Monday, April 17, 2006

Mr. "Reveal All My Flaws To You On The First Date" Guy.

Editors Note: I snuck over to http://oystersnbeer.blogspot.com and grabbed this story. (Sadielady owns the blog and earlier said it's ok...hope it still is) anyway, as always, her dates are hilarious. Go visit her blog.
This is a guy I met in law school. We went to two different law schools in the same city, and we met one night at a mixer our two schools hosted. A get to know-other-law-school-students-in-the-city thing. And the thing is, he seemed so damn normal that night. Well, maybe not completely normal, because what completely normal person chooses to go to law school, but normal in that comparative sense. He was laid-back, friendly, and funny, not pushy but definitely interested, plus he was pretty good-looking. So when he asked for my number at the end of the night, I gave it to him. And when he later called, I accepted a dinner invitation from him.

Now, I'm not very high-maintenance, so I like to think, but nevertheless, I expect certain things in certain social situations. A request for a telephone number to call me up for a date + an official phone call to ask for that date + telling me you are planning to pick me up and take me to dinner = I am going to dress nicely, I expect you will dress nicely (nicely does not mean fancy, but you should make an effort to look nice), and I expect that you are interested enough in me that you are probably going to try to make a good impression, as I am going to be doing also. So when I'm wearing a cute little sundress, and you show up in torn haven't-been-washed-in-weeks jeans and an un-tucked, too big for you t-shirt, I'm not going to be thrilled. And when we live in a city that is full of great places to eat, including not-very-pricey great places to eat, and you drive me way out on the outskirts of the city to some family restaurant that serves pre-packaged looking seafood dishes (and our city is on big water and famous for seafood), and the table has a plastic tablecloth, and every other table is filled with ugly people with screaming children, and they don't serve liquor and only offer sweet wine or your choice of 6 different types of cheap beer, I'm really not going to be thrilled. But, I could look past this if you are still the laid-back, friendly, funny guy I met and enjoyed hanging out with at the mixer. It's really difficult to keep upbeat about our date, though, when you start off by telling me that the clothes you're wearing tonight don't belong to you, they belong to your roommate, and that they're too big, but you didn't have anything of your own to wear so you got stuck wearing these clothes, which you're embarrassed to be wearing on our date, especially considering that the jeans have a big hole on the back pocket so that your boxers are showing, and to show me what you're talking about you stand up and turn around and point out the hole and the view of the boxers. Nice. This is definitely off to an awkward start, and I'm wishing now that I were not on this date. Then you tell me about one of your most embarrassing moments in life, which earned you the ridicule of all your guy friends, because you fainted in front of all of them at a football game when someone got hurt, and how they had to carry you to the car and take you to the hospital, and how you fainted again, and how they all laughed and called you a wimp because the injury wasn't even that bad: ok, this is a good story to tell a girl you're on a first date with and trying to impress. Definitely makes her see that masculine side of you. And the conversation just gets worse from there; I mean, I realize that I've got an entire meal to suffer through here, so I try to perk things up with conversation of my own, but somehow you manage to put yourself down or make yourself seem sad and pathetic no matter what topic we try. And when the check comes, and I am so anxious to just get out of this date already that I really, really insist that I pay my half the bill and you really, really won't let me and insist on paying for me, this maybe could have scored you end-of-the-evening points, except that as soon as the waitress walks away with your card you turn to me and say "see this way, you will feel obligated to repay me, which guarantees me a second date." Well guess what, dude, you have no fucking idea how wrong you are there. And at the very, very end of the evening, when you drop me back off and walk me to my door, you have the audacity to assume that I was going to invite you inside and cut me off first by telling me that you hate to not come in, but that you've really got to call it an early evening tonight, since your roommate is going through a tough time right now and you really think he needs to talk about it. And while I'm relieved, and stepping inside with a wave and a good night, you explain to me your roommate's troubles: you see, he's gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and she's all crying and upset, and he's freaked out, and he wants her to get an abortion, but she's against getting an abortion, and they just have no idea what to do, and they only found out just last night that she's pregnant, so it's really crucial that he get back home in case his freaked-out roommate needs to talk - - - well, that's way, way, way more information than I wanted or needed to know, and p.s. I'm so sure that your roommate and his girlfriend would be just thrilled to know that you shared this new and extremely personal information with a girl you just met and they don't know. You obviously have no problem distinguishing between things that are appropriate and inappropriate to say to relative strangers. So thanks so much for dinner, and please never call me again.

P.S. He did call again, about 4 or 5 times. Each time he left a message (I was home two of those times he called but let it go to voice mail when I saw who was calling), and each time he said he definitely wanted to see me again. I guess he eventually picked up on the fact that the date really didn't go as well as he seemed to think it had gone. p