In Which We Must "Take Care of Business"

Ugh. UGH. Alright. I've finally put aside my rage blindness and managed to write this out.

For easy reading purposes, I'm going to refer to this guy as...Dick. Yes. That will do nicely.

Firstly, I should just mention how the planning of this date came about:

DICK: We should meet up.
ME: Sure! Should we grab a drink?
DICK: I don't drink. I've already made us dinner reservations.

...Oh. Ok, then!

Secondly, I should mention that I had to postpone this meeting one time - ONE TIME - because I had FOOD POISONING and thought I was going to die.  And, you know, SORRY SIR, but I was rather unable to eat a MEAL in a RESTAURANT during that time period.

And after that, for days leading up to the rescheduled dinner, I got many texts from Dick along the lines of, "just wanted to make sure we'll still on for Friday" and "just double-checking that you're not going to cancel this time" and "while I have you, just want to triple-check that you're actually going to show up tonight."

Sheesh. STOP. STAAAAHP.

I MAY have also told my coworkers before I left work which restaurant I was going to, on the off-chance that this guy tried to kidnap me and put me in a lair somewhere. So what I'm saying is I had a BAD FEELING about this from the beginning.

I get to the restaurant early, because God forbid I show up 30 seconds late and he thinks I've completely abandoned him, and wait on a bench right next to the door.

Dick saunters over a few minutes later, wearing aviator shades, stops in front of me, stares for a minutes, says, "hi" - and then abruptly turns and walks inside the restaurant.

"Hmmm," I think, "I...guess we're going inside."

I follow him inside and we head to our table, where the menus are already laid out waiting for us. We sit down, he immediately picks up the menu, holds it up in front of his face and silently peruses it for a solid 6 or 7 minutes.

Just a reminder that we have STILL NOT EXCHANGED A WORD AT THIS POINT other than the awkward "hi." No words! Also at this point I hadn't actually even seen his eyes, because he didn't take his aviators off until after he started reading the menu, which was blocking his face. That was not disconcerting at all.

ANYWAY, I must have made some sort of awkward noise, because after awhile he lowered his menu, looked at me over the top of it, said, "I just need to take care of business first...and then we can start our conversation."  And then went back to silently reading the menu.

Huh. HUH. Well. Someone takes the ordering of food VERY SERIOUSLY.

After several more uncomfortably silent minutes, I sort of mused out loud that I might order some sort of chicken thing - and then he looked at me over his menu and said, "the flatbread is REALLY good here."

"Oh!" I said. "Well, that's a possibility...although the chicken DOES look good -"

"It's REALLY good, the flatbread."

"It does look good...although now I'm sort of eyeing this past-"

"YOU SHOULD REALLY GET THE FLATBREAD. GET THE FLATBREAD."

"Oh my God CALM DOWN I'LL GET THE FLATBREAD,"  (OK fine I didn't say that line out loud. But I did just get the flatbread because, like, I seriously thought he might have a STROKE if I didn't.)

Anyway. He finally decides (on a cheeseburger - which, did it really require THAT MUCH CONCENTRATION to order a cheeseburger?), and the waitress takes our order and I guess it's time for our conversation to start.

DICK: [smirks, stares at me silently]
ME: attempting to smile in an uncomfortable manner
DICK: "How impressed are you that I remembered your name?"
ME: "....uh...."
DICK: [more smirking]
ME: "Not...very?  Since I, you know...told it to you."
DICK: "Yeah, but, I didn't even have to look at my phone to remind myself. Impressed?"
ME: ''....no."

Weirdly, after our silent beginning, Dick would then NOT. STOP. TALKING.  And I mean REALLY NOT STOP TALKING. Like, the man would not even take a BREATH.  He would somehow interrupt his own stream of consciousness to then go off on more tangents. It would actually be sort of impressive if I wasn't spending most of the time plotting my escape from dinner.

