Fine. (sigh)
A compliment here and there can go a long way, I've discovered. I received a surprising amount of positive feedback for my brief introductory description of my last date. With that in mind, and given that I'm two melatonin tablets deep and probably won't be making the gym tonight, I'll take the witness stand and deliver a slightly more descriptive testimony of my travails. (Mitigating factor: the victim also suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound of shame. Clemency requested.) I had previously intended not to dig too deeply into this awful situation, hoping to put it behind me. But I went back and skimmed the girl's profile to evaluate the gravity of my error, and came to the conclusion that I was at least partly deceived; and while I won't post her profile so as to not unleash the Mongol hordes upon this poor girl, I will describe in greater detail the largely dull and unremarkable evening for your dubious reading pleasure.
But before I begin, I'd like to address an item. I took it as a compliment about my writing style, but I'm not anyone you've ever heard of before. I live in Washington, but not DC, and I've never contributed significantly to male issues other than sending $5 in tribute pay to Heartiste one time after his work emboldened me with a cute foreign girl. (A train wreck, that. My fault.) So, you've likely not seen much of my writing. I do a little bit of it here and there.
I'd picked up the OkCupid itch from the Hall of Fame thread here. While previous attempts with match.com and other dating sites had resulted in spectacular flameouts, the shame of being universally ignored and the good old Secret Internet Fattie Trick at least three times prior, the thread emboldened me to try again with a fresh new profile.
I'd changed since those awful days, of course; I got into better shape, learned to salsa dance, had started a music project in 2011. In fact, we'd just played a show and celebrated our CD release party the night before. The rock star life was yet to be established, but it was coming. Unfortunately, the rows and rows of fresh quality female talent lining up for the a shot at the lead singer were also forthcoming, and I was stuck in the lurch in between.
With some free time at work, I'd taken to shotgunning messages out on OkCupid at a fair clip. The response rate was admittedly better than I'd previously experienced.
I'd gone from sending nice dorky emails years ago (which never work) to my new routine of teasing, being funny, or just opening with completely inane chatter. I rediscovered very quickly how awful most girls' profiles are. Now we all know that neither normal men nor women are generally very good at writing profiles; however, women have the advantage of not having to suffer too much for it. Still, a number of them turned me off from their blatant inanity, insomuch that I wondered whether it was *I* who was being shallow for a moment.
That brief moment of insanity, yes. Enjoy it when it comes, slayers.
With that being said, I was pleasantly surprised by a girl's profile. It made me chuckle a bit, seemed well-thought out. All the spelling was correct. And the picture was a cute and clever one of a slightly chubby girl riding a metal tortoise.
First warning sign: well-thought out profile.
Having weathered the literary shrapnel of that roadside bomb with my brain mostly unscathed, I took a long, arduous look at her profile. And somehow I actually wanted to message her. Somewhere on her profile she suggested to tell her about particular things, or to write her a poem. Amusing request, and coincidentally one of my talents acquired from my beta-er days.
I asked her if she'd gotten any poetry just yet.
Second warning sign: she responded.
I'd previously posited that the average response rate was roughly correlated to BMI; green indicates high, red indicates (potentially) lower. In this case I was prepared to accept a little chub, mainly in remembrance of a girl I'd seen earlier this year. She had a vaguely similar look, after all, and if the body type was the same, roughly tolerable. Furthermore, she was nice. She reliably and enthusiastically responded to my messages, and it was interesting talking to her. I fired over a quickie poem I wrote while distracted at work which bordered on incredible. (Eight lines, seven minutes. Not a major investment, slayers.)
She got back to me in a few days, saying that she missed the message and loved the poem. I was head-down in rehearsal mode for the next week or so, so we swapped numbers and bounced texts back and forth. Without going into detail, I do believe they pass the billboard test; the one skillset that I generally excel at is Facebook/IM/text game. Conversational topics include a mediocre poem she wrote in return, naked bicyclists and the like. I indicated that I liked kissing but I needed to be wined and dined first - textbook move. She ate it up. (heh.)
