When I had a dream job at the telescope on top of Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii, a local interior designer invited me through match.com to a nearby French Restaurant. While eating, she signaled what she wanted by turning a bra-strap readjustment into extended public rubbing of her chest. But I just kept talking, trying to ignore her display. When I looked at her, she stopped moving her hand, but left it under her blouse on her chest. We ended the date with an exchange of business cards — I gave her two after asking her to not show anyone the “funny” one – I said it might not be professional.
We talked the next day. I suppose it wasn’t a good move to tell her “let’s be friends” since I thought I had found a better match (a schoolteacher), but she didn’t have to send me an email listing every complaint she could pin on me from only one lunch date. Her theme was that I had not given her enough attention. “You weren’t inquisitive enough,” she whined. I tried to calm her by replying I hadn’t felt well. I was an astronomer who had been up too much at night. Besides, her hand display was distracting me. She emailed back that not feeling well was no excuse for not giving her more attention. “You didn’t even Google me!”
Didn’t “Google” her? This was too much! I told her straight out I was enjoying the hand display. No problem with it. It showed she was healthy, but it distracted me. I said she had gone too long without a partner.
So the very next morning the boss called me and told me he was terminating me because of some Google email forwarded by a completely unaffiliated party! The supposed “good news” was he would be giving me $4000 of therapy. He called my Gmail “inappropriate behavior” – I suppose for saying the display was a turn on. The irony is that, up until this point, this boss had been all about defending the privacy of Gmail, yet this was all Google and match.com email.
Seeing I was vulnerable, my date had faxed the “bad” business card to my boss. In her email to him, she whined I didn’t ask about her accomplishments and achievements: “He didn’t treat me like a human being!” She actually told someone’s boss, “to my dismay, my new blouse was too large and shifting.”
I had to move from Maui. Such vengeance from an unaffiliated drama queen had better be the most damaging date ever. This is all in my Gmail!
I lost my career in astronomy, but the date and the boss were so funny I have taken up stand up comedy.
I met this guy (we’ll call him Jim, although that’s not his name). Jim is 30 years old and used to be a freelance editor in LA, but moved to my area when the economy went bad “to be closer to his family” (which I’m pretty sure translates to “to live with his parents.” Nothing wrong with that…we’ve all done it). He seemed nice, and was attractive and seemingly intelligent, so when he asked me out I said sure…I figured if anything, I could start making some friends in the area. We decided to go see a movie and get some food after, so I got a babysitter and gave him my number, and we were good to go.
You guys. He showed up wearing the shoes pictured above.
I don’t care how comfortable these shoes are; they are fucking ugly. They are not meant to be worn in public, much less on a first date. When I noticed, I winced a little (okay, a lot), but I shrugged it off. So what, he’s got horrible taste in clothes…so did my last boyfriend. This is Santa Cruz – at least he was wearing shoes.
We went to see Easy A, which was adorable, as I expected. The only thing that disturbed my viewing pleasure was my awful date, who guffawed loudly the whole time while slapping his knee and practically causing me to go deaf in my left ear. He also repeated every line that he thought was funny. The movie is a comedy…this happened way too often. I’m pretty sure 90% of the theater turned around to stare at him (and consequently, me) at least a few times (somehow he seemed to be blissfully unaware). Considering we were in a theater full of teenage girls who were giggling and talking the entire time, this kind of attention is saying quite a lot.
Afterward, we went out to grab some food. I was hoping he was just enthusiastic about movies and that dinner with him at least wouldn’t suck (I couldn’t think of a way to get out of it), but unfortunately this was not the case. We went to a vegetarian restaurant, and he insisted on arguing with me about veganism (apparently, he had a roommate who was vegan ten years ago, which makes him an expert). According to him, there are no health benefits and it doesn’t make sense (whatever). Being vegan is an educated decision – I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to completely change my lifestyle. I’d considered it for a long time before deciding to go for it (and the change was gradual). Obviously, it’s incredibly obnoxious (not to mention insulting) for someone to act like I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I guess defending my veganism is something I should get used to, but it’s still not something I’d expect on a first date.
Anyway, I somehow managed to change the subject to something more amiable, then ate fast and declined desert (claiming that I needed to get home to relieve my babysitter), and skillfully dodged the goodnight kiss. He told me he’d be in touch (ugh, kill me now) and we parted ways. He has since texted me about 1,000 times. (This includes one time from the grocery store asking me what kind of milk he should get for his granola, and then a second text complaining when I didn’t respond before he left the store. True story. He got vanilla coconut milk. Like I give a fuck.) I will swiftly be putting an end to this when I see him next (or changing my number).
