First Date Ideas

by Annie Elizabeth Kreiser

I do not make eye contact with you or say a single word. You tell me about your day and do not mention this.

You ask me what my friends are like and I tell you that I don’t have any. You pull a Rolodex out of your purse and flip through, looking for someone who might find me tolerable that I will not loathe.

We have passionate sex and neither one of us tells anyone. In years to come, I will wonder if it ever really happened.

Location: my mind palace. We eat bagels and lox.

You introduce me to your robot boyfriend. I press his self-destruct button. We get into my pickup truck and ride off into the sunset. He bubbles and sinks into the lake.

You invite me to your house and I immediately use your toothbrush.

Location: a lovely little deli. I eat two slices of cheese and nothing else. You never show.

We mix icing out of a jar, Skittles, and blue raspberry soda, and drink copious amounts. We giggle and bounce around uncontrollably before collapsing into a sudden stupor. You leave before I realize you’re going.

We take a day trip to New York City and you murder me on 11th.

You absorb me into your body.

You are the only woman who will ever truly love me, and I completely blow it.

Annie Elizabeth Kreiser ’23 is the senior editor of Pitch and a double major in English and secondary education. Her writing is featured in previous volumes of Pitch and Onyx, as well as the Sigma Tau Delta Review. The work in this volume is inspired by 1970s true crime and gender dynamics.