Fail-adelphia

My Very Worst Date took place when I was a junior in college, home in Philadelphia on winter break. I was on the rowing team at a private school and took only four classes a semester, but took winter and summer courses at my local college to transfer over. This particular winter break I took a course at the local campus for a state college. Each class was five hours long with a half hour break in the middle. During the break in my first class, while getting coffee, I met a foreign student from Belarus who was taking another class. He was well-dressed, tall and dark, with a Belarusian accent, and even though I wasn’t interested in dating at the time he was nice to talk to during breaks. We met up every day during our breaks and got coffee together.

On the seventh day of classes during break, he asked me out on a date. I explained that I wasn’t necessarily looking to date anyone, especially since I would be returning to my college in a month. He looked dejected, and told me that he was lonely living in the United States and didn’t have any friends here. Feeling bad, I agreed to go to dinner and a movie in the city with him. He didn’t have a car, so he asked that I pick him up the next evening at his apartment and gave me the address.

His apartment ended up being in a bad area of North Philadelphia, and knowing the area I felt incredibly unsafe waiting the forty minutes it took him to get ready. Even though this wasn’t a date, I had dressed nicely with dark jeans and a fitted top. He, on the other hand, over-dressed with a suit and tie; clearly there was a breach in customs as to what one should wear to dinner and the movies.

When he got into my car, a five-year-old Jeep, he immediately started running his hands over the console and seats, telling me that I must be rich to have afforded the car. While I drove towards a theater in the city, he continued to talk about money and how Americans don’t spend their money wisely. He pointed out my jewelry, my shoes, and my purse explaining that I wasted money that should have gone towards my family. I was never really one for material things, so I again brushed this off as cultural differences.

When we got to the movie theater parking lot, he told me that he didn’t want to see a movie or have dinner and instead wanted me to give him a driving tour of Philadelphia. I took him along Boathouse Row (one of my favorite places) and stopped to show him some of the statues along the Schuylkill River. When I turned off my car, he quickly leaned in and tried to kiss me. I stopped him, and he blatantly joked that he thought we were stopping to make out “like in the movies”. I’m not sure at this point why I continued to think that he simply didn’t know American customs, but I knew that I needed to cut the night short.

I drove him through downtown Philadelphia and down to South Street, where he asked to stop for coffee. While walking along South Street with our coffee he suddenly said that he was surprised that I had said no to dating him because in Belarus he had dated women much hotter than I was. I almost spit out my coffee as he continued to talk about how hot the women in Belarus were (“they are all models”) and how plain American women were in comparison. “You may be beautiful by American standards,” he said, “but you would not be able to find a husband in Belarus.” Clearly, I was ready to go home now.

We got to my car and I started the drive back to his apartment. Seeing a billboard for a housing development, he asked me about my parents’ house and how big it was.  He clucked his tongue when I told him, again saying that Americans were wasteful and that people in Belarus only need small apartments. Then came the biggest shock of the night: he asked me if I would be interested in getting married so that he could stay in the United States after he finished with school. I sped the entire way back to his place.

When I finally got to his apartment and stopped my car, he leaned over again to try to kiss me. I pushed him away, and he got out of my car, started walking away, then turned and tapped on my car window. I opened it, and he said, “I don’t really have a lot of furniture, but I do have an air mattress that we can sleep on if you want to come have sex.” Needless to say, I didn’t take him up on the offer and spent the rest of the winter break avoiding him. He continued to call my phone even after I returned to college until my friend answered and told him that I had died. Without missing a beat, he asked her out.