I’m going to try to keep this one short and sweet, because that’s exactly what it was, short but not sweet, 59 minutes to be exact. You do your best to avoid the ‘odd balls’ by summing up their profile the best you can and looking for the obvious red flags to the best of your ability, but somehow this one slipped through the cracks. Oh hell let’s face it, he fell right through. It was a last minute date, my plans for that night had been cancelled and he happened to ask when I was free and offered to take me out that same night. “That’s a great idea!”, I said. Since it was nearing dinner time and I could use some new company, a bowl of pasta and of course an ice cold beer! But to be quite honest, I barely even had the chance to read this one’s profile before we had a date confirmed. What was I getting myself into?

We confirmed a date and a place through Match.com’s email as I was hesitant to give him my phone number. Not only was there limited information on his profile about himself, but he had only 3 pictures uploaded, obviously taken by him in his basement within a 1 minute duration: one picture featuring the left side of his face, the right side and of course a straight on view. I should have known.

Start Time of Date: 8:30pm (well look at that, I was right on time!)

I pulled up to the restaurant and saw him standing there awkwardly fixing his hair. Gosh, was he really only my age? He looked so young, like ‘illegal’ young. As soon as I introduced myself and we started walking to the restaurant, I noticed he did not give me any eye contact and looked down at the ground the entire time even when he spoke to me. Hopefully he won’t be looking down at the table the entire time we sit down to eat. Talk about awkward!

As we walked through the restaurant, I noticed everyone sitting down was staring as us as we approached our table. They must all think, “Aw, how cute. She’s taking her little brother out to dinner.”

As soon as we sat down the awkward silence in between sentences began to grow more and more noticeable. I think I had exhausted every question I could think of. One of my first questions, which is a fairly important one was:

“Do you live by yourself?”

“Yes, I do,” he said.

The waitress then came over to take our order and as soon as she left he said:

“Wait, did you ask if I live alone? No, sorry I don’t. I live with my parents. I didn’t want you to think I lived alone.”

STRIKE 1 – Lying already?!

OK, that was weird but maybe he didn’t hear me and maybe he’s just really nervous because I think I saw him shaking when he was holding the menu. He started telling me how he used to live out in CA doing video editing and just finished a music video that he seemed fairly proud of.

“I would love to see it,” I said. “I have YouTube on my iPhone, let’s watch it.”

“Oh right, you have one of those cool phones. Yeah, sure let’s search for it.”

To this day I couldn’t tell you what I searched for and watched but I will say it was the most pathetic editing job I’ve ever seen. Also, he gave me the impression that he edited the entire video. Um no, his part was about 13 seconds. I know because I timed it.

After the amazing video watching, he said he loves going to the nearby park and ride his new bike. He described to me how it has all these different gears and “it can go slow and then fast” as he demonstrated with his hands. OMG someone please get me out of here.

Next Topic: “Do you drink? I mean, do you go to the bars in town a lot? I’ve never seen you out.” I said.

“Yeah, sure. I go out a lot. I’ve been to this one bar in town once. I guess, honestly, I don’t really go out that much.”

Was that another lie? We are not doing so well here. Why does he have to pretend to be something he’s not and then change his answer? Then the sob story came: he says he only has one friend and that he doesn’t like to do much so he never gets out.

STRIKE 2 – Any guy that has only one friend is a HUGE red flag for me, especially since he’s from the area and he’s lived here awhile.

The rest of the date was a blur. All I remember is awkward silence, him answering each question with either “yes” or “no” and I’ve got to admit, at this point I was so glad I ordered garlic pasta with garlic bread. There is no way this kid is getting a kiss from me. The bill finally came and I told him I could pay my half with my card.

“No, I guess I’ll just get it, you can get the tip.”

“Sorry, I didn’t have time to stop at the ATM, I only have 2 dollar bills with me.” This was sort of a last minute thing!

“Well I don’t have any cash on me either so how do I leave a tip?” he asked.

STRIKE 3 – SERIOUSLY! If you’re paying with a card, you can put the TIP on the TIP line at the bottom of the receipt! OMG, I swear this kid wasn’t the age he said he was.

“You can put the tip on the card.” I said.

“Oh right, okay. Hey, this is a nice pen they have. Make sure I don’t take it with me. I have a bad habit of stealing pens.”

“That’s okay, people have done worse things.” I said with a smile.

THE END

End Time of Date: 9:29pm

I’ve never been so glad to say NEXT in my entire life. NEXT!!!!!

Cheers
xo