For example:

DICK: "Let me tell you what I thought about Batman vs. Superman. I didn't hate it as much as everyone else did. I think people were prepared to hate it as soon as the Affleck casting was announced. And I didn't hate Man of Steel. Speaking of Man of Steel, I don't know why everybody was all upset about the ending. Speaking of endings, the ending of Batman vs. Superman devolved, in my opinion. Did you say you had seen Batman vs. Superman?"
ME: "I - "
DICK: "WAIT, I believe I TEXTED you that I was going to see Batman vs. Superman and you never texted me back."
ME: "Wait, wha - "
DICK: "LET'S GO TO THE TAPE." [picks up phone, scrolls through previous text messages] "THAT'S RIGHT, HERE IT IS. I SENT YOU THIS PHOTO OF AN EMPTY PARKING LOT BECAUSE I SAW IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY AND THERE WAS NO ONE THERE AND YOU NEVER RESPONDED TO THIS EMPTY PARKING LOT PHOTO THAT I SENT YOU."
ME: "I -"
DICK: "ALSO LET ME TELL YOU MY THOUGHTS ON ZACK SNYDER. Speaking of Zack Snyder, I think he gets a bad rap in Hollywood. Speaking of Hollywood, I went there one time. Speaking of going places, here are the places I have also visited..." and on and on and on and on for like two and a half more hours.

The biggest problem with this is that because he was talking so much, he wasn't EATING, which meant that long after I have finished my freaking flatbread, he had barely touched his cheeseburger, which meant that I was NEVER going to ESCAPE THIS NIGHT. I finally figured out that the only way to get him to stop talking and start eating was for me to go to the bathroom.

So I went to the bathroom six times.

That helped.

Other things I learned from Dick during this night:
--that I did not seem as "desperate as other 30-something single women" he's met. [Thank you?]
--that he did not have any friends in college.
--that he does not have any friends at work.
--that he does not, in fact, really have any friends.
--that he considers himself to be "good on first dates." I will...just let that one lie there.

Later on, after he blissfully, gloriously, finally finished his cheeseburger:

WAITRESS: "Would you like to see the dessert menu?"
ME: "No thank you, I'm fine!"
DICK: "I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE DESSERT MENU! I don't have anywhere else to be!"
ME: [dies inside]

FINALLY - FINALLY - FINALLY - we are done. We are done! We are walking through the restaurant! We are walking out of the door!

DICK: "Which way are you walking?"
ME: "This way!" [points in direction of my apartment]
DICK: "Oh, me too."
ME: "Oh! I got turned around! I meant THIS way!" [points in opposite direction of my apartment]
DICK: "Ok." [silence]
ME: "Well, thank you!"
DICK: [silence]
ME: [unsure of what is happening]
DICK: "WE DID IT." [turns and briskly walks away down sidewalk]

And then I walked IMMEDIATELY to the Chinese liquor store on the corner and purchased a bottle of wine. IMMEDIATELY, I TELL YOU.

In Which We Argue About Sexual Assault Cards

Ok, so - one of my New Year's resolutions is to just buckle down on this dating thing, already. What happens is that I usually go out with someone; subsequently find that person to be an extremely strange, socially awkward man who should not be interacting with other humans on a regular basis; go back to my regular life of hanging out with delightful friends who, unlike these clowns, are adept at human interaction and bring lots of joy and laughter into my life; and then wait like 9 months before finally mustering up the strength to go out with another weirdo and then repeating the whole cycle.

And even though my other New Year's resolution is to DO THINGS THAT I WANT TO DO AND STOP DOING THINGS I DON'T WANT TO DO and this is, well, sort of the opposite of that - I"m just going to grit my teeth, (wo)man up, and power through all the weirdos until the glorious day that I meet A NON-WEIRDO! (Cheers, applause, confetti, ticker-tape parade, etc).

All this is a long way of saying that I've got a bunch of older terrible dating stories to write down on this thing, because come January, I can GUARANTEE that there will be a whole new slew of current, terrible, stories.

Let us get on with it!

I actually went out with this guy several years ago, so this story is on the older spectrum - but there is a recent twist!  READ ON TO FIND OUT!

I actually can't remember how I even met this guy - I THINK it was online, but it may have been the old-fashioned way - in a bar, after I probably charmingly consumed many beers and employed judicious use of the phrase "I am deeeeee-RUNK" to everyone within hearing distance.

Anyway, he worked downtown, so we met up at this place near the Mayflower (which is a lovely hotel that I now solely think of as the place Eliot Spitzer used to take his ladies of the night) for drinks.  The first thing I noticed is that he was TALL.  SO TALL.

