Ten Perfect Questions to Ask On The First Date To Really Get To Know Someone

Ten Perfect Questions to Ask On The First Date 

To Really Get To Know Someone

Found this one, written by Rebecca Martin, at One Love, a site that educates young people about cultivating healthy relationships. One Love was founded in honor of Yeardley Love: A young woman who tragically lost her life at 22. Learn more about her tragic story, here. 

Okay, on to the questions. Hmmm, take note... careful what you ask. You may get an answer you're not expecting (especially when yours truly is the one doing the answering).

1/ What makes you unique?

My life story, of course. 

No one travels the same path as you. No one thinks the all the things you do. No one shares the exact same belief system. No one experiences all that you have. All the twists and turns work to create the person you wake up to every morning.

Surviving it all is the key. 

I've never thought of myself as a survivor. But aren't we all? When you get to this end of things, well... how else can you term yourself? 

You made it through. 

I would hope that no one would ever have to go through a lengthy, painful, illness where the cards are not stacked in their favor. But some of us do. And some of us are lucky enough to find just the right people, at just the right time, and they're good people, fighting for you, even though you're a stranger in a strange land. But not everyone is as fortunate. And I try to keep that in mind when I'm upset about something that... in the big scheme of things... isn't important at all.

And if you are fortunate enough to come through to the other side... and there are people there, family, for instance, who are more than willing to hold you up and carry you the rest of the way? Well, then... you have no right to consider yourself unlucky or without luck, now do you?

Because, sadly, that's not the case for everyone, either.

Experience: It can kill you. 

Or... It can make you bitter, or wiser, or it can alter you in ways for the better. Me? I developed a sense of humor about myself that I was previously lacking. People still think I am way too serious, but I've only this lifetime, so... yeah, I am going to take it seriously.

But then I would also be the first to tell you that I am a fairly ridiculous human being, so, I need to lighten up a little.

No matter how I look at myself, I don't see anything that is truly unique. Sure, we all end up different places, but... we all journey, we all learn, we all crawl through shit, and we all evolve (even those with whom we have issues or don't agree with).

Maybe... the only unique thing is my writing. And primarily, my songwriting. Because, that is how I share my story. Always have. Good, or bad, or derivative; it matters not. No one else can do exactly what I do... not exactly. So, whatever is left behind. Written down. Denoted. That's who I am. That's my contribution. That is what I have to uniquely offer. And it will speak for me long after I am no longer able. 

So, I really need to make more of an effort to share that. To put it out there. 

Like Bette Midler says... "Find your light. Nobody can love you if they can't see you."

I think that's the ultimate beauty of the internet. Things, images, thoughts, words... they will live on, perhaps forgotten, but never completely scrubbed away. 

Well, that is until the day comes when the internet no longer exists. 

But, by then we can say... we've had a lovely run, haven't we dears?

2/ What are some random fun facts about you?

There is nothing 'fun' or 'random' about me. (Aren't you glad you asked me on a date?)

But I will try, though I'd do much better if you substitute the word 'weird' for 'fun'. Just saying!

Let's see:

I am very attracted to food that doesn't taste or feel like real food. I like things that remind me of Styrofoam and tin foil and rubber and plastic. I don't know why. Ever since I was a kid. I remember Space Food Sticks. They were horrible and I simply adored them. 

I don't like candy. Though, again, a lot of it has a texture or a taste not found in nature and I just adore it on some level. Like Chix a Stix? Reminds me of fiber glass insulation. And those weird orange slices... what is that? Like biting into a car tire.

I love cake. Hate frosting.

I frequently eat food that has been in the refrigerator way too long. I can't waste it. And, yes, I have made myself sick that way and I never learn.

I am terribly uncoordinated. Or weirdly coordinated? I dunno. Eye/hand coordination is not something in my skill house. I'm just lucky that at the end of every meal there isn't a fork sticking outta my forehead.

That said... I can dance. No problem. It may take some practice, but I always nail it eventually. 

And I play piano. But my sense of rhythm is something I have to feel my way to find. You plop down a score in front of me, I can count it all out for you, but then I will merely steal the chords and do my own thing. 

I currently have 49 songs memorized that I can play and sing. That's 46 more than I had five years ago. So... yay. Fuck you, Alzheimers. 

Oh, fun fact... number of songs I can get through all the way without forgetting a word or a chord? 

Zero.

Yeah. It's a block. I haven't found my way around it yet. 

3/ What is something you want to learn or wish you were better at?

To learn:

Avid Pro-Tools. I actually bought a whole studio set up, put it together and then simply didn't have the heart or interest to dive in, so I donated it all to charity, along with a bunch of rather expensive keyboards and monitors. I regret one of the keyboards and one of the monitors. But the rest... meh. 

Will I ever? No. Doubt it. Maybe after I retire. 

