Clash of the Personalities

To put it bluntly – the past few weeks have been nothing but a clusterfuck.  Where some people would brag about having 10 dates in 3 weeks, others would probably tend to find it a bit unhealthy.    I remember stepping off the plane after a weeks vacation in paradise visiting one of my closest childhood friends and saying – “Shelby, its time to focus on yourself.”  It was at that moment that I decided I was going to get event more serious about dieting and not just continue my current workout regimen, but also add Insanity Max 30 in to the mix.  Apparently though, when you throw that out in to the atmosphere – the cosmos have a different plan, and literally I was getting so many date opportunities that I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to potentially meet “the one”…But with lack of screening comes hilariously bad experiences….

My days lately consisted of, waking up, going to work, working out during lunch, coming home, doing insanity, shower, date, sleep and repeat.  I was preparing for date 3 of the week.  It was with a Match.com guy who I had a feeling was going to blow me off, considering we barley spoke and he kept changing his story about exactly what he was looking for, but lately I have been turning over a new leaf and have been wiling to at least give someone a chance if they fit my paper criteria and are attractive.  So naturally, with a Friday date planned, I texted him on Thursday to confirm that we were still on.  In the mean time I had met a different guy on SKOUT (yet another terrible dating app with more bugs than that one scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)  He seemed eager to hang out, so I explained to him that if my preexisting plans canceled that I would meet up for dinner with him.  I gave the match.com guy 24 hours to respond to a simple yes or no question: “Are we still on for tomorrow night.”   As I suspected, he ghosted me so I made plans with SKOUT guy to do dinner.  I really didn’t know much about SKOUT guy – aside from very little conversation and a profile picture, but feeling adventitious I decided to meet him anyways. 

When he walked through the door, he wasn’t bad looking at all, so naturally that was an initial plus.  The first thing he commented on was how we both were wearing red shirts and matched.   We both thought it was kind of funny so it helped to break the ice.  When we arrived at the table and got settled, I noticed he had no shame in checking me out as I took off my jacket.  He eyed me up and down and got a pretty big smile on his face, which I caught out of the corner of my eye.  No bullshit, I loved it.  It’s a huge confidence booster to know that someone finds you attractive, especially with the hell that I had been put through in the past few years. 

Instantly though, I noticed that his eye contact kept going from my face to my cleavage, which wasn’t even first date inappropriate.   I don’t like to put the girls out there all the way, just a little bit to make them wanting more, and clearly it was more distracting than anything for him.  After the waiter brought our menu, he then proceeded to make the following statement: “Everyone here knows that we are on our first date, you know how they know?”  Naturally intrigued I asked, “How?” to which his response? “Because we actually look interested in what the other person is saying.”  Remember that confused puppy look that I always refer to?  Talk about role reversal, for it was me that now looked like the confused puppy.  I didn’t really understand 1. Why he would say that and 2. What he meant by it?  I thought to myself, “Are you saying that eventually you don’t care about what the person you are with has to say?”  I paused for a minute and said, “I’m sorry, not really sure what you mean by that,” to which he responded, “That was supposed to be a joke.”  I looked at him and said, “That wasn’t a very funny joke…just saying.”    Being that our drinks hadn’t even arrived yet, I could already tell this was going down a disastrous path.  He then asked me what I did for a living, to which I told him and he got extremely angry for some reason.  “Are you serious? You work there?!”  I worked there for 8 years and just got fired in September for the most ridiculous reason.”  My facial expression now I can only imagine went from confused puppy to “I just witnessed someone get hit by a car”.  He then proceeded to tell me the shadiest story (mind you) of how he was the victim of corporate politics and that one person was out to get him and blah blah blah.  I think I stopped listening after the part where he got up on his soap box preaching about how he did nothing wrong.  Sadly, we hadn’t even ordered our food yet and I already wanted the server to bring the check.

After he stepped off his soap box, I then asked him the most standard question that I tend to ask anyone I go out with, “What brought you to (Insert Site name here).”  Instead of a normal response like, “Just seeing what’s out there” or “Sick of meeting people in bars” I got, “You are really intense you know that?  What damage has been done to you in the past that has made you so intense.”  For the most part, I am a very cool demeanored person, however the thought of choke slamming him on to the table seemed therapeutic at this point.   With slight anger in my voice I proceeded to tell him the experience I had in my previous relationship involving the mental abuse, lack of communication and his profession which contributed a lot to it.    He really didn’t seem too phased by it, and mid way through interrupted me to tell me that I have “very sexy hands.” 

“Excuse me?” I said, to which he said, “I have a thing with hands and feet, and I must say your hands are super sexy.  What size shoe do you wear?” He asked.   I said, “ummm 7.5”.  “Perfect,” he said.   “May I?” he asked, and before I knew it he grabbed my hand and was holding it as if one would if they were going to go kiss the back of it.  As I looked up, I caught his eyes staring at me intensely, moving from my face and then down to my cleavage and back to my face and then he began licking his lips.  This was quite possibly more disturbing than the guy that rubbed my leg under the table.  I wanted to teleport out of there, and the food hadn’t arrived. 