The day came and I popped home for a quick shower before heading out to the bar where we were set. I was looking good - hair spiked, tight shirt, Catholic Jesus bracelet, topaz ring, leather jacket. I was feeling good - my debut CD blasting industrial sounds inside my BMW, about to hit up a girl who seemed good to go. And then I got the text: 'I got a seat inside by the window'
Third warning sign: she showed up before I did.
I know letting the lucky woman show up first is a habit I'll have to adapt to, and a failure to efficiently game. But I racked my brain and couldn't think of a single time this year a girl's shown up to a date before I did. Not once. And I rarely show up quite on time - I'm generally a few minutes late as it is, trying to find parking or whatnot.
The conflation of factors should have been enough. Things just never go this well under any circumstance, and I could hear the alarms sounding in my head as I made the death march, my psyche racked with suspicion and clamoring for an exit strategy already. (Is this what girls feel like when Mr. Loyal And Honest shows up to the restaurant right on time?)
'By the window' was a fairly vague reference since fully three quarters of the bar was near a window. But I milled about briefly, mentally rehearsing my escape alibi before a booth curtain swept open and I was greeted by a vision from the third circle of Dante's inferno.
I recalled a time long ago during my match.com days. I met a girl online who liked my sense of humor, was fun to chat with and seemed nice looking in those funny-angled shots on her profile page. I remember that she liked liberal politics, as did I in those days, and other fluff that I can't recall. We talked on the phone for about a week before I budgeted a weekend and drove three goddamn hours to meet her. Most vividly I recall the single word when I saw her sitting outside the Starbucks' where we planned to meet:
'Fuck.'
And again, that same word echoed throughout my consciousness, a hopeless beta schlub handing his future better self a John Kerry bitchslap from nine years ago. 'Fuck.' A single syllable, with a healthy jolt of reverb to give the word the proper gravitas this situation demanded. 'Fuck'.
Beneath me sitting in the booth was a linebacker of a woman, bearing the heft of two strapping sons underneath a too-tight shirt. Her hand was large and squishy as I took it in tepid return to her handshake, her fingernails deftly manicured and glittering with fresh polish. The booth creaked beneath her bulk.
There is no shame in getting SIF'd. Surprises can happen both ways. It's easy to get blindsided by deft camera work or sheer dishonesty. I took a bit of a flyer on this one, and the odds didn't go my way. However, what came next was my act of supreme cowardice, contrary to the Laws of Man and the Sixteen Commandments and the Fifty Iron Rules and the Tao of Steve and whatever else.
I sat down.
Already I was disgusted by the prospect of being on a date with such a shambling behemoth, when lithe and slender salsa cockteases strutted their stuff in short skirts to hot Latin beats just down the road. More so the prospect of financing overpriced calories only to add to my suitor's barely ambulatory mass; shame will heal, but money is forever. But worst of all was the betrayal I paid to my masculinity under the sheer weight (heh) of the shibboleth of not wanting to hurt the delicate creature's feelings. I did not want to be here now, roped in by a dream sold by a vague picture and pleasant smile and dashed upon the rocks of decades of culinary self-medication. And yet captive to my own disloyalty I marched myself onward, holding the pistol against my own head.
I couldn't make eye contact for several solid and awkward minutes. I rattled off a brief history of the previous night, the most utterly useless DHV's I've ever delivered.
Her hands pursed togther, her fingers touching at the tips. They reminded me of fat little sausages. She opened her purse and showed me the 175ml bottle of wine she'd brought me in reference to the 'wining and dining' I required in order to put out. I shivered inwardly, the sensation of one stepping over my grave.
She ordered a whiskey and something; I ordered a girly drink. I talked gender psychology and dropped stats on her head because it was the only goddamn interesting thing to talk about right then and there. (What, was I going to run The Cube on her or something?) Her day apparently was interesting and crazy, which I misinterpreted as 'boring'. Apparently I earned brownie points for directly recalling the completely logical expression that made it meant like she meant 'boring'. The question wandered through my head as to why I had to earn brownie points for this girl. Obligatory daggers about hourglass figures were thrown out.