Music Theory. I KNOW, RIGHT? How did I get this far without it? I dunno. I have always relied on instinct when it comes to writing music. But I have a huge chip on my shoulder when it comes to working with other musicians. It's this dirty secret that I can't admit. Like I really don't know what I am doing. Oh, I can get the notes down on paper, or now captured in noteworthy composer, because I know how to play piano and you have to know the name of the notes to do that. So creating sheet music or scores, or arrangements? Not a problem. But I get this inkling that knowing music theory would open up new vistas for me and make music less frustrating. The way I'm doing it now? It's like learning addition and subtraction and then becoming an accountant.

Will I ever? No. Doubt it. Maybe after I retire.

Bar Chords (the guitar). Again. Something I can't do. I strum. I am a rhythm guitarist at best. But bar chords are the world's easiest way to replicate the basics of any song or riff and my fingers just do not want to work that hard. 

Will I ever. No. 

At this point, it's unlikely my hands are going to morph into something more cooperative.

Letting go of people in my past. 

Will I ever? Nope. 

Regret is a prickly, determined, constant companion. 

Wish I was better at:

Saying 'No'. 

Looking the other way. Especially at sad things. I tend to fixate on sad things I have no power to remedy. Wallowing in a state of powerlessness makes no sense, but I spend a good deal of time trying to wrap my haunted head around it. Especially when animals are abandoned, abused, injured, dying or have left this world. I find it unnecessarily cruel and wonder why I bother being here at all. This is at the crux of my personal 'There is no God' Complex. 

Being 'Happy'.

4/ Would you rather...?

a/ Go to the beach or the mountains? 

Oh, don't make me choose. I love them both. Actually, I love all of nature. Except swamps. Swamps make me nervous. 

Love me a good hike in the mountains. And the air! Divine. The sky? Oh. Take me there. I used to roll my eyes when I heard John Denver sing through his nose about the Rocky Mountains, but once you experience them? You get it. 

And the beach! Give me sun. Let me be lazy. But there needs to be bar service. And lots of sun block. Don't care much for the sand. And the ocean scares me a little (the undertow). But the eye candy is much better on the beach... plus, you, know... BAR SERVICE. 

So, the winner is the beach.

Now, where's my cabana boy? 

b/ Drink nothing but coffee or soda for the rest of your life? 

Easy. Coffee.

I hate soda. Now. When I was a teen? I lived on Tahitian Treat and Sunkist Orange soda. Right through my first stint in college. Idiot that I was, I thought - oh, fruity, must be full of vitamin C! Yeah, I drank the stuff like it was water. Stupid boy. When I moved to the Twin Cities I discovered coffee. I drank so much my prostate blew up to the size of a cantaloupe. Yeah, stupid boy. 

These days, two cups in the morning at work and one around 4:00 pm, with my Mom. That's it. Lots of herbal tea. Some green tea (supposed to be good for your prostate). Lots of fizzy water. Lots of tap water. I always feel best when well-hydrated, so I make it a focus during my day. 

Oh, and gin, of course. Mother's milk to me, it is. But I have toned that down considerably, too. Reserved for weekends (Friday and Saturday). Happy Hour typically starts around 4:00 pm. And, these days, after two cocktails?  I'm done. I got my tiny buzz and I desire nothing more.

Temperance lays a steady hand on our shoulder once our days become numbered.

c/ Get stuck on a roller coaster or get horribly lost in a huge theme park?

I love roller coasters. Although, my balance these days, not sure how I would feel. 

But I REALLY love getting lost. I dunno why. I just do. I do it all the time. Not on purpose. I never panic. I let my senses guide me. I have this weird sense of direction. Sometimes I am completely turned around, but after a point I recognize it and right myself. And I am never one to not ask for directions. Even if most of what the other person tells me sounds like gibberish to me, I just nod my head, thank them, and then go back to what I was doing while trying to fit in things they've said. I visualize a pathway and try to make it happen.

And in the end... these days? With GPS and cell phones and google maps? 

Is anybody ever really lost?

5/ Know any good jokes?

I dunno. What's in your pants?

6/ What's something that bugs you?

People who litter. 

People without empathy.

Selfish people.

How unfair life is.

7/ What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you?

Getting fired as the director of a 25th Anniversary production of Boys in The Band a week before opening. 

The local gay company was looking to collaborate with another group on a production. I wrote a proposal, sent it in and it was accepted. I was to direct and co-produce, with the profits being spit evenly between the companies. Within a week of the production being announced, the run was completely sold out. It was a hot ticket. 

The stage was set. This was to be my big comeback.

You see, my previous theater company, which had attained a degree of success, had dissolved in a sea of in-fighting and financial mismanagement (the managing director never paid royalties). As the last remaining original member, I resigned because I was burnt out and needed fresh air.

I returned to acting, briefly, before creating a new production company and starting from scratch. I was careful this time. I thought. Boys in the Band would be our third production.

