What does it really mean to drive someone of the opposite sex to the airport? For many people, the airport ride means the start of a new relationship. When a man offers to drive a woman to the airport, or vice versa, he is essentially confessing his desire to be with her for the long term. When I get offered a ride to the airport, it typically means that a break-up is in my near future.
In the movie, When Harry Met Sally, Harry explains why he doesn’t offer to take anyone to the airport: “When you take someone to the airport, its clearly the beginning of the relationship. That’s why I have never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship. Because eventually things move on and you don’t take someone to the airport and I never wanted anyone to say to me, how come you never take me to the airport anymore?”
Harry certainly had a good point; and one that I wish I had paid closer attention to over the years. It certainly could have prevented many break-ups from happening in my life. Let’s just say that my rides to the airport with boys have never actually brought me any sort of good fortune in the relationship department. In fact, I am pretty sure that every airport ride that I’ve ever experienced with a boy has resulted in an unexpected break-up.
First there was the boy who I met one day while I was serving on jury duty. He and I met in a courtroom, flirted the entire day, and by the time court was dismissed at 4:00PM, we were officially boyfriend/girlfriend. Our relationship lasted nearly two weeks…until I offered to drive him to the airport before his upcoming business trip.
On the ride to the airport, he shared with me his excitement for seeing all of these “hot” girls on his business trip. He told me about the dinners he had planned with them, and the “epic” parties that he would be attending with them. By the time we actually arrived at the airport, I had jealousy oozing out of every pore in my body. I tried my best to remain calm. But in doing so, I instead became very silent. I became so silent that I wasn’t even able to mumble the words, “Have a nice trip” before he exited my car. The passionate kiss that I had imagined sharing with him at the curbside entrance to the airport never quite happened. What I am pretty sure did happen though was that he had an amazing time on his business trip with these “hot” girls. Because that ride to the airport was the last time I ever saw or heard from my jury duty boyfriend. And I can safely assume that those “epic” parties that he spoke about on the way to the airport were in fact pretty epic.
And then there was the airport ride incident with my hot, recovering alcoholic, lawyer boyfriend who I had been dating for two months. I figured that it was okay to ask my boyfriend of two months for a ride to the airport. After all, we had spent nearly every waking moment together. Why wouldn’t I ask him for a ride?
The night before he was supposed to drive me, he told me very casually (over dinner) that he would not be taking me to the airport the next day. Instead he would be attending a happy hour for a colleague of his who was leaving his law firm.
Well, I had many issues with him choosing to attend the happy hour over driving me to the airport. For starters, he was a recovering alcoholic. Did he really need to go to a bar instead of driving me to the airport? He didn’t drink.
Next, my flight didn’t leave until 11:00PM. There would have been plenty of time for him to attend the happy hour and to drive me to the airport. We probably could have even gone out for dinner together as well. But he chose not to drive to me to the airport and instead to attend the happy hour.
So I chose to dump him. And I did so on the day of my trip, right before heading to the airport…in the airport shuttle that I had arranged for myself earlier that day. Him not driving me to the airport, after he said that he would, clearly resulted in us breaking-up. I mean, I’m sure that we’d probably still be together today if it were not for that unfortunate airport ride incident. Damn the airport ride.
And lastly there was my paramedic. We had also been dating for two months when he offered to drive me to the airport. Our relationship had been going very well. I was definitely developing strong feelings for him and I could tell that his feelings for me were mutually as strong. Our relationship was practically perfect…with the exception of him still being married to another woman. Minor detail.
Our ride to the airport was actually very romantic. He drove me in his own big white pick-up truck (not his ambulance so there were sadly no sirens involved). I sat as close to him as possible, right up beside him, in the big, pleather, bench seat of his truck. During the ride he spoke to me about the possibility of him visiting me in New York and we also discussed how often we planned to talk on the phone. When we arrived at the airport, we shared an amazing kiss and a long, heart-felt embrace. Little did I know at the time that that would be the last time we ever kissed, hugged….or talked for that matter.
A few weeks later the paramedic dumped me via text message. He didn’t do it in person. He never even called to explain himself afterward. He dumped me via a text message that said that he “wanted to figure out his relationship with his wife before getting involved in another relationship”. This obviously would have been a nice thing for him to say to me before we actually started dating. But that’s beside the point. The point here is that the last time we ever kissed or spoke in person was when he drove me to the airport. I obviously blame the airport ride for our unexpected break-up.
So to all my readers out there, if your partner ever asks you for a ride to the airport, think long and hard about what this could potentially mean for the future of your relationship. Especially if you have lots of baggage, there’s no doubt that your relationship will have a greater chance of surviving if you simply allow SuperShuttle to get involved. Trust me. Your relationship will last longer and your ride to the airport will be that much smoother. And this…is precisely what makes the airport shuttle service so super.