In fact, I think my opening line was "OH MY GOSH YOU ARE SO TALL," so, this whole terrible-dating scenario is clearly a two-way street.  

"Yeah, I'm 6'8," he replied.  I was sitting on a bar stool, and he sort of perched on one next to me, and we commenced the first-date-job-interview conversation.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm from outside Philadelphia," I said.  "I grew up - [DUDE GROANS, LIFTS HIMSELF UP FROM BAR STOOL, AND STANDS NEXT TO IT, TOWERING OVER ME IN MANNER OF A GIANT LOOKING DOWN THE BEANSTALK AT JACK ON THE EARTH BELOW]...um, in a little town called Paoli, but it's really part of - [DUDE GROANS AGAIN AND BEGINS PACING BACK AND FORTH NEXT TO OUR STOOLS, NOW MORE IN THE MANNER OF A LION STALKING ITS PREY]...um...part of a larger area called the Main Line that's right outside the - [DUDE STOPS AND RUBS HIS THIGHS VIGOROUSLY AS IF TRYING TO ERASE TERRIBLE WINE STAINS FROM HIS PANTS]...uh...the city, so...it's...um...I'm sorry, are you ok?"

"Yeah," he said, sighing dramatically. "I just lose circulation easily because of my height."

"Oh!" I said. "Well, do you want to go somewhere else? With less...uh...sitting?  Or with less, whatever-makes-you-lose-circulation?"

"No, I'm fine, I just need to do this every so often."

Every so often turned out to be, oh, every 45 seconds, but, whatever. It was a MEDICAL CONDITION and I didn't want to be an asshole. We carried on in this manner for some time.

Then I find out that this guy is VERY conservative.  I mean, at the time, I was pretty conservative (less so now, but that's because at this point I sort of loathe all politicians equally), but I wasn't, you know, a nut about it.  But HOLY DONALD TRUMP this guy was SUPER CONSERVATIVE.  He took great pride in the fact that he was the head of the Young Republicans in college.

"Yeah, it was AWESOME. The president of the YR's got an automatic seat on the student council, and all I would do was argue with them and shoot down all of their stupid proposals," he said.

"Huh," I said.  "That sounds really...uh, cool."

"IT WAS MORE THAN COOL IT WAS TOTALLY FREAKIN' AWESOME," he said. "Like, one time, they wanted to print these little cards, that had instructions on what do do if you were sexually assaulted, and hand them out to all the freshmen."

"Oh! That's useful!" I said. "I don't think we got anything like that at my - "

"I was like, UH NO THANKS, THAT'S A WASTE OF MONEY AND RESOURCES AND WE'RE NOT DOING IT," he interrupted, triumphantly.

"I...wait, what?" I said.

"Yeah. It was great," he said, taking a swig of beer.

"You...you killed the...rape cards?  But...why?" I said.

"Because they were DUMB," he said.

"But...but...I don't...I mean..."

"It was so great seeing their faces at the meeting," he continued. "The president of student council was super liberal, and she looked like she was going to have a heart attack. So, anyway, who - "

"I'M SORRY I'M SORRY," I said. "I just...don't understand why you wouldn't want people to have, like...useful information like that."

"I just think that money would be better spent elsewhere," he said. "Like on better lighting for the walkways, if that's what we're worried about."

"But...I mean...what if someone gets raped, uh...not on the walkways?" I said.  "Like in a dorm room?"

"Come on." He shrugged and took another swipe of beer.  "So what do you think of Giuliani's chances?"

[AHA! It was 2008! Right before the primaries! I've just remember this.]

ANYWAY - I may have overreacted, but I just found it...odd, to bring up within 30 minutes of knowing someone, that your great collegiate accomplishment was in not letting freshmen have information about sexual assault.  I don't know. CALL ME CRAZY. 

I did not call him back. (Again, terrible dating is a two-way street. I know. I KNOW. I'm sorry.)

OK. SO. Fast forward to last year - I get an email from someone named, let's call him, Dick Jones, that read along the lines of "Hey, just wanted to check in and see how you're doing! Let's get together and, you know...catch up :)" and other manner of weird winky-faces.

