Dating Disasters: ‘My friends burst out laughing, but I wanted to sink into the ground’

In Dating Disasters vertellen anonieme lezers over hun gênantste, meest tenenkrommende en dramatische dates. Deze week: Camping is something you can learn. 

I already knew that I wasn't made for camping. I didn't really need this trip to remind me of that, but I let myself be swept away by friends. They had packed their backpacks with tents, sleeping bags, food, and all the other necessities for a weekend full of adventure, while I packed mine with wine, snacks, and a healthy dose of reluctance.

That changed when a friend of a friend turned out to be joining us. His name was Dave, although I had to double-check that later since I was staring at him sheepishly when he introduced himself. Maybe a bit superficial, but suddenly I saw this trip in a much sunnier light. After a few hours of walking and some flirtatious glances between me and Dave, we reached an idyllic lake surrounded by dense forests where we were going to set up our tents.

While we were doing that, Dave came up with the idea to have a competition to see who could set up their tent the fastest. Of course, I accepted the challenge; I wasn't going to back down. The fact that my only experience with setting up tents at that moment was watching my friends set up our festival tent while I looked on, I preferred to keep to myself.

As Dave and I hurried to set up our tents, the weather started to change quickly. Dark clouds gathered above us, and the first drops of rain began to fall. But that didn't stop us. We were both determined to come out as the winners of this battle.

Just when I thought I was winning the competition, something happened. I tripped over a tree root and fell flat on my face into the mud puddle that had formed due to the starting rain, while my tent fell over me. My friends burst out laughing, but I wanted to sink into the ground. For a brief moment, I wanted to maintain the illusion that I, like Dave and my friends, was an outdoorsy person, but I could forget that illusion.

With a muddy face and friends who couldn't stop laughing, I had no choice but to laugh along and acknowledge my defeat.

Fortunately, the weather cleared up quickly, and Dave offered to set up my tent. Once I was rinsed off and changed, I took a seat next to him by the campfire where we spent the whole evening circling around each other. As if it were a sport, we waited until the rest crawled into their tents and shared an insane kiss. This story was a few months ago, and now we have a relationship in which it is NOT expected that I will ever go camping again. Still nice.

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