As promised, here’s OK Cupid date disaster number two. I
really had high hopes for this one, which was probably my first mistake.
His name was Graham, he was 26 (I had just turned 24), he had
a full time job in the city doing something adult-ish, like accounting, he was
Jewish and according to his pictures he was tall and in great shape. He emailed
me with some line about me being his mom’s dream girl; I was attractive, college
educated and Jewish, this made me giggle so I decided to give him a shot. We emailed back and forth for a couple
of weeks until he finally asked me out to dinner. I suggested trivia night at my favorite bar, which was also close to
home aka within running distance to safety. He said he was "down" for that
but wanted to take me out to dinner first and suggested one of the most expensive
restaurants in the area. Maybe I’m weird, but I have this thing were I don’t
like having a first date somewhere expensive. If he "forgets" his wallet I end up paying I don’t want
to be out an insane amount of money for a crap date with a guy I’m never going to see
again-I imagine that’s how guys think on first dates too? Anyway, I told him pizza would be quicker especially if we
were planning on making trivia at 8, so we decided on a casual pizza place down
the street from the bar.
We met at the pizza place at 7pm. I
got there a few minutes early and waited out front looking for a tall, muscular,
attractive man. Instead I was approached by a short, rather plump,
unattractive male, who was slightly balding. Clearly this guy was a photo-shop
pro had very short friends. I was pissed, but really wanted to go to trivia so I decided to suck it up
and go to dinner with him, maybe looks weren't everything?
He was loud, spoke with food in his mouth and wouldn't shut up. He talked non-stop about himself and his insanely boring life. When
the check came, I tried paying for my share, he refused, we argued for a
few minutes and I finally agreed to buy the drinks at the bar if he paid for
dinner. He told me I reminded him of some chick from some TV show, I think it was mean as a compliment but it was lost on me.
We made it to trivia just as it was about to begin. Within
minutes of getting there I ran into a few friends; we hugged and caught up for
a minute or two then they joined their table for trivia and I turned back to
Graham. I swear I chatted with the girls for a total of two minutes, I introduced them to
Graham, I wasn't excluding him at all, and yet he says, “Oh hi, I thought you’d
forgotten about me, you know, your date.” I laughed and said, “Sorry, hadn't seen them since our college days!” He just rolled his eyes and mumbled
something about expecting me to pay more attention to him. Umm, seriously? I
order another drink and focus on trivia, telling myself that it will all be over soon. Did I mention he talks a lot? I forgot
to mention that he was also a know it all. We’d get questions that I knew like,
“What city is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in?” I've been there, many times,
so I'd write down Cleveland, Ohio. He would get angry and tell me that he’s 100%
positive that I’m wrong, there is no Rock and Roll in Cleveland and would change the answer to something moronic, like L.A.. This happened with over half the questions and
every single time we got the question wrong. I was less than pleased-I was hoping to win the $50 bar tab.
That’s when my friend Faye walked in with some shitty news.
The show I’d worked on for a year at CBS had just gotten cancelled. Although I was no longer working on the show, I was still
close with the staff and felt horrible for them! I was devastated
and excused myself from the date to step outside to call one of the producers to see how he was holding up. We
chatted for a good ten minutes, he was touched that I'd called and vented about his future and supporting his family, etc. Maybe it was rude of me to call my friend while on a date, but it was important to me
and Graham was being a jerk. When I returned I was visibly upset as was Graham; he was pissed that I dared console a friend while on a date with him. Icing on
the cake was when he ordered his next drink, which he needed to make himself feel better about being ditched for ten minutes. Erin, the bartender who also
happened to be one of my close friends, was at the other end of the bar, you
know, serving drinks. Well Graham wanted a drink and apparently didn't want to
wait like a normal person, instead he snapped his fingers at her and said, “Barkeep,
yo barkeep, I need another.” She took one look at him, one look at me (pity in her eyes) and turned
her back to him and continued serving drinks at the other end of the bar. He was not
humored and got louder, demanding she serve him another drink. At this point I told him that
I was too upset about my friends show getting cancelled and wanted to call it a
night. We walked out together, he got on muni, I waved goodbye and I walked
back into the bar and finished trivia with my friends.
The next day I got a text from him apologizing for his
behavior the night before. He stated that he was acting like a horrible
boyfriend and should have been more comforting in my obvious time of need, then offered to come over if I needed a shoulder to cry on. Uh, boyfriend?
I told
him I appreciated the apology, but I don’t see us having a future. He was devastated
and asked me to reconsider, that he really didn't see this break up coming,
especially via text message.