And for like three hours I thought "WHO IN THE HECK IS DICK JONES" until I finally remember that Dick Jones was THAT TALL GUY FROM THAT ONE DATE WITH THE WEIRD RAPE CARD STORY.  

So, we had gone out once, had zero contact since after that, and then 6 years later, he sent me an email full of weird emoticons, talking about "catching up" in a vaguely suggestive manner.

"Huh," I thought. "I wonder what he's been up to. I seem to remember he was a lawyer, but wanted to do something else? I'll just take a quick Google peek," and then I found...

...HIS ENGAGEMENT WEBSITE. Which listed his date of marriage as THREE WEEKS FROM TODAY.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

Dick Jones was getting married in THREE WEEKS, and yet, appeared to be spending his time emailing girls he went out with one time, 6 years ago. What? WHAT?  GO MARRY YOUR FIANCE AND STOP TROLLING OLD DATES, YOU LOON.

Anyway. I could never bring myself to see if they actually went ahead and got married, because I have a feeling that if they did, that relationship is, er...NOT GREAT.

So that's that!  Tune in soon for another installment of TERRIBLE DATINGS.

In Which I Review More Messages Received Whilst Online Dating - International Edition

I'm sorry, internets! Clearly I'm the WORST blogger since I keep talking up this blog and then...not doing any blogging.  Blargh. But I'm coming back! And to warm up, I've compiled another round of...


MESSAGES I'VE RECIEVED WHILST ONLINE DATING:

INTERNATIONAL / NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING EDITION


Hi sadly I am not in the US to meet you. Do you maybe... just maybe plan to visit Vienna sometime soon? We could meet up for a tour through the city oh and I hope you don't mind the age gap

Oh, I'm sorry, I almost couldn't finish writing this post because I was RUSHING TO BOOK MY PLANE TICKET FOR THIS DELIGHTFUL OPPORTUNITY. I'm rushing for two reasons, of course - a) because it's obviously an exciting and totally safe idea to fly to another continent to meet this gentleman for a "tour through the city," which surely will NOT end with me being murdered, and b) because he's 54 years old, so he'll probably be dead soon.


Dear madam, 
In your honor, it is stated that I found you in OKC, have seen your pictures, read your profile. You are really a beautiful sweet and cute lady which compels me to apply for your friendship. 
Please grant me the chance to prove that I can be your best friend. 
Thanks! 

How polite! An application for friendship! For BEST friendship! Sadly, however, I can't stop reading that as "I found you in Oklahoma City," and I have never been to Oklahoma City, and I really want this guy to find his true love in Oklahoma City, so I'm going to have to pass.

...But perhaps he knows of a Nigerian prince that will share his billion-dollar fortune with me if I just wire him $10,000 American dollars real quick? Just so he can safely leave the country, you see. It all makes sense, I'll forward you the chain letter. 


Hi how are you
My name is lewe am looking for long term relationship tht ends with marrige, am serious and i hate playing stupid games. So if u r interested pls txt me on [REDACTED]

I hate playing stupid games, too, Lewe! Have you ever played Boggle? I've really never understood the appeal. It's like Scrabble that you have to shake, I think? 
Oh, Lewe - I can't lie to you. If I'm being honest, I don't think I've EVER understood how to play Boggle. IT'S BECAUSE IT'S A STUPID GAME AND I, LIKE YOU, HATE PLAYING STUPID GAMES. 
SO I'M GLAD WE'RE ON THE SAME PAGE WITH THAT, LEWE.


I pressed hide lasts forever in case not interested in me. would you like to go on a date with me? you may also tell me to try again instead of hide button...

Oh, gosh. Poor guy! STOP PRESSING THE HIDE BUTTON ON HIM, LADIES! But, it's just...I don't think there IS a hide button, so...I'm not sure what he's talking about.   


hello how are you.can we be frend

Oh! Erm...no, thank you.

In which I am given a math lesson

LOOK! LOOK! I'm writing another post! JUST LIKE A REAL BLOG! It's haaaaaaappening.

SO, this story is actually a few years old, and I had actually forgotten about it until a few days ago, when I caught part of an old episode of Saturday Night Live.

That is important to this story.  I promise.

So. This was a few years ago and I had just broken up with someone, and my mom's friend - who I must say is a delightful human being and was honestly just trying to help take my mind off things - mentioned she had just spoken to a friend of hers, who had a nephew who lived in DC and who was single.

