The Nice Girl’s Fault
This Very Worst Date is my own damn fault. Being a wide-eyed, incredibly naive 23-year-old lands you in some dumb situations.
It (MVWD) happens after a hard break-up. Internet dating exists but hadn’t really taken off and besides, the profile business is way unromantic, right? So I post it on Craigslist. Mistake #1.
There are some crazy people on Craigslist. There are also (at the time) no picture capabilities. And so, it turns out, that attracts a certain type of demographic.
But that’s foreshadowing. Rewind to the emails I start to receive, some of which seem pretty promising! Intelligent and articulate professionals. One guy is a lawyer at a good firm, and I set up a date to meet him. I don’t think to ask for a picture, or for details, because in my la-la-land head, the person on the other side of this email exchange must look…like me, right? Normal. Maybe even kinda cute. Mistake #2.
The guy who turns up is built like an Oompa Loompa, with a face to match. He is 5 inches shorter than me and I’m 5’2. It’s like someone has set me up on a cruel gag blind date–except that cruel person is me.
But I am nice. So nice, I go through with the whole dinner date and politely laugh at jokes and then politely thank him when I leave because dang, it’s not his fault he’s only-a-mother-could-love ugly, right? Mistake #3.
My plan, though, is that when he tries to set up a second date I’ll tell him nope, sayonara. Nicely. Mistake #4.
Sure enough he calls, and I say thanks but no thanks. He asks why. I cannot tell him the reason, so I make up anything. Everything that comes to mind. At some point I remember b.s.ing that our, uh, personalities are too much alike! You know, Type A personalities, and I’m looking for Type B…
I spend an hour on the phone explaining in every possible way I can think of that doesn’t include the words “hideous” or “ugly” that I will not date him. I get off the phone when I think he has finally accepted his fate.
Of course he calls back a few days later. I spend 20 minutes turning him down.
And then he calls again a week later. I am getting mad. But he protests that the date went so well! He’s never had a date that went so well! That must mean something!
(At this point, ladies, I have to tell you that if you haven’t already done so, please read Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear, especially the chapter on why not to let a guy down nicely.)
Long story short: I dodge periodic phone calls from him for, oh, just under a year. Despite the fact that I’ve learned (when I do accidentally pick up the phone) to cut him off and hang up. Despite the fact that every time he calls, I grow increasingly hostile and irate out of sheer fear. I feel stalked and I have nightmares that he will simply show up at some stalker-like place waiting for me.
But at no point do I say “ugly,” or “short.” Nor do I ever tell him the other thing I’m thinking, which is how embarrassed I am to have been such a dumb-ass, and sorry that I got us both into this mess.
