The נבי סמואל Guy

I guess I should have clued in to something when the guy showed up in a t-shirt and pants. I did my usual thing - I got dressed up, chol hamoed/dating clothes which means nice, not too fancy, in between work and shabbos clothes but with shabbos makeup and tall black boots. I want to make a good impression after all.

He picked me up in a car, which in Israel is impressive, and I noticed we were driving away from the city (I was living in a northern suburb of Jerusalem at the time) so I asked him where we were going. He said he wanted to go to Kever Shmuel HaNavi (the burial site of the prophet Samuel). Um, okay....

We get there and it looks like the gate is closed and locked. Actually, it just looked closed, I prayed with all my heart it was locked. Since this was our final destination he decided to get out and double check. This is where God's sense of humour comes into play. The gate was unlocked. In fact, it never gets locked and people are free to go in and out at all hours.

I got out of the car and tottered over on my heeled boots, not because they were heeled but because the ground was cobble-stoned. The guy didn't seem to notice and proceeded to lead me not towards the building of the burial site but off to the side, on a winding slippery ramp, passed some olive trees, passed an Arab singing to himself (I have nothing against peaceful Arabs, but when it's dark, at a gravesite, and a strange man is singing to himself...you get it), so he could show me the view. It was nice, except you couldn't see much in the dark.

I hadn't brought my jacket with me which gave me a good excuse to tell the guy we should get going (as if this were a stop on the way to the real destination). We could see the parking lot but not how to get back to the car so that prolonged our stay at the gravesite a bit longer. It was quite a relief once I was back in the car. As we drove back (this time to the city) he said the line that is making me see red more and more these days: "so, where do you want to go?" Um, you mean the date was meant to be at Nebi Samuel? He then said that he thought going to coffee houses on dates was boring and overdone and that's why he hadn't suggested/done/taken me to one in the first place.

In hindsight the story is amusing, and I'd actually like to know what he was thinking taking a first date to a grave (actually not even to the grave itself, because had we gone in and said a few tehilim, מיילא, I could understand. But to see a dark view of...what?)