Now, as I said, this lady is a delightful human and I love her, but isn't this just the typical conversation that married people have about single people all the time?  "Oh, here's a single gentleman who lives in this particular geographic region, and here's a single lady who also lives in the same geographical region - OBVIOUSLY WE WILL SET THEM UP AND THEY WILL MARRY EACH OTHER BECAUSE BOTH OF THEM BEING UNMARRIED AT THE SAME TIME WITHIN 15 MILES OF EACH OTHER IS THE ONLY QUALITY NEEDED FOR A RELATIONSHIP TO WORK."

I mean, at least for ME, this is how that conversation typically goes:

MARRIED FRIEND: "I have someone for you! He's single! You're single!"

ME: "Oh! Well, tell me about him!"

MARRIED FRIEND: "He's SINGLE."

ME: "Cool. Uh, but also...you know...what's he like?"

MARRIED FRIEND: "Well, he lives in DC."

ME: "Mmm-hmm. Great."

MARRIED FRIEND: "He works with my husband. But I haven't talked to him that much. Actually I don't think he really talks at all. It's unclear if he knows how to speak, really. Or read, or write. I'm not sure that he has any friends. Also I think he has a criminal record? Actually, I think he was just released from prison. He MIGHT have murdered someone. I'm not sure that he's taken a shower since I met him. I would describe him as a seedy individual. YOU MUST GO ON A DATE WITH HIM."

ME: "Erm...ok, well, I'm just curious as to why, exactly, you think this might be a good match?"

MARRIED FRIEND [stares at me like I have three heads]: "...You're both SINGLE."

Anyway. They mean well, these people. But back to the date!

We exchanged a few emails, as I recall, and he seemed normal and not like a serial killer, so we made plans to get a drink at the Bottom Line in DC.

[Is the Bottom Line even open, still? I have not set foot in there since The Date. Hmmm.]

I find him, I say hello, I sit down, we commence the awkward first date conversation dance, and this is what I find out:

He works in IT. (Great! He knows how to work computers! Helpful!)

He is very good at working in IT, according to him. (Fine. Good at his job. Great.)

Everyone he works with is totally stupid and he is SUPER SMART. So much smarter than them. (Whatever. Doubtful. But fine, I guess.)

He refers to women, for some reason, exclusively as "females." (What? Why?)

He has a slight lisp. (Not really anything that would normally even register in my mind, EXCEPT....)

All things taken together, I realize that I am on a date with: NICK BURNS, YOUR COMPANY'S COMPUTER GUY!

...Which, for you twenty-something children out there, was an Jimmy Fallon SNL skit from the early 2000s in which he played a SUPER ANNOYING company IT guy - JUST THE KIND OF IT GUY, IN FACT, SITTING ACROSS FROM ME AT THE BOTTOM LINE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE STUPID FEMALES IN HIS OFFICE.

Sample conversation:

HIM: "Everyone I work with is so stupid."

ME: "Oh. Really?"

HIM: "UH, YEAH. Like, this female that I work with."

ME: "Uh huh."

HIM: "She called me in yesterday because she has some problem with Javascript, and I was like, ok well just open Internet Explorer, and she closed out all her task windows to do it, and I was like, 'HELLOOOOO! YOU CAN JUST OPEN IT IN THE START WINDOW WITHOUT HAVING TO CLOSE YOUR TASK WINDOWS!'"[snorting laugh]

ME: [vaguely horrified]

For your viewing pleasure, you may watch this:

And then TELL ME that this guy was not a real-life Nick Burns. TRY ME.

Anyway, the story does not end there. Oh, no. No, no no no.

The check comes. We have each had two happy-hour-priced Miller Lites for a grand total of 9 dollars. (Originally I was only planning to have one, but, I mean - come on.)

HIM: "Obviously, we're splitting this."

ME: "...goody."

HIM: [Takes my pile of single dollar bills, counts them, stacks them, picks a up a pen, furrows brow, scratches math calculations on back of check]: "You need to put in another 19 cents. You miscalculated the sales tax."

ME: [vague open-mouthed staring across table]

HIM: [unwavering silent stare back at me]

ME: [awkwardly fishes around in change purse, finally locates a single quarter, adds it to pile of change on check]

HIM: [delightfully scrawling down more numbers] "So what are you doing next week?"


