Thanks for the advice. The trick that paulyb mentioned work so if I make the first cell:
=""
it seems to not mess up. And yes the reason I need it to have a blank option is to keep the user from being confused because the rest of the form reacts differently depending on which option the user select or if the user does not select an option. So the blank serves as a kind of "default". Oh and from my understanding the ignore blank just keeps excel from yelling at you if have a blank in the spot.