Tuesday, July 26, 2011

50 First Dates: The Love Trials of Squire Bugiganga

***DISCLAIMER: Since my new home town is so small, I’m giving this woman a fake name, and her profession really isn’t archaeology, but it is a complicated scientific field.

Awkward: realising the cashier for the grocery store queue you’re in is the woman who told you on a date that she was in archaeology, but never called you back.

Possibly more awkward: realising the next customer in your queue is the man you told on a date that you’re in archaeology, and then never called him back.

I can only imagine that it was more awkward for her, since she didn’t make eye contact with me the whole time and her face turned redder than the apples I bought. I was actually pretty fine with everything. I thought we had a really good date, but perhaps I was wrong. Not a big deal, but this is precisely the way my single life is. I had a few questions running through my head, but didn’t address them since they were inconsequential. I had many posits: Maybe she was laid off and had to work there. Maybe she had an internship and it was over and now mama needs to pay the bills. Maybe her other/side job was not going so well, given the season. Maybe she is actually still studying for her degree and this is her moonlighting job. Who cares? She works at my grocery store, and it probably wouldn’t have been so awkward for her had she just told me, “I don’t think we’re compatible. Have a nice life!” I have tough skin, I can deal with it.

This is only one dating story. This one was nice, but I’ve been on a few dates, and even attempted to have steady girlfriends two different times to no avail. I’m pretty sure that any Rochesticle can tell you, the Rochester dating scene sucks. Let me give you some examples in anachronous order:

  • My last girlfriend broke up with me 3 times in 3 months, each reason being more nonsensical than the other. I talked logic to avoid them, but the 4th time was the charm. 4th was over a public message a friend sent me that had an inside joke. I didn’t feel like spouting logic and obliged, because I’m not a f***ing emotional punching bag. In the following two weeks, she texted and called and attempted to visit me and admitted to wanting to get me back. My favourite were the 2:00am rude interruptions of my sleep…a few weeks later, I found out she has a new boyfriend. That seems fair. But you know what? F*** it. I tried.
  • My girlfriend before that seemed fine at first, but slowly showed she didn’t have her s*** together, and eventually just saw things that weren’t there. I thought she had broken up with me, because she unfriended me on Facebook, didn’t answer any of my calls, and dropped off my birthday gift, not at my home or in my hand, but where I train. Attached was a note saying she was blowing off the most IMPORTANT day of my year, for which I had been training and preparing months before. Oh, I also didn’t hear from her on my birthday. I was apparently wrong for assuming, but the ensuing argument after my big event and birthday definitely nailed the coffin shut. F*** it. I tried.
  • Yogalicious was memorable, because the first (and only) two weeks were great, then she warned me that whenever things are going well with people she dates, she freaks out and clams up and pushes them away, to which I replied, “Well, have you tried not doing that?” She replied, “I’ll try”…so six months after I hadn’t heard from her, she warned me that her ex-boyfriend was going to murder me because of all the hateful e-mail I was sending her, to which I replied, “Huh?” Someone had opened a Gmail account in my name and sent her vicious, threatening e-mails, disparaging her and her children, the ones I never met. I filed police reports, called FBI fraud hotlines, called the NYS District Attorney, and she still thought that I woke up 6 months after she wigged out on me to write her and threaten her. Two weeks later, after my car had been vandalised and I myself got threatening emails, it turned out that it was her ex-boyfriend who had done everything. THAT’S when she believed me. She apologised, and I accepted, but the more important thing to wonder about this was this: You would let your boyfriend, an admitted violent ex-convict, around your kids, but you wouldn’t even let me see a picture of them??? Am I really worse than a violent felon? What the f***?!?!?! You know what? F*** it. I tried.
  • The dates I’ve had were interesting too: there was the anti-Semitic Jew (seriously, very Jewish and very anti-Semitic), The Drug Dealer (flighty Pharmacist), Hot Doc (she was a doctor, and she was hot), Jitterbug (amateur swing dancer), Smokestacks (did so much tobacco that her voice was deeper than mine), Stonewall (GORGEOUS woman, but refused to even try to dance), the Sensational She-Hulk (a regular conversation would go, She: “It’s hot in here.” Me: “Why don’t we open some windows?” She: “Why don’t you check that f***ing attitude at the DOOR!?!?!” [CRASH! BOOM! SLAM]…then the windows would then be permanently open), and 2nd-to-No Chance, someone I could have possibly dated, but instead went for the ex-girlfriend. She’s since acquired a boyfriend. See how that worked out? Whatever. She’s a really good friend now, and I like having beautiful friends.
  • I think my “favourite” was iTunes. She has earned her name because one day I was at her house, and she turned to me and asked, “What’s ‘iTunes’?” I looked at her, then I glanced at the MacBook Pro that she has had for over a year, and I knew that this would never work out…Don’t you look at me like that! That was just the final straw! Here are just a few:

o Straw #1: On the first date, she felt she had a right to tell me what I NEED to do with my life. Most of the stuff I NEEDED to do, I had already done, but I guess she wasn’t listening, because she was too busy making a list of what I NEEDED to do.

o Straw #2: She has cable with 500 channels, but only watches CNBC. That is her news and entertainment source.

o Straw #3: She insisted that I was lying about not missing cable, but I knew more about news and the world than she did. Why? See Straw #2.

o Straw #4: It’s hard to have an intelligent conversation with someone about current events when you have to explain issues at length, including the history. If I wanted to be a teacher, I would get licensed.

o Straw #5: It’s NOT Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topanga! Topanga is the love interest of the kid on “Boy Meets World”! I highly doubt he’s racist, because he wants to date a girl named “Topanga”.

o Straw #6: How do you not know who Jon Stewart is? Even if you said, “Oh, you mean the black Green Lantern”, that would have been a much more favourable reply than the blank stare.

o Final Straw: “What’s ‘iTunes’?”

I’m either much dumber than I let on, or I am some sort of emotional masochist, but despite all this, I still keep thinking that one day, I’ll meet some woman who will put up with my s*** and be the right combination of intelligence, dark humour, charm, and hotness. Obviously though, reincarnation exists, and I was the Marquis de Sade or something. You know what? F*** it. I will probably still try. It’s hard being a f***ing optimist sometimes.

2 comments:

  1. Screen women for crazies beforehand (you'll need patience). Don't put up with dramatic bullshit; be a leader in relationships (women respond to that more so than the sensitive side kick-even if they don't think they do)...but yeah, pickings are slim in the good ole ROC, especially if most of your social life involves capo. Good luck, man! Great writing! You remind me of someone I used to read before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Screen women for crazies beforehand (you'll need patience). Don't put up with dramatic bullshit; be a leader in relationships (women respond to that more so than the sensitive side kick-even if they don't think they do)...but yeah, pickings are slim in the good ole ROC, especially if most of your social life involves capo. Good luck, man! Great writing! You remind me of someone I used to read before.

    ReplyDelete

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