THE END.

In which I review some of the many delightful messages I receive whilst online dating

Oh, hello there!  

Say, do you remember that time that I said I was starting a new blog about dating, and I made this big fanfare inaugural post about it, and then I just...didn't do anything about it, for a whole year?  Yes?  You do?  Goody.

Well, now my friend Monica, who has been talking to me about this for approximately 5 years, is MOVING, so this is my going-away present to her - A POST ON THIS BLOG.  Hopefully followed by more posts!  In a timely fashion!  Like a real blog!

So while I think about which dating stories I should blog about - and holy guacamole, DO I HAVE DATING STORIES - I'm going to start my just listing some of the delightful messages I've gotten in my inbox since I signed up for online dating.  "Oh," you're going to say to yourself, "you must have made these up! These are simply TOO STUPID to be true."  

Well, you would be wrong, silly!  Sadly, these are one hundred percent unaltered and true.

Let's begin, shall we?


"Hey, how are you tonight? I am in town for a couple of days from Dallas.  I would totally like for you to molest me while I am here...haha."

Oh! Um - hello there, sir.  I appreciate the invite, but I'm a little bit concerned that this "molesting" might end up with you murdering me and high-tailing it back to Dallas, so...pass.


"Please god tell me you're into younger men."

Uh, this guy was NINETEEN YEARS OLD.  Does your mother know you're sending weird messages to thirty-something women on the internet?  Can I tell her?  OOOH PLEASE CAN I TELL HER?  I would very much love to see her reaction.


"What if anything...Do you have against arm wrestling!!"

I...what?  I mean...nothing, I don't think?  I SWEAR I HAVE NO STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT ARM WRESTLING EITHER WAY PLEASE STOP YELLING AT ME


"I am three years older than my profile says above. All my pictures are recent."

Right. Here's my question. If you're going to lie about your age, why are you only shaving off THREE YEARS? "Well, this guy would be perfect, except he's 39 - OH WAIT YOU'RE REALLY 36? OH THANK GOD IN HEAVEN, I WAS SO WORRIED YOU WERE TOO OLD, NOW WE CAN START OUR LIVES TOGETHER." I just...I mean...well, whatever. Thanks for not lying about your photos, I guess.


"Hi. Want to meet for some Cottage Cheese Apples & Raisin Meal?"

Who DOESN'T want to meet for some Cottage Cheese Apples & Raisin Meal? Cottage Cheese Apples & Raisin Meal is my favorite meal. It's so hard to find good Cottage Cheese Apples & Raisin Meal in the city these days. Rose's Luxury used to have great Cottage Cheese Apples & Raisin Meal, but then they changed chefs.


"I only have two 'musts' in the looks dept.
1. At least a cute face
2. Not fat. (non-negotiable)
That's it. If you're offended, ("Oh how dare he! What a misogynist, etc etc") then we wouldn't be the best fit, and I'd welcome you to click on the next profile. But in all likelihood, a girl who has such a problem with requirements as modest as that, is probably fat, lol."

LOL INDEED! HA HA WHAT A DELIGHTFUL GUY THIS ONE IS, I BET HE'S JUST FIGHTIN' OFF ALL THE LADIES WITH A STICK, THS ONE


"Here's my occupation: laying around collecting a check."

Well, sir, seeing as you have my dream job - your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.


Well, that's all the time we have today for Messages I Have Received Whilst Online Dating. But don't despair - there are more! So many more! A actual depressing amount of more!

NEW BLOG YAY

Welcome to my new blog, People of Earth.

Some of my friends - well actually, really just one friend in particular - MONICA - have been hounding me for awhile to start a new blog. "You have THE WORST date stories," they say. "You HAVE to blog about this," they say. "DANCE FOR US LIKE A TRAINED MONKEY, K. DO IT. DOOOOOO IT."

OK FINE YOU GUYS STOP YELLING. YOU WIN. You always do.

And the thing is, I DO have a lot of terrible date stories! I think everybody does, really. So LET THE FUN BEGIN!

I present…Terrible Datings.

("Terrible Dates" and "Terrible Dating" were both taken. I had to make up a word.)