A Skewered Up Date
I met MVWD by random happenstance and was completely enthralled by his engaging conversation and profuse compliments. We traded numbers, wound up hanging out at a bar that night, and could not have hit it off better. I was completely smitten.
The next day, I invited him to a bbq several of my friends were having. When he showed up, he was wearing his smelly chef’s uniform (despite having had the whole day off). You could smell his BO from the other side of the room. At one point he lamented to me how his OCD was driving him mad since his clothes were dirty (showing me a small stain that I hadn’t noticed) and I helpfully suggested he go home to shower and change as there were still two hours before the party. He seemed stunned at this suggestion and would not go. It only got more painful when we got to the party.
He liked to dominate conversation. This had not been bad the previous night when it was only him and me (I’m kind of quiet, and hadn’t minded) but it quickly alienated all my friends when they couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He proved himself to be obnoxiously opinionated and baldly judgmental. He turned nastily competitive at a board game and couldn’t resist taking shots at the food (despite the fact that he was getting fed for free). He criticized the way one friend cut her guacamole, and told me that although he didn’t like sweets, he’d deign to try my brownies.
As soon as he went to the bathroom, I wound up apologizing profusely for his behavior. When he returned I fled to my own apartment hoping he would follow and leave the rest of my friends alone. When he did, he fortunately already had a convenient excuse of his own for why he needed to leave (some kind of errand), although he promised he’d come straight back. As soon as he was gone I rejoined the party and when he texted that he was on his way back I told him the party had broken up and that he shouldn’t bother. His response was “That’s okay, I’m more interested in the company than the fireworks.” Dumb SOB never realized he’d estranged the entire company, myself included!
