One thousand forty four bad dates, who's counting? (Alan)

The problem when you have a blog about bad dates is that everyone you haven’t dated thinks they can either set you up with your dream guy or that they are your dream guy and all it’s gonna take is one cup of coffee at a quaint café and love will blossom. For the record, even though you love a good rom-com, you know that real life isn’t anything like movies starring Amy Adams and Hugh Grant, nobody makes grand gestures, and none of us are going to get involved in elaborate pratfalls that lead to missed trains and airport encounters and misunderstandings of misinterpretations of compromising situations with other people that escort us, eventually, after a lot of cute outfits and romantic meals, and maybe a few tears, down the aisle with George Clooney. Instead, you will go out to said quaint café to meet your set-up and later you will call your sister and leave her a voicemail that sounds like this:

“OHMYGOD. You are NOT going to believe the date I just went on. This was IT, I thought it couldn’t get worse, and I was so, so wrong. First of all, this guy shows up and I kid you not, he is shorter than me. I’m f’ing 5 ft. 2, I am looking down on this guy. I don’t know if he was officially a midget or dwarf or whatever we’re supposed to call little people now, but he was little, like seriously, small. Not only that, but he’s like 24 years old. Maybe 23, I don’t remember. Significantly younger. And not in like a hot, younger guy and I’m a cougar kinda way, in like a, I just got out of college and I just got my own place and it’s kinda shitty, kinda way. So, I’m like, fine, I’ll humor this guy and have a cup of coffee. I spend my days being pleasant to people that I don’t really like, and I ask them questions about their families and I smile and everybody is happy, right? So, I can have one cup of coffee with this nerd.”

“So, I start asking him questions. This is the kind of answer he gives me (in this nasaly, slight speech impediment voice): “ssso, I’m sstarting a book club with my friend, well, this girl I met on the internet and it’ss a book club with just us and it’ss like a fantasy, sscience fiction book club and the first book we’re reading is four hundred and eighty seven pages, which is pretty long.” Yeah. And then I ask him where he’s from: “Well, I’ve really only lived one other place, Grand Rapids, Misshigan, and that’s like one thousand nine hundred and thirty three miles and I drove it in a car but it took like, three dayss.” Do you like movies? “Mosstly, I like science fiction movies but movies are pretty expenssive so I don’t go to movies but I have Blockbuster online, which is like eleven ninety nine a month for total access by mail plus five in store exchanges so it’s a pretty good deal and I usually watch shows like Stargate Continuum.” Very cool. He was like Rain Man. I just went on a date with Rain Man! So, I sit there, for an hour, and then I’m like, I gotta go, I got to get out of here. So, I make up some lame thing and he’s like “well, I think we seemed to hit it off sso do you want to give me your phone number and we’ll go out for a beer ssometime?” And this just completely stuns me into silence, I’m like, “Uh, no. Well, I usually keep everything online, I don’t, I don’t give out my phone number, so, yeah, email?” And I turn around and try not to RUN.”

“If this is really what it’s come to, I’m like so, discouraged by dating, and I’ve tried and I put myself out there and you know, it’s just humiliating, really, for everyone involved. So, yeah, give me a call back. Hope your day is going better than mine.”