A few months ago I went on my first
date in a long time. If you haven’t
heard of a free and popular dating website called Plenty of Fish, then you’re
not missing anything. I have found all
manner of freaks, weirdoes, (this is how spell check wants me to spell
weirdos), perverts and yes, one time, a vampire on this site. I mean; this pool of fish has been seriously
peed in.
So when a seemingly normal, human
guy emails me, I tend to give him a few moments of my attention out of pure
suspicion. I inspect his profile for
grammar errors and douchbaggery, rifle through his photos waiting to find
pictures of his dog, truck, boat, partial profiles of ex-girlfriends’ faces
that have been poorly cropped out, and, of course, the obligatory jet ski photo
that I think every guy has stolen from somewhere on the internet.
I’m not sure who these guys think
they’re fooling with these pictures.
It’s like, here’s a picture of my dog because I’m sensitive, here’s a
picture of my truck because I’m macho, here’s a picture of all the cool places
I’ve been because I’m well rounded, here’s a picture of me rock climbing
because I’m adventurous, and here’s one tiny picture of my face 50 feet away
because, well, I’m ugly. Guys, just so
you know, that’s what you’re telling us with those 11 annoying pictures of
landscapes.
But I digress.
The seemingly normal guy was very
nerdy looking. Typically, after one
look, I would ignore his email and log out.
But he had seen me at a piano bar and then recognized me on the site. I didn’t remember seeing him at all (which
was probably my first warning) but I loved the idea that someone had noticed me
that I hadn’t noticed and then found me on a dating site and couldn’t pass up
his chance to meet me a second time. It
was all very Nicholas Sparks. So I let
the voices in my head (thanks mom and sisters) that say stupid stuff like,
“people get better looking when you get to know them, he could have a great
personality, you need to give the guy a chance,” rule my decision to respond and
agree to meet him in real life. Letting
those voices have a say should have been my second warning and seen as a sign
of desperation. I learned years ago
after my very first post-divorce date that one should never go on a date just
to go on a date but, unfortunately, I have a loud family and their three voices
drowned out my one.
We agreed to meet at a wine
bar. Casual. Not as big a commitment as dinner, but not as
lame as coffee (I don’t consider coffee to be a date, anyway. Buy me a real drink, jackass). I kept trying to forget that he wasn’t attractive
at all in his pictures and telling myself that maybe he’s just not
photogenic. Partly because it made me
feel superficial to care so much about what he looked like and partly
because…well, let’s be honest, I just didn’t want to feel superficial; regardless
of whether or not I was slash am.
As soon as I walked in the door I
wanted to run back out. He was uglier
(apparently spell check doesn’t recognize that as a word) than his pictures and
nerdy had changed to dorky. Nerdy can be
cute, sometimes sexy, because nerds are smart.
Even geeks, with their real life video game battles have potential when
they’re in costume, but dorks are just…dorks!
There’s no helping them.
I didn’t run away. He could see me. I may be an asshole, but I do my best to limit
my assholish acts to those I could stand having done back to me. I would never want someone to take one look
at me and run while in my path of vision.
So I powered through. As I walked
up to him he got up from his seat, flung one arm out for a half hug and said,
“Happy hump day!” I wanted to punch
myself in the face. Why had I agreed to
this stupid date! You know why? Because I’m a lunatic! When I hadn’t been on a date in several
months and was feeling desperately low and insecure, I let the voices talk me
into this date when I knew it was a bad idea.
Now that I was on the date, I was highly overconfident and couldn’t stop
wondering how someone as beautiful and overall fantastic as I could be on a
date with such an ugly, lame, cliché dork.
Yeah, I like to call it “passionate” not “crazy.”
He continued to dig himself deeper
by saying stupid shit, like, “I thought the Lollipop Guild was a club in San
Francisco for midgets.” Yes. He actually said those words. I was flabbergasted; caught between hoping he
was messing with me and scared that he wasn’t. My response went something like this,
“You…the...what?...that’s…it’s…the Lollipop Guild is from The Wizard of
Oz! And I don’t think you’re supposed to
say midget.” I don’t know what my face
was doing during this stammer but I don’t have a very good poker face, so it
couldn’t have been kind. He said, “Well,
I know that now because I actually offended someone once asking if it was a
club in San Francisco.” Oh. My.
Gosh. I may have said that, I may
have just stared at him like he was an idiot.
I may have done both. Sometimes I
have no filter and sometimes I’m shocked into silence. Finally, I just laughed at him and then
apologized for laughing at him and he said, “No, you should be laughing, it’s
funny, that’s why I told you.” That was
when I knew he wasn’t messing with me - he didn’t realize that I was laughing at him, not with him.
It didn’t get any better after that
and I managed to get out of the date early (I scheduled the date before dance
class so I had an excuse to leave if it sucked. Which it did. I’m a genius.
You can learn a lot from me). I
didn’t let him pay for my champagne flight or walk me to my car and he was wise
enough not to call me ever again.
Later, when I told my sister the
story, I said, “He just kept saying stupid, annoying shit like,
“What’s your gig?”
“Um, my gig?”
“Yeah, what do you do?”
“Oh.
I have a really dumb job, I’m a receptionist.”
“That’s not a dumb job, I’m a
babysitter.”
“You’re a babysitter?”
“Yeah, I babysit all the salespeople
who work under me.”
You know, because
he’s so important that he has people who work under him. Way to work that into the conversation. I seriously think guys only ask us what we do
so they can tell us what they do. But
anyway, I just kept looking at him and thinking, all the shit you’re saying maybe wouldn’t sound
so stupid and annoying, might even sound cute and funny, if you had a different face. Ya know, just get a
different face?”
And that is the ugly truth, my
friends. Pun intended.
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