Accidental Date

I work at a local art gallery. I absolutely love my job because my boss is awesome, I see some beautiful pieces of art (and some really weird ones), I learn a lot, and, most of all, it forces me out of the lab. Since 70% of my job is just sitting in the gallery and monitoring the art while people come in and admire at it, I get to be near people while only minimally interacting with them. Most of the time patrons rarely speak to me, and the few who do are generally quite pleasant. (In my 1.5 years of working here, I've only had to deal with 4 crazy/annoying people, which is much better than working retail.)

The average retail customer

Don't get me wrong, I love being around people. I am just not very good at interacting with people. I think this is why street photography appeals to me; It forces me to be near people and even interact with them, but I always have a camera between me and them as a security buffer. The longer one spends in a lab analyzing bacteria and blood, the more social skills get lost, and this job helps me retain what few social skills I have left.

Socially Awkward Penguin has nothing on me.

This still leads to some pretty awkward situations, as the latest incident reveals. Lately a guy as been coming into the gallery. We struck up a pleasant conversation, and I learned that he was an engineering major. I will confess to having a soft spot for engineers: They are also quite socially awkward. I am fairly certain the first nerd in existence was an engineer. I am also descended from multiple generations of engineers: My father, and both grandfathers all studied engineering.
One day he visited the gallery, and asked me out to a movie.
I said yes, thinking "Awesome! I made a new friend and we're gonna go see a movie!"
It wasn't until he talked about cooking for me that I realized I had just agreed to go on a date.
The problem: I don't want to go on a date! I just got out of a serious relationship, and am enjoying being single! Not ready for dating!

I wasn't sure what to say, and by the time I had any courage to say anything, he had left. I tried to get advice from some friends, but they all ridiculed me for not realizing that when a guy asks a girl to go to a movie on Saturday night, that is code for "date." (They never taught me that in school. Yet another strike against the American education system.)

Let's do the math: An engineering major prepping for a date + a socially awkward lab geek who didn't know she was agreeing to a date = the most awkward date in the history of the universe. All happening this Saturday night! Stay tuned, kids.