I asked her how her OkCupid dating experience had been. 'Not good', she said, and recounted a few completely dull and uninteresting Microsoft guys who had attempted to romance her and the subplanetary orbital masses lashed into geosychronous orbit beneath her shirt.
Wait. Cue the record-scratch-stop-the-music sound effect. This girl's turning DOWN romance offers from RICH DUDES?
Schlubs, doubtless. But incredibly well-off schlubs, especially in terms of raw market value. 'But they kept calling,' she said, in her best 'what's a girl to do' voice. I resisted the urge to STRONGLY advise her to reconsider. A girl who successfully tames her hypergamous beast and attaches herself to a devoted IT schlub is set for life, but...
Haha, who am I kidding. Girls don't do that.
State of fallen man, etc. Anyhoo. I was in no mood to flirt, but for some reason I stayed far too long. I somehow managed to spend an hour and a half staring adult onset diabetes in the face, carrying on a sexless conversation with a sexless female in a sexless display of sexless class. She ordered a second drink, twirling her hair and asking followup questions and doing her goddamned best not to be boring. It would have worked if she were half her size.
The bill came to $26.19 after a mediocre tip to the waiter who bore full witness to my shame for the entire evening . The booth curtains held back a fraction of my humiliation before the rest of the patrons, but his servile mannerism and slender build bore full witness to my pathetic pull, and even his betatude could not repress a slick sheen of horror in his eyes.
I picked up the tab, indicated I was going to meet some friends, and left without further explanation. I never received a call back, which suits me just fine,
$26.19 is now the emblem of my new lease on life. I will carry it with me so long as I have need for it, that brash and simple reminder of the cost of sacrifiing one's self before the wasteland American females have become. I will write it on my wrist before a date, for decorum is no substitute for identity, and look down to it if I need my spirit bolstered before a declaration of independence. Life begins today, every day. Carry the lessons of the past with you, and change your future. And no fat chicks.
My final question is this: I wonder deeply what she feels the cause of the failed date is. I am not so interested in asking her, but I wonder what her thoughts are.
Stay hungry, slayers.
A compliment here and there can go a long way, I've discovered. I received a surprising amount of positive feedback for my brief introductory description of my last date. With that in mind, and given that I'm two melatonin tablets deep and probably won't be making the gym tonight, I'll take the witness stand and deliver a slightly more descriptive testimony of my travails. (Mitigating factor: the victim also suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound of shame. Clemency requested.) I had previously intended not to dig too deeply into this awful situation, hoping to put it behind me. But I went back and skimmed the girl's profile to evaluate the gravity of my error, and came to the conclusion that I was at least partly deceived; and while I won't post her profile so as to not unleash the Mongol hordes upon this poor girl, I will describe in greater detail the largely dull and unremarkable evening for your dubious reading pleasure.
But before I begin, I'd like to address an item. I took it as a compliment about my writing style, but I'm not anyone you've ever heard of before. I live in Washington, but not DC, and I've never contributed significantly to male issues other than sending $5 in tribute pay to Heartiste one time after his work emboldened me with a cute foreign girl. (A train wreck, that. My fault.) So, you've likely not seen much of my writing. I do a little bit of it here and there.
I'd picked up the OkCupid itch from the Hall of Fame thread here. While previous attempts with match.com and other dating sites had resulted in spectacular flameouts, the shame of being universally ignored and the good old Secret Internet Fattie Trick at least three times prior, the thread emboldened me to try again with a fresh new profile.
I'd changed since those awful days, of course; I got into better shape, learned to salsa dance, had started a music project in 2011. In fact, we'd just played a show and celebrated our CD release party the night before. The rock star life was yet to be established, but it was coming. Unfortunately, the rows and rows of fresh quality female talent lining up for the a shot at the lead singer were also forthcoming, and I was stuck in the lurch in between.
With some free time at work, I'd taken to shotgunning messages out on OkCupid at a fair clip. The response rate was admittedly better than I'd previously experienced.
I'd gone from sending nice dorky emails years ago (which never work) to my new routine of teasing, being funny, or just opening with completely inane chatter. I rediscovered very quickly how awful most girls' profiles are. Now we all know that neither normal men nor women are generally very good at writing profiles; however, women have the advantage of not having to suffer too much for it. Still, a number of them turned me off from their blatant inanity, insomuch that I wondered whether it was *I* who was being shallow for a moment.
