My worst first date actually seemed like your typical garden-variety no-chemistry internet date.
We met up at a funky martini lounge that was my default first-date place (good drinks, good food, lively crowd, music just loud enough to fill those awkward conversational gaps, and with a layout that could allow one to make a quick exit under the cover of a “bathroom trip” if things got too weird).
It started off rather well - he looked like his pictures, wasn’t emitting any noxious smells, and was doing a great job of talking to my face rather than my boobs.
Things got a bit uncomfortable as we continued talking. Apparently, he’d mistaken our date for an interview, because he went on and on and on about his fabulous job, his big paycheque, his giant house in the 'burbs, his expensive car, his big career aspirations, blah blah blah. I couldn’t really get much of a word in edgewise, so I just nodded and made the occasional interested sound.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, as this whole monologue was unfolding, he decided to up the ante by clasping one of my hands while gazing intently into my eyes. In my books, that’s just not a first date kind of move, especially since I’m rarely touchy-feely with anyone but very close friends or significant others… so I’d gently extract my hand from his ardent clasp, only to have him grab it again a second or two later. Eventually, I just kept one hand on my martini glass and the other under the table where he wouldn’t be able to reach it.
At some point, he’d run out of ways to tell me what an awesome person he was, so he decided to start telling me all about his terrible breakup with his ex instead. That’s when I drained my glass, called for the bill, and told him I’d need to call it a night becuase I had an early shift the next day. We exchanged the usual pleasantries once we got outside, and then I quickly hailed a cab before he could work up the nerve for a kiss.
A week later, he IMed me. “Nice meeting you. BTW, don’t think it’s going to work out between us.” Duh… really? That was blatantly obvious, based on how our date had ended and the fact that neither of us had emailed or IMed for the past week, but I figured I may as well ask him why he’d gotten that impression.
So here’s where it goes from bad to just laughable:
Apparently, Mr GrabbyHands felt I had been terribly rude by not inviting him home to my place that night.
You see, he’d had two martinis by the time we parted ways at 10pm, and he didn’t feel fit to drive all the way back to the suburbs in his condition… so instead, he’s been forced to go to his downtown office to sleep under his desk, and he’d gotten a terrible backache from sleeping on a hard floor all night.
That, he said, was all my fault because any girl who had any shred of compassion would have taken him back to her place and offered him a place to sleep for the night. Preferably in her bed.
:rolleyes: