A Day In The Life Of A Dater

As I’m getting dressed, I’m thinking, “I wonder if this guy is going to be a total tool shed?” as evidenced by the ever-mounting plethora of morons I seem to find myself sitting across from at nearby restaurants. I slide some red lipstick across my lips, slap some lotion on my newly manicured hands and head out the door. Good Lord, the preparation for these things is like a full-time job.

I arrive at the restaurant and saunter in at 7:02, taking great care not to appear eager for our 7:00 meeting, only to find that he is late. Have I mentioned that tardiness is my #1 Pet Peeve? Actually, it may be a tie between that and overgrown hair coming from a man’s ear. I’m not quite sure.

This guy looks NOTHING like his pictures! In fact, is this even the guy? He appears to be about 50 lbs heavier than his pictures and what is with this full beard? It looks like he assaulted Dan Haggerty on his way to the set of Grizzly Adams, clipped his beard and superglued the WHOLE THING onto his face!

“Connie?” he says. OMG, this is my out. I could say I’m not her and if he says, “Well, you look like her,” I can say that she is very ill and I am her twin sister and she didn’t give me your number so I had to come to the restaurant. CRAP.

Men often comment on how women look nothing like the pictures they post on their online dating sites. A shave of 20 lbs here, a photoshop of wrinkles there, a complete imposter of pics. So who was in his pictures??

The hostess seats us at a table and I’m thinking, in one hour, I will be home in my pajamas watching an episode of some marathon show I have missed. She leaves us to our menus and within a blink of an eye, the waitress is at the ready to take a drink order. “Can I get you something to drink?” “Oh, yes please (PLEASE!),” I say. We order drinks and while we are perusing the menu, I just HAVE to ask this as I am hoping it will open up what I really want to say. “Do I look like my pictures?” I ask. “Yes, but you are much smaller in person,” he responds. WHAT? Who says this to someone? Moreover, what woman on the face of the Earth would be upset to hear this? I mean, really. He goes on to say, “You are very cute for a mom.” WHAT? Why would he think this is any great shakes of a compliment? “Oddly enough, that is EXACTLY what I was going for,” I offer. Yes, I certainly was going for “cute, tiny mom” when I was blotting my lips of red lipstick, getting my nails done and putting on my tall black boots. Exactly. I so badly want to put my hands by my head, expand my fingers out and offer a “poof” as if my mind is blown.

I was waiting for my opening. The one where he was going to ask me if he looked like his pictures. At which time, I would offer, “Ah, no. Did you eat the guy that was in the pictures?” Oh, Connie, that would be far too rude. Well, I chuckle thinking it and he says, “What’s so funny?” “Oh, nothing. Just enjoying the evening..” I am so proud of my restraint. I mean, I should be up for an Academy Award for this. The waitress comes back over to take our order and he asks her to confer with him over a menu item. I hear him say, “Does this have any onion, garlic or pepper in it because I might get lucky tonight.” WHAT THE F$%* did he just say? I seriously cannot contain myself so I add, “Oh, were you planning to go up to the casino after dinner? I hope you have a fabulous time! Let me just finish my drink. You’ll be there in no time.”

And to think, as I was getting dressed for this date, I was worried about how lop-sided (I feel) that my breasts look after the copious amount of surgeries I have undergone to rid myself of my breast cancer. Here I was feeling incredibly nervous and self-conscious for this. For THIS!

As we are eating dinner and he is shoveling food into his mouth as if it is the last supper (who knows, it could be HIS), I venture for conversation. I might as well pass the next 52 minutes with some entertainment. “Do you like to cook?” I ask. Well, let me tell you that this leads to a 17-minute monologue on what he likes to cook. And yes, I was watching the time by nonchalantly looking at my Apple watch telling him I was checking my heart rate. He said,” Why? Are you getting excited?” I want to respond with, “Um, no. I have a heart condition brought on by idiocy and stupidity, ” but instead say, “I think I may have an allergy to MSG.” He bought it. And even if he didn’t, WHO CARES!

The final straw of my 47-minutes-into-it date came when he told me, “Now, I’m hot!” OK, what does that mean? Does he need to take off his shirt or something? Yeah, the one where the buttons could be a firing squad at any moment as they are so taut in the buttonholes. I look at him inquisitively and he states, “I used to weigh 427 lbs and then I had gastric bypass surgery. After all of my weight loss, I’m hot!”

“That’s really great that you did that to be healthy,” I respond. But hot? I’m not really thinking so. And even if he WAS “hot,” who says that about themselves? He then offers that the pics he put on the dating site were from when he first lost all of the weight. I have to ask. “So why don’t you have any updated pictures then? Doesn’t it make sense to present yourself as you are?” I mean, if I had to do it, why couldn’t he fess up and be honest with who he is? “No one would go out with me if I put myself up as I am.” “Why on Earth would you say that? Just be who you are, ” I respond. We finish our meals, he picks up the check which was nice and I have now gone over the allotted bad date 60 minutes to 71 minutes after offering my BS in Psychology services to him about being himself on a go-forward.

We walk out together and I reach my car. 78 minutes. Another one for the crap pile. But who knows, maybe that night changed something for him. Oh, who am I kidding? He came up as one of my friend’s matches two weeks later with the same pictures and profile. I gave her the warning.

They say that dating, as with anything, is the law of numbers. If it were the law of averages, I would have one big turd pile. I guess if I could go back, I should have mastered calculus in college. Perhaps then I would be able to make a more educated guess about the ratio of crap: decent dates. Who knows. NEXT!