That brief moment of insanity, yes. Enjoy it when it comes, slayers.
With that being said, I was pleasantly surprised by a girl's profile. It made me chuckle a bit, seemed well-thought out. All the spelling was correct. And the picture was a cute and clever one of a slightly chubby girl riding a metal tortoise.
First warning sign: well-thought out profile.
Having weathered the literary shrapnel of that roadside bomb with my brain mostly unscathed, I took a long, arduous look at her profile. And somehow I actually wanted to message her. Somewhere on her profile she suggested to tell her about particular things, or to write her a poem. Amusing request, and coincidentally one of my talents acquired from my beta-er days.
I asked her if she'd gotten any poetry just yet.
Second warning sign: she responded.
I'd previously posited that the average response rate was roughly correlated to BMI; green indicates high, red indicates (potentially) lower. In this case I was prepared to accept a little chub, mainly in remembrance of a girl I'd seen earlier this year. She had a vaguely similar look, after all, and if the body type was the same, roughly tolerable. Furthermore, she was nice. She reliably and enthusiastically responded to my messages, and it was interesting talking to her. I fired over a quickie poem I wrote while distracted at work which bordered on incredible. (Eight lines, seven minutes. Not a major investment, slayers.)
She got back to me in a few days, saying that she missed the message and loved the poem. I was head-down in rehearsal mode for the next week or so, so we swapped numbers and bounced texts back and forth. Without going into detail, I do believe they pass the billboard test; the one skillset that I generally excel at is Facebook/IM/text game. Conversational topics include a mediocre poem she wrote in return, naked bicyclists and the like. I indicated that I liked kissing but I needed to be wined and dined first - textbook move. She ate it up. (heh.)
The day came and I popped home for a quick shower before heading out to the bar where we were set. I was looking good - hair spiked, tight shirt, Catholic Jesus bracelet, topaz ring, leather jacket. I was feeling good - my debut CD blasting industrial sounds inside my BMW, about to hit up a girl who seemed good to go. And then I got the text: 'I got a seat inside by the window'
Third warning sign: she showed up before I did.
I know letting the lucky woman show up first is a habit I'll have to adapt to, and a failure to efficiently game. But I racked my brain and couldn't think of a single time this year a girl's shown up to a date before I did. Not once. And I rarely show up quite on time - I'm generally a few minutes late as it is, trying to find parking or whatnot.
The conflation of factors should have been enough. Things just never go this well under any circumstance, and I could hear the alarms sounding in my head as I made the death march, my psyche racked with suspicion and clamoring for an exit strategy already. (Is this what girls feel like when Mr. Loyal And Honest shows up to the restaurant right on time?)
'By the window' was a fairly vague reference since fully three quarters of the bar was near a window. But I milled about briefly, mentally rehearsing my escape alibi before a booth curtain swept open and I was greeted by a vision from the third circle of Dante's inferno.
I recalled a time long ago during my match.com days. I met a girl online who liked my sense of humor, was fun to chat with and seemed nice looking in those funny-angled shots on her profile page. I remember that she liked liberal politics, as did I in those days, and other fluff that I can't recall. We talked on the phone for about a week before I budgeted a weekend and drove three goddamn hours to meet her. Most vividly I recall the single word when I saw her sitting outside the Starbucks' where we planned to meet:
'Fuck.'
And again, that same word echoed throughout my consciousness, a hopeless beta schlub handing his future better self a John Kerry bitchslap from nine years ago. 'Fuck.' A single syllable, with a healthy jolt of reverb to give the word the proper gravitas this situation demanded. 'Fuck'.
Beneath me sitting in the booth was a linebacker of a woman, bearing the heft of two strapping sons underneath a too-tight shirt. Her hand was large and squishy as I took it in tepid return to her handshake, her fingernails deftly manicured and glittering with fresh polish. The booth creaked beneath her bulk.
