"Dating Disasters "
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m still single. Good-looking, Italian SWM, athletic, outdoorsy type. Likes rock climbing, travel, and long walks on the beach…
Actually, being single at this point in my life isn’t bad. There are worse things to be than an intellectual urbanite with a home on the beach, a convertible, 200K frequent flier miles, and a job that puts me in an upper tax bracket. Sure I lost my hair, but so what. Chicks dig it. Life is grand.
All of my closest friends, however, are married. All of them now have kids. I’ve visited a lot of them lately, and we spent our time together talking about where we are in life and where we are going. What’s happening, what’s news. They listened to stories about California and my trips to Africa and South America. They heard of frequent jaunts to Miami, New York and San Francisco, invitations to Carnival, sudden trips to the Caribbean and regular adventures out on the rock. They told me stories about baby showers and trips to the doctor, first steps and sleep deprivation. Who was pregnant now and who moved to the suburbs. The main decision for the evening: Should we rent a video or….ah….rent a DVD?
Needless to say, there are some social advantages to being single.
They asked about the girls I’ve been seeing and the girls I’d like to be seeing. They waxed nostalgic about their long past wild years, and lamented about their inability to find much freedom in their new and significantly more responsible roles. They remembered the chase. The office party fling. The friend with benefits. They fondly recalled their own adventures and successful romantic pursuits.
But despite all the nostalgic machismo, not a one was ready to trade in the married life for bachelorhood. They also remember the horror stories, the embarrassments, and the frustrations of being single. If faced with the prospect of flying solo again, they all would readily choose marriage.
And no, their wives weren’t sitting in the room at the time.
Even so, I can certainly understand why. Very few stories resonate as clearly and with as many people as the bad date. Everyone has had them. Everyone remembers them. Everyone wishes they could forget them. Despite my famous, on again/off again (mostly on again) relationship with celibacy, I have certainly experienced more than one bad date. I’ve flown my share of sexual sorties only to crash and burn. Eject Goose Eject!
Now admittedly, my stories are really, really tame compared to most. I’ve never broken a lovers breast implant in mid-romp to watch the surgically sculpted boobie deflate during the obviously vigorous carnal exercise. Actually, I have always wondered if it popped like a water balloon or just melted away like a scoop of ice cream on a hot sidewalk. When told this story I instinctively hear the “EEEEEEEEEEWWWW!” sound of air escaping a leaky balloon, and it never ceases to crack me up.
I never had two beautiful French Canadian girls attempt to undress me after a night of partying, only to find myself so intoxicated that the only thing I was capable of getting up was the volatile mixture of vodka and Doritos that filled my belly.
I never had a girlfriend go postal after a breakup and take revenge by stealing some regrettable, intimate photos of me and distributing them amongst my friends. And coworkers. And family. And pretty much everyone else.
I’m probably embarrassing some people who are reading this, so I’ll stop fueling the gossip machine here.
However, I do know better than to keep any evidence of any sort of romantic liaison. I don’t care what you do in the bedroom, but it’s just good advice never to have any record of it. A picture, a video, a tape recording – they are all bound to come back and bite you in the ass. Tick off the wrong lover, and that picture of you in a diaper will surely find it’s way to the Internet.
Now I may not have found pornographic infamy yet, but even I have my share of embarrassing little mishaps and dating disasters.
Dating Disaster Number 72:
Like the time…wait a minute. I just finished writing a paragraph about never having evidence lest it come back to spank you like a two hundred pound dominatrix with roid-rage, and here I am about to drop my proverbial shorts in print. Hell, I’m in double jeopardy since nearly all of the girls who were involved in these stories read these little rants of mine. I hope to God no one has any pictures I don’t know about. One day I’ll learn to take my own advice. Until then, let me get back to the business of making a complete ass of myself…
Like the time I nearly knocked myself unconscious during a dinner date in Downtown Dallas. While walking (and not paying attention) through the lower level of Reunion Tower, I caught my knee on the metal column that held a huge glass wall in place. Ouch. Not a big deal? Just a little bump on the knee, right? Well, I didn’t notice the glass. At all. So when I turned (rapidly) to grab my now throbbing knee, I spun face first into the pane of glass. Make that nose first. Like a pigeon into a recently Windexed picture window. Bang! Damn near knocked me out. I swore at the time that I must have broke my nose, my leg was useless, and my eyes were tearing as I sat on the floor bloodied and bruised like the victim of a mugging. My date was trying very hard to be sympathetic, but I could really tell she was doing everything possible not to fall over laughing. A Herculean effort that I give her credit for to this day. Here I was trying to rekindle a summer romance, and I got my butt kicked by a window. I sure know how to make an impression - with my face.
Dating Disaster Number 35:
Of course, there’s always prom.
I can see the look on Matt’s face as he reads this and the memory of that evening comes back to him. Ok, that’s enough. Stop your laughing little man or I’ll kick your ass.
My three closest friends and I all decided to do prom together, and procured a limo and dinner reservations for the evening. Only thing left for us to do was find dates. It was during those weeks before our senior prom that Matt blessed me with the moniker “Offor”. As in 0 for 1. 0 for 2. 0 for 3, etc. I was having just a bit of trouble finding a girl willing and/or able to go to prom with me, and I was really bringing down the team average as the three of them found success on their first attempts.
Can’t believe I’m reduced to writing about prom…I have no pride.
So somewhere around number fourteen on the list of solicited ladies (seriously), I finally found a mark. I ended up asking a sophomore girl, at best a casual friend of mine, and one of my sister’s girlfriends.
God, I suck.