I had just moved back to my hometown and I was feeling lonely (read: horny) so my mother decided to hook me with a friend of a colleague. I had left my first love almost a year before that and I was just looking for some fun. This guy and I exchanged a couple of emails and decided to meet in person.
We had a couple of fun dates, but we mostly just ate out and had sex once a week – it was definitely nothing serious. He was an okay guy, really immature for his age (32). He had just gotten out of a seven year relationship six months before that so I wasn’t afraid that he would want anything more.
After a month and a half, I got bored and I just wasn’t attracted to him anymore. When I decided to stop seeing him, I wrote him an email saying that It had been nice but that It wasn’t going anywhere, that I was ready for another chapter in my life. He wrote back to me asking for more details. Three times. Every time, I would re-explain myself. For three days, he didn’t write back so I told myself that he finally understood. I mean, we weren’t a couple, and he never said that he loved me. I was also leaving town the year after that, plus I had clarified from the beginning that I wasn’t ready to be in a relationship.
But then the guy sent me a two-page email talking about his life, his work, etc. as if I had never told him that I didn’t want to see him anymore! It was really creepy. The day after, another one arrived, saying that I could have waited before leaving him, that he wanted to dine out that Saturday night and that I would have had a real reason to stop seeing him in a month because he was getting his head shaved. (WTF, I know that I love long hair, but leaving a guy because of that???) The same night, he sent me another message asking me why I left him and that he loved me very much. Before he wrote any of these emails, he would call three of four times at my house (I never picked up) without leaving a message.
I finally responded asking him to leave me alone, that he should get over it. To this, he responded that he didn’t do anything to be treated that way, that I was an immature bitch ( I’m ten years younger than him), that he was very attached to me and happy with me (even though he never acted like he was when we were “together”). He was very, very angry and acted like I was the one who was not reacting normally in the situation. I started to sleep with a butcher knife, because I was afraid he would sneak into my apartment (I live alone in a basement apartment).
I finally sent him an email telling him he was acting like a psycho and if he called another time or wrote to me another time, I would call the police. I never heard from him again…
Earlier this year I went of a few dates with a Brazilian guy I met on the internet who seemed perfectly lovely and charming. On our first date we went to a really trendy place in Melbourne and shared a gourmet pizza and wine, which I drank most of. Despite this he paid for everything and I was very impressed! I even gave him a kiss when I walked him to his nearby apartment.
The second date didn’t go so well. We met at a pub and at some point during the conversation he decreed that I should never be allowed to add him on Facebook. I asked him why and he told me it was because I would find out his real age. He was 29, I’m 19. Sure I was a little shocked! I went with the flow regardless and ended up in his apartment. He offered to cook me some noodles.
Ramen! I ate the noodles quite happily and watched a film with him on the futon (Hard Candy, which kind of froze the atmosphere over). His apartment was open plan and he had two roommates, but that (and the disturbing nature of that movie!) didn’t stop him from groping me and pressing himself on me. I informed him that I wasn’t in the mood to have sex and he responded with, “But I made you noodles!”
I was almost speechless, but I did manage to tell him, “Wow, dude. If I was a prostitute you just paid me sixty-four cents.” He just laughed and continued to feel me up. Woooooo.
Naively I did see him a few more times. Another thing that he said that sticks out in my mind is, “Why do Australians wear such huge underwears?”
It was Friday night and my college was hosting a Foam Dance Party. My friend Kay and I decided to go and of course, first we got tipsy.
The concept of it was that the college rented an inflatable dance floor with five-foot walls and a foam machine. People were dancing in the suds that came up to your waist and Kay was whipping out her awesome dance moves. A little while in, it turned out she had underestimated her alcohol intake and I had to keep saving her from guys who took that as an incentive to molest her – I mean, dance with her.
At one point, a guy came up to me and asked me to dance and I agreed. It was a party, after all, and in between rescuing Kay, I’d been dancing with other dudes, so I agreed. Unfortunately, this guy was not drunk or tipsy. That’s normally not a problem, except he was also extremely awkward. While dancing, he decided to strike up a conversation – about genetically modified organisms. Yeah, my clothes were soaked with foam, Beyonce was belting out her sweet serenade and I was listening to this guy go on about GMOs.
That would have been fine, because Kay needed me again and I escaped, except he later friended me on Facebook. He tried chatting with me via the internet, but I had to stop responding after the second or third conversation. He did that thing where you ask someone out without actually doing it – you know, let’s “hang out” instead of “go out.” The second time, he wanted to take me to a bar. His insistence went over the line when he stopped sounding like, “It’ll be chill and I’ll even be DD,” and started sounding more like “You should get totally wasted while I stay completely sober and drive you around.” I played sick.
For a guy who wouldn’t drink, he sure didn’t mind when the ladies did!
