My Worst Date

For those of you who have not had the good fortune to be privy to my previous romantic exploits, the following story may appear to be so bizarre as to be made up. Please consult with those readers who have had the questionable fortune to be close to me since my romantic life took off like a plane with one wing (i.e. not very well, and with fantastic explosions); they will assure you that they read this without batting an eye because, depressingly, stranger things have happened. Here goes:

I've been on a few bad dates in my time, when I've been lucky enough to get one. This one doesn't just take the cake, it also beats the baker and burns downs the patisserie. On a bad date, you have very little to talk about. On this date, he won't stop talking. About how much he hates Mexicans, who don't speak real Spanish (as a Spaniard this is apparently a point of pride and brazen racism for him), and he thinks fajitas are gross. A bad date doesn't share your taste in music. This date burst into an off-key rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"while we were crossing the street, admonished me for not joining in, and pronounced "peanuts" as "penis". 

Our meeting had been pretty typical:  on a Thursday afternoon boy met boy. Boy got along reasonably well with boy. Boy gave other boy number. Boy was unaware that number-taker is, in fact, lunacy incarnated bred with a tasmanian devil and Sanjaya mascarading as boy. Boy promised impending trainwreck a night out.

Enter Friday evening. After agreeing to meet me early for dinner with my great friend Kimia (who is awesome and did not deserve to be subjected to any of this), our boyo loco shows up an hour and twenty minutes late with very little explanation, sits down and refuses to order anything. Why? Because, apparently, he does "no trust the chinese". Never mind the fact that the chef at this Japanese restaurant is clearly white, it's a glass of Coca-Cola for my date. Yes, waiter, this is why we had you set an extra place. Something strange happens after his drink arrived, in that I became the third wheel on my own date. Our Spanish friend focused all of his attention on Kimia. By which I mean all of his attention on interrogating the living shit out of her. First he wanted to know why the electoral college (answer: no on really knows, please leave her alone). Then he wanted to know if she understood his Farsi (no, because he only speaks Arabic). Finally, after mentioning a meeting with a friend later that night, he politely inquired "So you are sleeping with him?" (I play fast and loose with the word politely).

We left shortly after this incident to walk Kimia to the metro. At this point, we became aware of the fact that this man-gremlin is incapable of walking and talking at the same time (which explains why it took him so goddamn long to get to the restaurant as I was giving him directions on the phone. Directions here is encouraging him to keep going down the same street he was on because, no he hadn't arrived but, yes the restaurant was on this street, he just wasn't there yet. Promise). 

With Kimia dropped off, I decided to try to lose him. So I took him up to my house and had him wait in my doorway while I ostensibly went to the bathroom. After spending ten minutes reading shampoo bottles in French, I emerged and explained that I wasn't feeling well. Even having all but described myself as Diarrhea and Incontinence, I was unable to shake him loose. It took an hour of walking around the streets of Paris with me doing nothing but complaining about how I didn't want to be there before he took the hint and let me go. Just kidding, I had to stop walking, inform him that I was cutting our date short, and then listen to a ten-minute long speech about how he would have to go home and spend the night on the phone with his mother, like he did every night, like he was so tired of doing like--what's that? I stopped listening. Please go away now.