A Gloomy Date

 

The following vignette is about a somewhat typical (because of its outcome) but untypical (because of the setting) date. 

A date for Saturday night. I was going to play music, drink beer and play pool with an educated man I'd been chatting with for a few weeks. I'd never met him in person. I drove up and down a gravel road out in the country trying to find the address. But upon locating the place and finally driving up his long, gravel road, I found I had arrived at the House of Usher, an overwhelming gloomy woodpile of washed-out gray boards and an octagonal window with stained glass rising up against the cloudy sky. 

As it started to rain, Scrooge's doppelganger came out to greet me, a great giant of a man, and my mouth was still open in surprise as I carried my accordion across two planks stretched across a veranda that was still under construction. The oppressive air continued into the dark, dimly lit house with unfinished projects scattered in repose against various walls and a row of windows so thick with film it was difficult to admire the greenery beyond the frames. But evidently, the outside world was of little interest.

We stood chatting beside a counter in the kitchen a dreadfully long time, until finally I asked 'May I sit down?'  and 'Should I put this pie in the fridge?' We talked for half an hour and he didn't offer me a drink, he had forgotten me, although he was drinking a beer. Later, I stumbled around in the dark with my arms full-on zombie in order to find the washroom. 'Do you think you could turn on a light?' I asked.

After a lackluster accordion performance and a confessional or two by the host about how he loves to be alone and finally, the offer of a beer that came wa-a-a-a-y too late, I left.

Internet Dating Disasters

I joined an internet-dating site a few years ago to try it out and have some fun and discover what's out there on the cyber-dating networks. I also spoke with others, both men and women, about their cyber experiences and while some of their dates were just downright hilarious, most of them were dating disasters.

I met a few men in person and I did make a friend or two, but I didn't have much success because who I thought I was meeting and who I met were sometimes two different things. Can anyone describe with 100% accuracy whom he or she is?  No, of course not, but here's a partial list of some guidelines that you might want to follow to make your internet dating more successful. 

1) Don't lie.
The biggest mistake is lying about your age. If you are 60 and trying to pass yourself off as 40, what’s the point? If you just want to get laid, well okay, see if it works, but if you want a permanent relationship how are you going to get past all the giving-it-away wrinkles? If you lie about your age, what else are you going to lie about? Besides, isn’t a good relationship based on trust and feeling good about yourself whether you're 40 years old or 90?

2) Put in a recent picture of yourself.
When your date arrives and sees somebody 100 lbs overweight but your profile picture showed a knockoff of Rene Zellweger, how will you explain that? A friend once told me that he showed up to a restaurant to meet someone and a woman came up to him and said ‘you must be so and so’ and he said ‘yes, but who are you?’ He didn’t recognize her because she had put her daughter’s photo online. What’s the point? Nobody’s going to call you again. Put a recent picture of yourself up and own it and not a photograph of you with your children, your grandchildren, or a photo that’s been taken from three miles away.

3) Date someone who is interested in you.
Why date someone who is just going to talk about themselves all night? I once met a fellow from New York University who just talked about his job, his job and his job the whole night. I couldn’t get a word in and when I did talk about some of my interests I noticed that he started looking around the room and yawned. I realized very quickly that he just needed to hear himself talk. He called me again, he said, because I’m a good listener, but I told him to go call a psychiatrist because they're good listeners, too.

4) Interests and values.
There’s no sense in going out with a real estate agent if you are a musician because you’d quickly become bored with each other. Common interests are important and these two would mix as well as teriyaki sauce and milk. I once went on a sail with an investment banker and four other people. It was a blind date and by the time the day was over, I wanted to rip out all his hair and set him on fire because he was such an excruciating bore. He talked about money, investments and real estate the whole day.

5) Compliments.
Uplifting comments are welcome, compliments are appreciated. It’s nice to be told you look great every once in a while. On the other hand, someone who puts you down (even subtly) or laughs at your ideas, is not interested in you, nor in helping you to attain your goals. He may wind up being an abusive clod. If you get a ‘no’ feeling in your gut when you’re with him, run. Women are intuitive and should go by their gut feelings on a first date. If you know it’s a ‘no’ then it’s a ‘no.’ How many times have you said, ‘I knew I should never have seen him again,’ but did?

6) Body language
What does his body language say? As I mentioned above, if you’re talking about something and your date starts yawning, what does that tell you? If your date ogles other women as they walk by that’s another red flag. All his attention should be on you when he is with you, not on some skirt that just walked by. Does he hold the door open for you? Does he look in your eyes when you’re talking, or is he glancing at his watch? Read the non-verbal clues. He’s just not that into you if he’s looking at his watch.

7) Cheapskates
If your date is continually counting his change, run. There is nothing worse than a cheapskate. I once shared a cab in Panama City with a fellow and the cab cost $2.00. He pulled out a wad of cash but frowned at me until I pulled out another dollar to match his. We wound up drinking wine at his friend’s house and then went out to buy more. At the cash register, the doser ducked into an aisle because he ‘forgot’ something. I paid the bill. He asked me tentatively later if I wanted reimbursement and I said no because I knew it would have killed him to part with his money. I’m positive he’s still alone.

8) Be yourself.
If you’re unsure of who and what you want, or how old you are, or you need to doctor up the photos, or worse, put in somebody else’s photo, then perhaps you’re not ready for a relationship. If you are serious, the best thing you can offer another human being is you, because you are unique. If you don’t love yourself, then don’t expect anyone else to, either. In the end, you will get tired of pretending you are somebody else in order to blend with somebody who is also pretending to be somebody else. Be yourself!