t want to make a scene or upset her. So, I said yes, hesitantly. But there was this gnawing feeling in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t just about the blind date. It wasn’t even about the fact that this was all happening so quickly. It was the underlying feeling that I wasn’t sure how this would play out.

We met up at the restaurant. The whole “couple’s date” idea felt even stranger than I imagined. She and her boyfriend were already there, sitting across from me, smiling excitedly as I walked in. But then, when I saw him—her boyfriend’s friend—it hit me. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.

He was tall, with an easy smile, but I couldn’t shake the sense that we were all just trying to make this work. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know anything about him beyond what my friend had told me, and that felt like a terrible way to start. But we all tried to make conversation, and it was… okay, I guess. I wasn’t feeling sparks or chemistry, but I was trying not to be judgmental.

The whole evening was a mix of awkward silences, forced laughter, and the slow realization that I was way out of my comfort zone. When I told my friend later that I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole experience, she shrugged it off. She said she understood, but that they were just trying to help set me up with someone. They thought it’d be fun.

I don’t think she understood, though. I don’t think she realized that while I agreed to this to make her happy, I was still carrying around this strange feeling that I couldn’t shake.

Maybe I wasn’t just uncomfortable with the idea of a blind date. Maybe I was uncomfortable with the idea of being pushed into something I didn’t fully understand—something that was more about pleasing other people than it was about me being genuinely interested in someone.

The whole thing made me question whether I was really ready for a relationship. Whether I was just going along with it because I wanted to fit in with everyone else’s idea of what was normal.

In the end, I don’t know what I was expecting. But whatever it was, it wasn’t this.

I guess sometimes the hardest part isn’t the decision itself, but how much it makes you realize about what you want—and what you’re willing to compromise on.