My Date with a Magician

When a friend asked me last year if I would be interested in being set up for a date with one of her friends last minute I thought “Sure, I’m spontaneous! And a hopeless romantic! Who knows what could happen??” It turns out this guy was from out of town and tried asking her out on a date, which she was not interested in, so instead she thought of me and my adventurous spirit and passed him off to me.

She told me he was a magician, but he was cute and nice and had basketball tickets for tonight. I got home from work, transformed myself pretty quickly (see how I did this for another first date here) and took an Uber down to meet him at the Staples Center.

I met up with him and he was definitely cute and tall and seemed friendly enough. We went in and found our seats which were very good because he had actually grown up with one of the Clippers players in a small town in the Mid West.

One of the first things he did was he went down a few rows to take a picture for Instagram to make it seem like we were sitting in the front row or on the court which we weren’t. I tried to tell myself maybe he’s just excited and enthusiastic? I try not to judge my friends and their social networking strategies…

So we go back up a few rows to our seats and start chatting and getting to know each other. He had been living for the past few years in a state in the south, but traveled often for work.

It wasn’t too far into the date when he launched into the topic of politics by asking me “You’re a Republican, right?” Umm you’re in LA.. why would that be your assumption!? Luckily he did not launch into a tirade about how Obama is an Islamic Marxist like a guy I went on a date in Miami with did a few years ago.

I tried to steer the conversation to something more neutral. We talk about how he drove up from San Diego and would be driving back down there after the game. This is less than an hour into our date, so I joke “You can sleep on my couch if you want!” This clearly was not what he wanted to hear because he began talking about our mutual girl friend who had set us up and how hot and wonderful she is.

He talked about how well he knew my friend that set us up and was trying to make it seem like they were VERY close. This was weird because I consider myself pretty close to this girl… and she had never mentioned this guy before this day.

I rarely find myself in an “Am I on a date?” situation because I don’t like to play that game, but that’s what this was becoming.

During this time the players had come on to the court and were warming up. The magician’s basketball player friend kept looking up at us and waving from the court and texting the magician.

The magician told me the basketball player doesn’t really have friends come out to his games often. He said if I was interested in coming to more games he could give me the basketball player’s info. Now I’m thinking, “Is he trying to set me up with his friend? Or are we on a date?” Why does he keep talking about how beautiful and wonderful my friend is? I already know that and if she wanted to be on a date with him then she would have been here!

The highlight/lowlight of the night came when he started talking about his job (obviously). He told me I could definitely go to Magic Castle with him. Magic Castle is an awesome place in LA that’s dinner and a show, but you have to be invited by a magician to go and I’ve never been before. If I went to Magic Castle and Soho House as often as dates told me they were going to take me I swear I could be the duke via Yelp check-ins of both places.

Then comes the most magical moment. He says something to the effect of “You know a lot of people get confused about my job and what I do and they think I’m a clown and then I tell them ‘Do I look like a clown to you?'” I look over and he has taken one of those red foam balls that magicians use for tricks and he’s holding it up to his nose like a clown nose.

I’m all about being silly and having fun on dates, but he had obviously done this maneuver many times before and it was so awkward. I’m not sure why it was the move he chose to use, but I was very grateful because it was just so weird I couldn’t wait to tell my friends later.

The next weird part of the date comes when he tells me he has extra VIP-type passes and he wants to give them away to someone. He then finds these two very cute sisters a few rows away and starts talking to them for a while and I’m back at my seat just watching and wondering is he hitting on them? What is even happening here?

The girls come over and I meet them too and they’re super sweet and fun so I brush it off. They are clearly there on a mission to become basketball wives.

The game comes to an end and we try to use these VIP passes to go into the locker room to meet up with his friend, but no one will let us. We were then stuck hanging out on the court until the players come out.

During this in-between time he finds some celebrities and has me take pictures of him and the celebs to post on Instagram. Nothing uncomfortable about that…

After the game we’re hanging out with the sisters trying to figure out our next move. No one can decide and while we’re doing that the girls decide to use the bathroom. At that moment the magician tells me he’s going to leave and head back to San Diego.

The girls come back from the bathroom and are shocked “he just LEFT you here??? In the middle of downtown??? With no ride??? WTF”

The girls were headed my way anyway and they offer to give me a ride home which is super sweet of them. While I’m in the car on my way home he calls me and tells me that if I want he can give me some Uber discount codes. Umm… I say nope I’m all set and one of the sisters grabs the phone and goes off on him about how that is not a way to treat a lady which he just kind of laughs off and that was the end of that.

Once I was home I of course had to call my matchmaker friend to debrief about this date. I first ask her how well she knows this guy since he was acting like they were BFFs. She confirms my hunch that she has seen him very briefly a few times and barely knows him.

She tells me how embarrassed she is about the whole taking pictures with celebrities thing, but what really pushes her over the edge is the Uber discount. She tells me “OMG I’m so sorry I’m MORTIFIED! He tried to give you a fucking COUPON!? What an asshole!” I tell her it’s fine I lived to tell the tale and it’s just another story for the book I’ll write one day about all of the insane dates I’ve been on.

If you want to read more stories about dates I’ve been on then be sure to check out Not Every Girl Wants a Tiffany Box and Why I’m Taking a Break from Online Dating.

I have many more stories about dates I’ve been on, but I really don’t want Blushing in Hollywood to be a place where I just write about all of the embarrassing things guys do on dates with me since I’m sure I do plenty of terrible and embarrassing things on dates as well.

I’ve been on lots of dates with nice, normal guys that I’ve met both online and offline, but those aren’t nearly as fun to read about. I also am afraid that if I write about too many dates here that no guy will go on a date with me for fear that he may end up on the blog.

What really solidified to me that I had to write about this date specifically was when the magician wrote a Facebook status about how CNN is controlled by the Illuminati.