For the life of me, I cannot remember her name. Honestly. I destroyed all evidence of the evening and worked hard to completely remove all knowledge of the evening from my cranium. Of course, my sister with her pachyderm like memory will probably email me with that information after reading this, thereby ending my self-imposed state of amnesia.
Sherri, resist that urge.
Anyway, I thought she was cute, I had always kinda liked her, and at the time, I had pretty much run out of options. Keep in mind, my previous times at bat ended in strike outs with all of my girlfriends and all of the girls I knew from work, church, swim team, varsity club, and even Miss Teen Arizona (hey, never know till you try). I seriously had run out of options. So I asked her out, and surprisingly enough, she was really excited and quickly accepted. With that, the strike out streak finally ended. Or so I thought.
So the big day rolls around, and as it turns out, my date had spent the previous night up till the wee hours at an AC/DC concert (come on – it was Tucson in the 80s!) and greeted me at the door looking something like a strung out coke junkie in a purple prom dress. I had never seen her in a dress before (she was into that 80’s gothic, new wave thing), and she wore the dress a little less gracefully than I would have. She spent the dinner mocking her date, pissing off my friends, and later took a nap in the limo. Because we were all together and the limo was our only mode of transportation, I was stuck with this bitter, pasty little brat until my friends all took their dates to the post prom parties for the prompt removal of prom dresses, and I could finally drop Casper the surly ghost at the curb of her house and return home to bed.
I told you I suck.
Dating Disaster Number 102:
A few years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a fun and spunky would be dancer with long curly hair. I happened to have seventh row center tickets to “Stomp” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center and asked her to join me. She enthusiastically accepted, and we made plans to meet at the theatre since she lived in south OC. Only one of us made it. No call. No message. No nothing. I don’t mind so much getting stood up. But stood up with $100 tickets to Stomp? That’s just wrong.
Dating Disaster Number 215:
“Uh…honey…where’d the condom go?”
Dating Disaster Number 89:
In the summer of 96, I went on a date with a slightly older, very attractive, and disarmingly witty woman that I met at a friend’s graduation party. Sometime during the drinks we were sharing after dinner she springs this one on me: “So, um, I guess I’m a lesbian now.” And I’m thinking, couldn’t she have shared that little insight before I paid for dinner? And what brought on this revelation, the date with me, or something from a little earlier?
Dating Disaster Number 222:
I once spent a surprise evening with a certain young woman making out like a couple of hormone-crazed teenagers hopped up on ecstasy. It was one of those mad, groping, passionate mack sessions that usually leaves you with hickeys and a sore jaw. At the end of this date, during our goodbyes, the aforementioned female (and aggressor in this pleasantly unexpected smooch-a-thon) says to me: “Promise you will call me.” Ok, I’m thinking, not a problem. “I will call you.”
“You promise you will call me,” she says.
“Yes, I will call you.“
“Promise me.”
“I promise I will call you.” Freak.
Three times she made me promise to call her. So I promised. And I was sincere. I admit, I had a bit of a crush on her once before, and was surprised and excited to see her warm up to me like this. I was really interested in seeing her again. So a couple days later I called her, as “promised”.
She never returned my call.
Dating Disaster Number 179:
Technically this isn’t exactly a dating disaster, and I have written about it before. However, for kicks and giggles, allow me to revisit this story one last time.
I am the only man in the world who can spend an entire month in Africa sharing a tent, a hotel, and a romantic little bungalow on the Indian Ocean with a beautiful, single American woman, who finds me attractive, funny, and smart, and still fail to get laid.
That being said, Meredith, congratulations on your engagement. And Steven, you are the luckiest SOB on the planet.
Dating Disaster Number 150:
Now this one is my personal favorite. I was really interested in this drop dead gorgeous woman I knew from my health club. She was a little older than me, with long dark hair, dark skin, and a body that you would usually see with staples in it. We had gone out a few times, but I hadn’t found a moment make a move. I finally convinced her to come to my place for dinner. I spent about $75 bucks at the grocery store that day. My menu included a Mediterranean angel hair pomodoro, tossed salad with romaine lettuce, feta cheese and fresh roma tomatoes, fresh Italian bread, and chocolate covered strawberries for desert. Not to mention a bottle of Villa Antinori Chianti. Add a few candles, a little R&B, and The Mighty Jimbo was ready for luuuuv.
After dinner, we proceeded to the couch, and I began giving this insanely beautiful woman one of my world famous back rubs. Well, they would be famous if I could convince more women to receive them, but that’s not the point.
About this time, my plucky and occasionally socially naďve roommate Christine, a petite MIT trained electrical engineer, arrived home from work (she worked flex time and was typically nocturnal). So she opens the door, walks upstairs to a candle lit living room, Maxwell on the stereo, an open bottle of wine, and her favorite roommate sitting atop a beautiful woman, giving a massage.
She takes one look at the intimate scene, says “hello”, goes into the kitchen (which is not separated from me and my date in the living room), and proceeds to bake a cake. Yes, a cake. And no, I don’t know why.
She baked a cake. And subsequently baked any sense of intimacy I once had. The mood was shot. It would have been more than a tad presumptuous to suggest that we retire to my bedroom, and any chance for a forward pass was now long past. The quarterback got sacked by a tiny Asian engineer, at fourth down, just inches from the end zone.
My date soon said goodbye, and I never got the opportunity to woo her again. Shortly after our evening devastated little miss Pillsbury, she began seeing a new boyfriend – a millionaire ex-navy SEAL in San Francisco.
Christine knocked on my door later that night, and timidly asked, “I ruined your date, didn’t I?” I just closed the door on her and began writing a Pennysaver ad for a new roommate.
But you know what still chaps my hide about this? I never even got a piece of that goddam cake.
