I Accidentally Sent an SOS to My Entire Contact List Mid-First Date. Stan Was Not Amused.
Let me set the scene.
It’s 2018. I’m freshly back on Bumble, armed with a dating strategy honed through years of trial, error, and genuinely catastrophic judgment calls. The strategy was simple: skip the endless texting, meet in person fast, and get out within an hour if the chemistry isn’t there. Efficient. Practical. Very me.
What was not part of the strategy: accidentally triggering an emergency SOS alert from my Apple Watch to every single person in my contacts list while making out on a first date.
But we’ll get there.
Stan
Stan — not his real name, but he knows who he is — was handsome, polite, and seemingly normal. We met at a swanky bar in downtown Bellevue. He ordered me a Pellegrino with a twist of lime without making it weird, which, if you’ve ever dated sober, you know is not a given. Some men treat a non-alcoholic drink order like a confession that requires follow-up questions. Stan didn’t bat an eye.
Score one for Stan.
We hit it off immediately. Sharp, funny, kind eyes. Hours passed. The quiet bar turned into something resembling a nightclub, which is a lot when you’re trying to actually hear someone in your 40s. We bar-hopped. We ended up at a sports bar. We ate food, swapped dating horror stories, and I — shockingly — did most of the talking.
(I know. Shocking.)
By the end of the night, we found ourselves at his house in Mill Creek. Impressively large. Four bedrooms, three-car garage, and decorated floor to ceiling in Pier 1 Imports. Every surface. Every pillow. Bedazzled place settings for eight at a dining room table that had clearly never hosted eight people in its life.
I chose not to ask questions.
The Apple Watch Incident
We settled onto his couch to watch SNL on KING 5 NBC — my employer at the time — and a commercial I had actually worked on aired live. Stan thought I was making that up. I was not.
Things were going well. Flirtatious banter. Actual sparks. A proper kiss that made me temporarily forgive the sequined throw pillow scratching the backs of my arms.
And then my Apple Watch started buzzing.
I ignored it. It kept buzzing. I ignored it harder. It did not care.
Multiple missed calls. Jakob. Jennifer. More missed calls. My stomach dropped straight through the Pier 1 Imports area rug.
I excused myself and called Jakob back. He sounded frantic.
“Mom! Are you okay? We’re almost there!”
Almost WHERE?
Turns out, in the heat of the moment — and I mean that in the most PG way possible — I had accidentally activated the Apple Watch emergency SOS feature. Which promptly sent a distress signal, complete with my GPS location, to every single emergency contact in my phone.
The list was long, my friends. Very long.
Jakob, his girlfriend, his best friend McCabe, and his cousin Emma had been at a bowling alley nearby. They assumed the worst — and given my history, which includes a near-fatal heart attack in 2015 from a 95% blockage in my LAD (they call it the widowmaker, which is a name I feel very personally about), their panic was not entirely unreasonable.
They had bolted from the bowling alley in such a hurry that they almost left in the bowling shoes.
The Aftermath
I spent the next ten minutes making calls and sending texts to friends, family, and near-strangers telling them to stand down. And then 911 called to verify my safety. Out loud, in front of Stan.
Stan’s face said everything his words didn’t.
When I finally turned back to him, he looked at me like I had grown a second head. He asked, very carefully, “Are the cops going to show up here?”
I wished the bedazzled throw pillow would swallow me whole.
I thanked him for the evening, suggested we wrap up, and gave him the opportunity to ask me out again if he felt so inclined. He did call. We went out one more time.
And then the third date curse kicked in, as it always does, and that’s where this story ends.
(The second date? That one’s just for me.)
What I Know Now That I Didn’t Know Then
That was eight years ago. I’m 50 now, still sober, still single, and significantly less interested in apologizing for either of those things.
I used to end this story with a shrug and a joke about being a “Sober Old Maid.” Cute. Relatable. Also completely wrong about who I am.
Here’s what’s actually true: I built a media company. I’ve spoken at Microsoft, Meta, and Ignite Seattle. I raised a kid who loves me enough to sprint out of a bowling alley in rented shoes because he thought I needed him. That’s not a consolation prize life. That’s a great one.
Dating is still unpredictable. I’m still open to it. But I’m not waiting for it to make my life feel complete, because my life already is.
The Apple Watch stays, though. The widowmaker doesn’t get a second shot.
And if you’re out there dating sober and wondering if it’s worth it — the clarity, the full presence, the complete inability to blame bad decisions on tequila — yes. It is. Even when the date ends with a 911 verification call and a man who looks at you like you’re a liability.
Especially then.
XOXO
#NODAYSOFF #sobernotboring #ODAAT