There is no shame in getting SIF'd. Surprises can happen both ways. It's easy to get blindsided by deft camera work or sheer dishonesty. I took a bit of a flyer on this one, and the odds didn't go my way. However, what came next was my act of supreme cowardice, contrary to the Laws of Man and the Sixteen Commandments and the Fifty Iron Rules and the Tao of Steve and whatever else.
I sat down.
Already I was disgusted by the prospect of being on a date with such a shambling behemoth, when lithe and slender salsa cockteases strutted their stuff in short skirts to hot Latin beats just down the road. More so the prospect of financing overpriced calories only to add to my suitor's barely ambulatory mass; shame will heal, but money is forever. But worst of all was the betrayal I paid to my masculinity under the sheer weight (heh) of the shibboleth of not wanting to hurt the delicate creature's feelings. I did not want to be here now, roped in by a dream sold by a vague picture and pleasant smile and dashed upon the rocks of decades of culinary self-medication. And yet captive to my own disloyalty I marched myself onward, holding the pistol against my own head.
I couldn't make eye contact for several solid and awkward minutes. I rattled off a brief history of the previous night, the most utterly useless DHV's I've ever delivered.
Her hands pursed togther, her fingers touching at the tips. They reminded me of fat little sausages. She opened her purse and showed me the 175ml bottle of wine she'd brought me in reference to the 'wining and dining' I required in order to put out. I shivered inwardly, the sensation of one stepping over my grave.
She ordered a whiskey and something; I ordered a girly drink. I talked gender psychology and dropped stats on her head because it was the only goddamn interesting thing to talk about right then and there. (What, was I going to run The Cube on her or something?) Her day apparently was interesting and crazy, which I misinterpreted as 'boring'. Apparently I earned brownie points for directly recalling the completely logical expression that made it meant like she meant 'boring'. The question wandered through my head as to why I had to earn brownie points for this girl. Obligatory daggers about hourglass figures were thrown out.
I asked her how her OkCupid dating experience had been. 'Not good', she said, and recounted a few completely dull and uninteresting Microsoft guys who had attempted to romance her and the subplanetary orbital masses lashed into geosychronous orbit beneath her shirt.
Wait. Cue the record-scratch-stop-the-music sound effect. This girl's turning DOWN romance offers from RICH DUDES?
Schlubs, doubtless. But incredibly well-off schlubs, especially in terms of raw market value. 'But they kept calling,' she said, in her best 'what's a girl to do' voice. I resisted the urge to STRONGLY advise her to reconsider. A girl who successfully tames her hypergamous beast and attaches herself to a devoted IT schlub is set for life, but...
Haha, who am I kidding. Girls don't do that.
State of fallen man, etc. Anyhoo. I was in no mood to flirt, but for some reason I stayed far too long. I somehow managed to spend an hour and a half staring adult onset diabetes in the face, carrying on a sexless conversation with a sexless female in a sexless display of sexless class. She ordered a second drink, twirling her hair and asking followup questions and doing her goddamned best not to be boring. It would have worked if she were half her size.
The bill came to $26.19 after a mediocre tip to the waiter who bore full witness to my shame for the entire evening . The booth curtains held back a fraction of my humiliation before the rest of the patrons, but his servile mannerism and slender build bore full witness to my pathetic pull, and even his betatude could not repress a slick sheen of horror in his eyes.
I picked up the tab, indicated I was going to meet some friends, and left without further explanation. I never received a call back, which suits me just fine,
$26.19 is now the emblem of my new lease on life. I will carry it with me so long as I have need for it, that brash and simple reminder of the cost of sacrifiing one's self before the wasteland American females have become. I will write it on my wrist before a date, for decorum is no substitute for identity, and look down to it if I need my spirit bolstered before a declaration of independence. Life begins today, every day. Carry the lessons of the past with you, and change your future. And no fat chicks.
My final question is this: I wonder deeply what she feels the cause of the failed date is. I am not so interested in asking her, but I wonder what her thoughts are.
Stay hungry, slayers.
Check out my occasionally updated travel thread - The Wroclaw Gambit II: Dzięki Bogu - as I prepare to emigrate to Poland.
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