worst first

2005-03-03 - 2:21 p.m.

Reading about one of Essaywriter's worst dates from the online dating scene cracked me up and then put me to mind of some of my worst dates, both from online and otherwise. My all-time worst first date was not from an online service, though, so isn't a case of one-upsmanship at all. It's a whole different realm of pain. And a flashing neon example of just how bad my instincts can be sometimes.

At the time, I was working a second job at a Big Chain Bookstore that shall remain nameless. It wasn't the bookstore's fault, so we'll protect its innocence in this matter, anyway. I had a rule that I shouldn't date customers. I need to keep reminding myself that sometimes the rules are there for VERY good reasons (see rule about not dating drummers).

One fateful day, however, I was working the information desk when a gorgeous smile on legs walks up and orders several of the books I'd been reading recently. Bing! I couldn't help the resulting patter and flirting. Just couldn't. After he eventually wandered off to a different part of the store, I dug around for some books to shelve in that area. Cue more conversation, more flirting, and then he asked me out to dinner.

All hail that my senses were at least good enough to insist on coffee instead and on meeting him there instead of having him pick me up. Now and again the brain DOES engage when it should. We made arrangements to meet for coffee and I returned to the info desk.

usb-port, someone who clearly has FAR more sense than I could ever claim, was there at the desk and I told him about the upcoming date. He headed back to scope out the dude for me. He returned laughing and insisting that the guy was gay. He looked rather too much like a Ken doll (not at all my usual attraction) and was apparently dressed far too fussily to be a straight man.

If ONLY that had been the actual problem with the date.

I show up at the coffee shop where he's already waiting. He doesn't stand up to say hello. He doesn't get me a coffee. He doesn't even come over to the counter with me while I order. He tells me he recently moved to the area with his then-fiancee. They'd broken up a month before. They'd been in counseling for some time and, while they didn't seem so much to have a big problem together, they were both so f'ed up individually that they just couldn't make the relationship work. [Hm, and ONE MONTH of counseling has somehow magically gotten him un-f'ed and ready to move on???].

He then announces that he HATES to read. Anything. Books, magazines, papers, forget it. He'd been looking for the books because some friend had suggested they might help him through the mental mess he's been in. OOOOOOOOOkay.

He'd mentioned at the store that he wanted to go back to school for a computer science degree. When I asked about that, hoping to find something, anything, this guy was interested in, he said he hated that too, but figured that computers were where the money was so that was his priority.

Ooooooookay. How about hobbies? What did he like to do? Apparently NOT MUCH. He didn't like music, or movies, or games, or sports, or seemingly much of anything I could figure out. Including when he brought up the topic of ANAL SEX which he had ALSO tried on the suggestion of some friend of his [I want to know who his friends are so I can steer clear], but neither he nor his ex had really liked it. Why he decided this was a good thing to bring up on a first date I will NEVER know.

I extricated myself as quickly as I could and got the hell home.

One day he showed up at the store. I was shelving books and found him reading something in the self-help/sexuality section. He got a panicked look on his face and all but ran the heck out of there. Found out later that he'd also hit on another bookseller who already knew he was anal sex guy and gave him a proper put-down.

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