A sold out show. Big buzz. This was it. I was going to be back in business.

Casting was a breeze. Lots to choose from. But I wanted to create a family, a unit. So I went with people I knew. People I thought I could trust.

I warned the cast early on that this would not be an easy show. That they had to really work and ask a lot of themselves in order to create what I had in mind. Discipline and professionalism was going to be key to our success. Rehearsals would be very organized, focused and everybody was to bring their 'A' game. No prima donnas. 

I wanted to focus on the economic disparities that existed in the show, demonstrating how those impacted and formed the people on display and served as the undercurrent propelling the evening's events and outcomes. 

I wanted real production values, something this particular theater group was not big on (I know! They're gay! But I have seen drag queens hauled out of the backroom after an all-day meth binge with better production values than this theater ever bothered to produce). I had a huge thrift store at the time, so I had a ton of vintage clothing and furnishings to choose from. I designed the set and pulled the costumes. It would be easy, clean, period, but stylish. 

And I made a few mistakes. Fatal ones, I'm afraid.

First, I cast members of the theater's managing staff in two roles. They were essentially my co-producers and it set up the power play that was my eventual undoing. 

Secondly, I cast one of my best friends as the lead. He was too old for the role, but, during auditions I came to see that he was right... he was perfect. He'd done the role before in New Orleans. Right after the run of that production he'd been forced into rehab by his professional organization and his partner. I should have taken that as a bad omen, a warning, but he'd been in recovery for years, so I thought, this was his way of getting something he'd lost back. He'd work harder for it this time. And appreciate it more. Right?

I'd also worked with him in the past and knew that he was insecure, vain and something of a time waster. He loved to corner me while I was in the middle of something else so I could prop up his self-esteem while assuring him his performance was working. It was maddening, especially with all I had on my plate. But I felt I could trust him. 

Thirdly, I hired a stage manager, Sharon, whom I had worked with in the past. A spritely, impetuous, woman-child who was creative and had energy galore. It was like having Parker Posey in Party Girl as your fag hag, only she wasn't as focused or disciplined. During the first production we worked on, in the same roles, there was a lot of animosity between the hosting company and the show. I wasn't sure of the source. I thought it was a misguided, jealous, controlling board member at the heart of it all (But now I know it was Sharon, stirring the pot, creating havoc.) Anyway, her father is/was a rather famous/infamous actor/director in the Twin Cities, and I wanted to stay in his good graces, so I hired her. I should have known better, but again... I thought I could trust her.

Lastly, I made the mistake of casting an actor in a role that was too close to home. I did this with a similar role in Ladies at The Alamo, which resulted in the actress quitting a week before we opened. Yes, it seems you can praise someone's work too much. I knew better, but apparently hadn't learned that lesson. 

Things were on schedule. The lead proved just as insecure and needy as he had always been, but I would reason with him. He was upset that he seemed to get a bulk of the notes at the end of each rehearsal. But that's because his character is in every damn scene in the play. This did not occur to him, but it was also not enough to satisfy him.

You see, something else was afoot. And I, naive fool that I was, focused only on my business and the production, failed to catch on. 

Someone was sewing seeds of discord among the cast. They had it out for me. 

The two managing staff members quickly realized that with the show selling out, half the money would go to my production company. They didn't want that to happen. So, with Sharon in their sidecar, they started taking the cast out for drinks after each rehearsal, where, without me there to defend myself, they began a course of character assassination - and succeeded spectacularly. 

Our first run through was super rough. At that point we had been rehearsing for six weeks, six days a week. All the character development work was done, the arc of and feel of the show in place, and I'd coached the actors like I was teaching a masterclass. People were to have their lines memorized. They did not. Someone upstaged someone else during a pivotal monologue by crying harder and louder than the person delivering the damn monologue. Another character, uncharacteristically, plopped themselves vigorously on the corner of the vintage, period couch we were to use in the actual production and shattered it. 

Notes took at least 45 minutes to get through and then I let them know how unhappy I was that they hadn't bothered to memorize their lines. We had a week to go. We moved into the actual theater the next rehearsal. There were costumes and set pieces and lighting to deal with. I couldn't do any more of their job for them. They had to step up. 

Everyone left. 

The lead returned a short time later. He was furious. He still didn't understand why he was getting more notes than anyone else. I told him to sit down and we could discuss it. He refused and kept pacing and yelling and then I demanded he sit down if he wanted to talk to me. Keep in mind, this was my good friend. One of my best. He continued to rant and rave and I lost it. I told him if he didn't reign it in, he was fired. And he didn't. So, I fired him. 

Twenty minutes later, my production assistant called me. She informed me that the cast had decided to continue on without me. When I asked why she told me they said I hurt their feelings. 

I was devastated. Betrayed. Destroyed.

And I would never be the same again.

