When Matchmaking Backfires

I don't know why I was in such a romantic mood this Wednesday. Maybe it was because we were going on a field trip to the Leonardo Museum in SLC, and Mrs. Dorius' class was paying for our class, so it was basically a date. Maybe it was because the boys in my group decided to call our group "Flower Power," since I like flowers, so the date basically started out with me getting flowers. (Below are some pictures of the museum!)

Or maybe it was because the museum worker gave us a presentation on algae, which I am not fascinated by, so thinking about how great he would be with my teacher was a natural defense mechanism.

Whatever the reason, he wouldn't stop waving around his ringless, 28 or 29-ish-year-old hand, and the thought came into my head. My teacher isn't married, and she is great! And he wasn't married either, and he seemed nice. He was smart, and he was good with the kids, and when my teacher, during a pause in his presentation while the kids were running up to the stage to grab a clipboard, went up to him and said jokingly that this class was really going to make him work for his pay, I couldn't help but interpret his inaudible response as a little bit flirtatious.

The game was on.

I leaned forward and tapped Kensie and Emma. They are cute dressers and hair-doers and spent the entire bus ride to the museum giggling. I know how to pick my allies in this game. "Don't you girls think that the guy presenting should take our teacher on a date?" I asked.

They nodded thoughtfully. "I never thought of that," Kensie said.

"But yes!" Emma squealed.

"Do you think he's younger than her?" Kensie asked. We thought about it for a minute and I said I thought they were about the same age.

I laid out the game plan. "Okay," I said, "If we want this to work, we can't tell our teacher. And we have to be really casual. So you two need to go up to him after the presentation and just be like, 'We think you should take our teacher on a date.' Okay?"

Kensie said: "First you have to find out how old he is."

I explained that if I asked how old he was, he would think that I wanted to go on a date with him. So I couldn't. Our operation hit a wall.

Over the next two hours, we kept working on it. In the end, the plan was that we would ask the girl presenting how old the bachelor was. If he was about the same age as our teacher, Kensie and Emma would tell him that he should get our teacher's phone number. We would attend their wedding within a year :)

It was perfect, and everything happened flawlessly according to this plan.

Oh, except the part where Kensie and Emma never worked up the courage to ask the girl presenter how old the guy presenter was.

And the part where they decided instead that he should take me on a date.

And the part where I was watching Team Flower Power go through the interactive displays and the guy presenter came over and started talking to me, and Kensie and Emma saw this and almost peed their pants about it.

And the part where I remembered how frustrating matchmaking can be and vowed never to do it again.

Not until I see another really great opportunity, that is.