The time I first took a girl out on a date

I was a huge Twin Peaks fan. Huge. I had to have or watch anything I could find that was even remotely related to it; film, TV, music, book, clothing, food, posters, audio recording. Anything.

So when I got the opportunity to see Boxing Helena at the cinema, I seized it.
I knew it was going to be a bad film. I'd followed its production in Empire and was fully aware of the plot and the controversy.

But Sherilynn Fenn was in it. She was in Twin Peaks. And she reportedly went topless in it. I, like so many boys my age, had a massive crush on the female cast of Twin Peaks. So I had to see it.

The opportunity to go to the cinema was the occasion of my awkward first date with my first girlfriend, Charlotte.

The first time I saw Charlotte was in my Psychology class at college. She was wearing dungarees, had very short hair and said "all meat is murder" in the first class.
I instantly assumed she was a lesbian.

Turns out that she wasn't. She was a Madonna fan instead, which is arguably worse.
She also, unaccountably, liked me.

So at the end of the year I asked her out on a date. To see a terrible film. Because I fancied the lead actress. Who got her tits out.

The film itself was so bad that it was funny. Laugh out loud funny.
I laughed all the way through.
I laughed as Helena was hit by a car.
I laughed as she woke up to phantom limb pain.
I laughed as she tried to escape in her wheelchair.
I laughed as he cut off her arms and stuck her in a box.
I laughed when she learnt to love him in spite of his psychotic amputations.

Then I walked Charlotte to her bus stop, had my first kiss and went home.

The fact that Charlotte thought I was boyfriend material after that should have sounded alarm bells, but that's another story all together.