Flypaper for Freaks

So I decided to try to actually date before getting married. Again. Living in a college town makes things a little tough, so I thought I would give online dating a try. Can you say mistake? I know, I know, there’s always that one perfect couple. You know the one. They met online, talked for years, flew thousands of miles to meet and are now living out their dreams with 2.5 kids in the suburbs. Well, no such luck for this single girl. Why, you ask? Well, follow along and you will see.

Mr. "X" and I met through a mutual friend on myspace. Not the typical match.com date, I know. But we did meet online and we did go on a blind date, so it counts.





So Mr. “X” picks me up and takes me to a nice Japanese grill. Things seem to be going good…he has good taste in restaurants. And a car.

So we sit at the grill and begin chatting about whatever it is you chat about on those first-uncomfortable-don’t know what to say to each other dates. In these situations I tend to get quiet. And order a drink. Apparently the silence made Mr. “X” uncomfortable and he began telling me what a bad date he is. To explain himself he fills me in on his recent divorce. Every. Last. Detail. I try to reassure him that he is doing fine and redirect him to something else. Anything else. He lightens up a bit and even begins telling jokes. But then he commits a mortal sin. He said something silly and then he ELBOWS me! You know the elbow in the side he he nudge ‘you get it?’ kind of elbow? Yeah, that! I must admit, I did not know until that moment that elbows were a deal breaker!

Although Mr. “X” and I never had another date, we did end up becoming friends. Funny thing about small towns, everyone knows everyone. Turns out he runs in the same circles as I found myself running in a few months later.

Now I didn’t give up that easy. One little elbow isn’t going to keep this girl down! So I joined an online dating site. You know the one that always has Mr. Hottie tapping on the monitor when you open your social network site? Yeah, that one. Creepy? Yes. Hot? Yes.

This is where I met Mr. “Y”. He seemed to be a nice guy and we seemed to have enough in common. He is a high school science teacher, I took science. He taught at an alternative school, I went to an alternative school.

We decided to meet at a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. I arrived fashionably early and sat in the parking lot until I was fashionable 5 minutes late. I walked in and he was at the bar finishing his 2^nd or 3^rd margarita watching football. He (while sitting) pulls out the stool and offers to buy me a drink. I ordered a margarita and he offers to buy me chips and salsa. I am realizing that this is supposed to be “dinner”. Um… ok? We make small talk for a while and I am utterly bored. Then. THEN in the midst of some silly tale he is telling, he ELBOWS ME?! Seriously? Well, as you might have guessed, I all of a sudden remembered something else I had to do. Like clean the cat box. He elbowed me. Maybe they should call it elbows.com.

And that was the end of match.com. I did sign up for a couple of other sites and went on a few one time dates, but nothing write home about. At this point I had decided that either I was looking too hard, or I had already used my chances up and I better just settle as the cat lady. Cats aren’t so bad.

As I am cancelling all of my accounts I receive a message from what seems to be a potential catch. Or worth checking out anyways. (I am not really counting on anything after the elbow incidents). We exchange digits and he begins texting me intermittently. Mind you, no phone calls. Just text. After a week or so of this he asks me if I want to do something for Valentines Day. What can it hurt? Its better than sitting around with blatant reminders everywhere that I am a single elbow magnet.

Let me give you a little history of what I know about this guy before we go on our date. He lives an hour away in the big city, he has a 9 year old son and he is a limo driver. And that’s about it.

Date day. I have a hangover. He moves the date from 8pm to 4pm and asks if I mind if I ride with him to do a quick job on the way to dinner. It doesn’t seem to hinder our plans and I agree. He shows up in this amazing Escalade 20 seater limo in my little cul-de-sac. (bet the neighbors are peeking!) He walks up and gives me a big hug and asks if I want to see the limo. Well of course! I wont get into details but this thing is totally decked out with fluorescent lighting and the works!

Now mind you, I have been checking out the limo, not the driver. My date, the driver. I begin the sly-eye, trying to check him out without checking him out. This dude looks like a Don Johnson reject. Slicked back hair with 5 pounds of glue in it, fake gold chains and bracelets and a fake rolex. Yum. I wont look. Looks don’t mean everything.

Its time to leave for our date and we get in the Escalade. Did you know the front of a limo looks just like any other car? Except the seats sit straight up, kind of like those back seats in the airplane. So as I sit erect in my seat and we head down the road, he tells me the plan. We are going to pick up 20 8^th graders and drop them off at a dance. Now if alarms weren’t going off yet, they should be now. But I am trying to make the best of it as the town we are picking these kids up in is small (and 50 miles away) so it shouldn’t be too bad. Wrong.

Have you ever heard what 20 excited young teenagers sound like when crammed into a school bus? Ok, well multiply that by 10 and add a bad rap single played on repeat. And better yet, add the fact that we are not allowed to raise the partition because they are minors. And do they want to just go straight to the dance? No, they want to cruise around. As if there was somewhere to cruise. An hour later we drop them at the dance and the (paying) parent comes and talks to my date. Apparently she has booked him until MIDNIGHT! But she is going to be nice and let us go have a couple hours to ourselves and eat. Thanks for telling me dude. Appreciate it.

Since we were so far from my house there was no going back now. And I was hungry. Oh, and FYI? They don’t have limousine parking at Chili’s. So after the ½ mile trek with me in heels we found ourselves sitting at the bar at Chili’s for our meal. No, he did not make reservations. He orders a drink, I order water. Between all of his cheesy car salesman pitches of his greatness, he tries to convince me that I am a loser if I don’t get drunk. HA HA no. I have now been on this date for 4 hours and 10 minutes. And the first 4 hours were with 20 8^th graders. This may seem like the perfect time for multiple strong drinks, but I was still stuck in this town 50 miles away. My internal mantra screams “shut the hell up and take me home! Shut the hell up and take me home!” as I politely say no thank you and eat my dinner in silence.

This date continued on in the same manner until we dropped the lovely children off at midnight and he drove me home, still screaming his own praises.

And that… was my last date. Cats really aren’t so bad.