I hastily removed my hand and tried to change the subject, simply because I didn’t have a well thought out exit plan.  We then got on the subject of drinking.  He had pounded 2 margaritas at this point, to which I had my lemon water.  I truly feel like if I would have had any alcohol around this douche I probably would of went to jail for simple assault.    He then outright asked me what kind of drunk I was, to which I replied, “Well I can tend to be wild and crazy at times.”  “How so?” he asked.  I then proceeded to tell him one of my favorite recent drunk stories that involved myself, one of my best friends, a random male, shots of fireball and getting kicked out of the Cambodian Café on the South Side at 1:45am.  This event makes my top 3 most hilariously bad drunk stories list.  He found 0 humor in it….”Well you and I will never be drinking in public together that’s for sure.”  He said.  “In fact, we will only drink at my place, that way if you get out of control I can just kick your ass out.”  Wow…his personality is about as warm as a dead body, and he didn’t stop there…”What are you doing out on the South Side anyway, you are too old to be going out there.”  I would of given anything for a piano to fall from the sky and land on his side of the table at this point….

Finally after what seemed like weeks, the food arrived.  Being that I am on a strict portioned diet, my dinner consisted of a bun less turkey burger with one slice of cheese and an order of sweet potato fries.  Making the best of it, I loaded my burger with ketchup and mustard and naturally set all the garnishes to the side.  “Do you want these veggies? I don’t eat them.”  I asked, trying not to waste food, when I even told the server I wanted my burger plain.”  “You don’t eat vegetables, well that’s weird.”  Thank you asshole, you are the second person now to call me weird for not eating vegetables.  Your vagina whispering skills are on point tonight.  He then says to me, “What are you 12?  Your burger looks like something a child would eat.”  My reply was in true Shelby fashion, “I didn’t see any mac and cheese on the menu or I would of ordered that too.  Would you like me to throw a tantrum now or wait till we are leaving?”  He shut up pretty quickly.  At this point there were 2 pluses to the evening: 1. His mouth was full of food, allowing less time for any type of terrible conversation to come out of it and 2. This meant the date was close to ending.

When the waiter brought the bill I truly wanted to jump out of my seat and run to my car, but he just kept on talking.  Normally when someone says, “I have a confession to make” nothing good has ever came out of it, so naturally when he blindsided me with that anything goes at that point.  He then proceeded to tell me that I must have a thing for a certain type of profession because he was in fact in the same profession as my ex.  Where things kinda were starting to make sense at this point with his arrogance and clear lack of respect, I had that “Oh Shit” moment.  “Why did you lie about that, it is kind of a stupid thing to lie about.”  I said.  “I don’t care what kind of job you have, Its about if our personalities click” (which clearly they didn’t). 

His response made me want to go batshit crazy, “I’m just kidding, I’m not really that profession – I am considering training to be it though, but not there yet.” I’m pretty sure my face was about as red as my shirt with anger.  “Why the fuck would you joke about something like that, do you seriously have something wrong with you?” I asked.  “Sorry I didn’t think you would be that wound up about it,” he said.  All I heard was the mortal combat voice in my head saying, “FINISH HIM, FATALITY.”

I was literally squirming in my seat.  My legs were saying run and my mind was saying, “Remove all sharp objects from the table NOW”  So waiting for the change felt like eternity.  As we waited the Pens game was on, so I asked him, “Do you like sports/hockey/ etc?  “I don’t have time for sports, I’m too interested in cars and Women.”  I thought – well that makes sense – in order to keep any kind of Woman I’m assuming he has to hit them with his car and knock them in to comas….

Finally the change came and he asked where I was going to next.  On a whim I made up a great story about meeting up for friends on the South Side for drinks, knowing he wouldn’t try to invite himself.  I said, “What are you doing?”  His answer was what I expected, “Well my buddy from Florida was in town, so I was thinking you could call some of your single friends and maybe they could show him some “fun”.  I wanted to say, “Fun for me would be pushing you off a cliff,” but instead I said, “Oh so I am a Madame now?  I didn’t realize my purpose was to find your friend vacation vagina.  How about this, I’ll text you when I see who is out and if anyone is single then I will let you know?”  “Ok that works,” he said and I literally ran to my car like a zombie was chasing me.

Naturally I did not contact him that night, or the next day either, but apparently he thought he had nailed the date because he asked me what I was up to on Sat night and was hinting around to maybe getting together, to which I squashed pretty quickly for the entire weekend.  “Sorry got a lot going on,” I responded – to which wasn’t a lie – I truly did have plans…with myself…that I refused to break because I didn’t want to be a dick…to myself.

Sunday afternoon involved a massage and meal prep, which is my kinda day.  I then got yet another last ditch effort text from him fishing to see if I wanted to hang out:

Some people just never learn...

Keeping it real -

Shelby