Instead of my regular update, I'm going to tell you a little story.
I've been on the dating website OKCupid on and off now for probably two and a half to three years. It's been up and down in terms of quality, but I've never had any really awful dates. Boring dates, yes; dates where I totally wasn't interested in the guy, yes, but never truly awful.
Until Saturday.
I finally decided to reactivate my account in Maine, and I wasn't having too many really interesting prospects. I've been chatting with a bunch of different guys, but nobody really stuck out to me. Then I started talking to two pretty interesting, seemingly intelligent guys. One's name is Craig (more about him in a minute) and the other's is Ben.
So after not too long (maybe two or three days) of messaging on the site, Ben gives me his number. I waited for a little bit, and then on Saturday, while I was in Augusta, I sent him a text. He texted me back later that day, and eventually asked if I'd like to get dinner with him. I said yes, showered and made myself pretty, and headed back to Augusta.
We met at this little bar/lounge which has really good pizza. By the time we walked inside, I knew this had been a mistake. My first clue was the fact that he immediately gave me a side hug when he got close enough to me. Now, I know some people are huggers, but we had not been talking long enough for me to be comfortable with that right off the bat.
Then we got inside. We were trying to decide what kind of pizza to get, which is when he started asking me questions while referring to me in the third person. "What kind of pizza does Liz like?" he asked me. Classy, dude. We continued to make awkward conversation (I was letting him do all the work cause I had already checked out) and every time there was a lull in conversation, he'd do this creepy smile at me. He also wasn't really listening to my answers, letting me get halfway through an explanation before he'd make some snide comment or joke about something I had said. One I remember in particular was when I was talking about how I thought that I could be happy doing marketing for an arts company. He responded, "So you're gonna go work for Crayola?"
Later, he made a snide comment about our waitress "taking her sweet time" bringing us the bill. She was fabulous, really friendly, and was a) tending to other customers and b) trying to let us enjoy our time together. In the grand scheme of things, we probably waited between five and seven minutes. He left her a $2 tip on a $21 bill. Rude.
Then we went to walk by the river (because I don't feel right dining and dashing like that) and continued to talk. He continued to make douchey comments and ask me questions without really listening to the answers. When I asked him what he did, he handed me his card. I held out for another 10 minutes or so before telling him I should probably go.
The minute I got into my car, I burst out laughing. I couldn't believe it had only been an hour and fifteen minutes. Literally, I didn't know people like him actually existed. I have never met someone so arrogant, self-centered, and just all around douchey in my life. He had told me previously that he had been in a four year relationship, and all I could think was, "Who would be dumb enough to spend that much time with you!?"
The good news is, I got a free meal out of it, and it was so hysterically bad that at least now I have a good story. And, regardless of him being a douche, he's not an idiot because he hasn't contacted me since.
Learn from my hilarious mistakes, guys. Always talk to people long enough to make sure they're not complete assholes before you go out with them.
On the Craig front, he's in Colorado for a week for a wedding, but when he gets back, we're gonna hang out. We've been talking for a little while (over a week) and he seems really great. Even if he doesn't work out on the romance front, he could definitely become a really good friend.
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