5 great first dates in Chicago
Break the ice with these offbeat outings

By Laura Baginski
Reprinted with permission

Oh, the sweet agony of a first date. Your palms take on the texture of raw shellfish. Your heart threatens to burst out of your chest. And at least once during your date you'll frantically wonder if you have snot hanging out of your nose, if your breath stinks or if you have spinach in your teeth. To ease your first-date jitters, we pick our top spots for can't-fail first dates.

Hygiene, we'll leave up to you.

Visit a psychic
Who wants to leave things to chance? Your time is valuable. Pick up your date and head straight to your corner clairvoyant for a prediction of where "this thing" is going. If the psychic is struck by a vision of the two of you gazing into each other's eyes in mutual admiration, fabulous. But if she sees the date involving public humiliation or vomiting, say adios while you can still salvage the night.

Do your laundry
You and your date have at least one thing in common: You both have dirty clothes that need washing. At the Laundromat attached to the Newport Bar and Grill, you can make judgments on your date's character based on how he or she sorts laundry ("Whites and darks in the same load? Who is this person, some kind of maniac?"), then stroll over to the bar to throw back a few beers and eat some better-than-average pub grub. Even if you don't make a love connection, at least you'll have clean underwear.

Hoof it to Carol's Pub
It's about as impossible to have a boring time at this Uptown honky-tonk as it is to get a martini. Carol's Pub neophytes may feel some trepidation upon arriving outside the brick building at the shadowy corner of Clark and Leland. Once inside, though, you and your date will quickly warm to the wise-cracking bouncers, no-nonsense bartenders, lively house band that plays old (read: good) country music, cheap beer and large dance floor crammed with one of the most diverse crowds in the city.

Eat at a fondue restaurant
You + your date + hot, bubbling cheese in a pot. Only the lactose-intolerant wouldn't get weak in the knees from this Midwestern aphrodisiac. Conversation will flow as you move on to the main course, which involves spearing raw meat or vegetables and plopping them in a pot of oil until they're done. We like Geja's in Lincoln Park. One piece of advice: Don't use the skewer as a fork after it's been sitting in boiling oil. You'll get an unsightly heat blister on your lip the size of a dime. I speak from experience.

Go to the International Museum of Surgical Science
If ancient speculums and forceps aren't enough of an icebreaker, then how about an old drawing of a man with elephantiasis of the scrotum? Those and other ghastly artifacts are on display at the International Museum of Surgical Science, housed in a beautiful mansion on Lake Shore Drive. You'll be laughing too hard in horror to remember you're supposed to be nervous.

Laura Baginski is a freelance writer.