The worst part of a date, or any general social interaction, is the awkward silence that ensues whenever a conversation is not occurring.  The silence often follows a statement that was ill-conceived or overly emotional.  For example, I say, “I hear the chicken is good” to which you reply, “Chickens are often malnourished and crammed into small spaces before they are killed to be eaten.”  Following twenty minutes of dead air, I say, “How about the steak?”

The previous conversation has never happened, but the following has:  “So how is law school, Melissa?”  Melissa looks at me without saying anything.  Though this silence was fleeting and probably lasted ten seconds, it felt like three hours.  I had no idea what I did wrong.  Melissa finally answered with a clever little quip, “I am in med school and my name is Rebecca.”  I felt really bad, but seriously, I had already met like seven girls named Melissa whom are all currently attending law school.  By the time I met the fifth Melissa, I just assumed…

It was a good assumption, because it is very close to the truth.

“So Rebecca, I hear the chicken is good,” I say.  I did not know, nor was I prepared for the fact that she had dissected a chicken earlier that day.  Instead of giving me the usual PETA-inspired diatribe about abused chickens, she replies in horrific detail what the inside of a chicken looks like.  I thought that I already knew what the inside of a chicken looked like:  Sometimes it looks like a grilled breast, while other times it looks somewhat like a fried wing.  Astoundingly, this is not what the inside of a raw chicken looks like at all.  She then started showing me pictures of this poor chicken on her cell phone.  This was after we had already gotten our food.  Rebecca’s chicken looked far worse and only somewhat delectable.  Thank goodness I got spaghetti.  Spaghetti is often a safe go-to food because not only have noodles and sauce rarely been abused, but if the .083% chance arises where your date shows you pictures of a mutilated animal, there is a very good chance that that animal is not on your plate.