I know, I know... but you see, one person's bump in the road is another person's personal MacBeth.

The aftermath was equally brutal. I fell down the rabbit hole and started taking Valium to cope. I lost my career, my business, my partner, and my home within a month. A theater acquaintance, stranded in the middle of fucking Iowa due to her husband's job, knew what was going on and convinced me to move there to work with her. I accepted. (We did some fun stuff and I got to sing a lot, which I enjoyed. But I hated Iowa.)  

Just before I was to move to Iowa, an old boyfriend of mine called me out of the blue and wanted to meet up for drinks, introduce me to his new boyfriend and watch a drag show. I thought, sure, why not? I'm leaving town. We got to the Gay 90's before the show started, sat in the back and were talking. His new boyfriend was very sweet. And then I noticed... them. It's a month and a half later and there, in the middle of the room was the entire cast and crew from Boys In the Band. And then they noticed me and Sharon gave me a look that I now only associate with the devil after he's eaten your soul. I felt myself slipping back down the rabbit hole, so I quickly made my excuses and got the hell out of there. 

When the show opened, I responded to a review in our local gay rag that mentioned my firing. I defended myself and criticized the unprofessional conduct of everyone involved, including the reviewer (whom I'd worked with previously and bested). They published it the next issue. Emboldened, I took on the critic of the Star Tribune for awarding a terrible production of A Streetcar Named Desire Critic's Choice. Yes, I'd seen it. I tore it up one side and down the other, took a swipe at the theater (I'd worked there.) and its board (How was it that a certain board member always got cast in the lead?) and the critic himself, for awarding shows Critics Choice when they didn't deserve it (I knew of what I spoke, for I'd received it three years earlier and didn't deserve it then, either.) (I also knew that the critic had an unrequited thing for the board member in question, so... tacky, tacky.) And they published it that Sunday - back page of the arts section, big headline, all across the top of the page with the rest of the page taken up by a single advertisement. (Clearly, someone at the Strib had it out for our dear critic.)

Yeah.

Leave no bridge un-burned. That's my motto.

A few interesting tidbits. 

One of the cast members tracked me down and told me all that had transpired behind the scenes during the rehearsal process. All the drinking. All the gossip. He told me he tried to reason with them, explaining that I was just being a good director and doing my job, but in the end his was the only vote not to fire me. I never asked about the actual tech week, or any other details. I didn't want to know. 

The day I left town, I strode into the lead's work place office, right past his assistant and finding him not in, left a note on his desk that read... "Wishing you all the love your little heart can hold." 

The lead? He was dead within a year. His heart. And one of the managing directors' body was found a short time later, down by the Mississippi River. Suicide. The gay theater lost its lease and folded right after Boys in the Band, their biggest financial success ever, ended. The others? I don't care. I don't even remember their names. I mean...

...their all dead to me.

8/ What's your favorite place on earth?

It's the prairie, of course.

But we're currently on hiatus. Seeing other people. On a break. 

More about that tomorrow. 

9/ Who are the special people in your life? 

My youngest sister. She's my person, I am hers. We understand one another like no one else on this earth and know more about each other than anyone on this earth. 

My boyfriend. He gets me. I get him. I want to protect and take care of him all of his days. I adore the man. Love him. I appreciate his quiet ways.

My Soon-To-Be-Ex. He tolerates me. Doesn't understand me. But loves me anyway. And he drives me crazy, but I love him too. He's family. All the people on this list are family. I want to protect and take care of him all of his days. But, no, really, we are not good together. Phew.

My Mom. The former scream queen and the current little ditzy missy. I dunno. I am not a Mama's boy in the traditional sense. I simply have no choice in the matter. My parents ended up being mine to take care of. But you know what? They were there when I really, really needed them. So... the score is evening up a little, know what I mean? One day soon, I will turn to my sisters and say... Okay. Your turn.

My second youngest sister. The nicest person you will ever meet. Kind. Empathetic. A true giver. I never like to see anybody cry... but when she cries? I hurt the most.

My work wife. She's my wife, my daughter, my friend. Such integrity. Such a hard worker. A good mother. A good member of the community. I have such respect.

My brother-in-law. Married to my youngest sister. Oh, he hated me so much during my selfish, myopic theater days. And who could blame him? But he's a stand up guy. The sweetest straight man I know. He's always been in my corner and had my back. Oh, such respect.

That's my family. They mean the world to me. If they ever had an intervention on my behalf? 

I'd listen and do whatever they wanted. No questions asked.

10/ What's something you're proud of?

See question #1.

I survived. 

There's a lot who can't say that.

There's a lot more to tell. 

And I am getting closer to doing just that.

But just like my other Divine Miss M. - Melissa Manchester - tells me:

Everything will grow in it's own time.

And now you know why no one ever asks me out on a date!

Good News - Melissa Manchester