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***
I was 22. He was 27. He was a trust-fund baby. I'm not sure if he had ever had a "real" job in his entire life. It was a blind date set up by an ex boss. He shows up at my apartment looking like Francis from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Okay, whatever. He's not drop-dead handsome by any means, but maybe he's a nice guy.
We share greetings, he comes into the apartment. Usual "nice place, how long ya lived here" routine. He sits down to roll a joint. As he's about to light it, he looks at me and tells me "I don't put out on the first date. Just so you know." I say, "Wow. That's cute. You think you're gonna get lucky.' Generally I like a bit of cockiness, but he was not attractive enough for me to tolerate it.
He drives us to this hole-in-the-wall Mexican bar/restaurant. He sits across from me at the table, and we make small talk. I'm thinking this is going nowhere. Fast. Three women enter the bar and sit at the table behind him. He gets up from his side of the table and sits in the chair next to me to get a better look at the women. I'm pretty much ready to go at that time but he insists, "No, it's early. Have another drink." Orders three beers (These were on top of the two he'd already had at that point and the three he had drunk before he even got to my apartment). The bar has a lovely mariachi band playing, and he proceeds to ask them, rather loudly, if they can play a Van Halen song (Roth, not Hagar). "I'll give you $20. C'mon, play it". Those poor guys. They play the song and when it's over, I get up and tell him I think just gonna take off.
(Oh, have I mentioned that I was completely broke? He had driven us there, so I have no car. I have my purse, my cellphone and no cash. I couldn't even have took the bus to get home. I try to call my roommate at the time to see if he'll come pick me up but he's not home. I am literally stuck here. With him.)
I walk into the parking lot, and Romeo follows me (drink in hand still, waiters in full sprint to get the drink back inside). After minutes of disbelieving that I wasn't having a good time, wondering how I couldn't be having fun with *HIM* and assuring me that he is, indeed, NOT drunk, he suggests I drive his truck back to my apartment. I couldn't drive a standard at that time.
We argue and he hops in the truck. And drives off. He leaves me in the middle of the parking lot. Nice.
He calls me ten minutes later and apologizes and offers to get his dad's plane and take me to Paris for breakfast the next morning. I couldn't believe it.
I politely declined.
— Sarah R.
*** Sussudio by Matt Hilgers
Match.com some, oh, say six years ago. Her picture was cute and pert and her bio refreshingly authentic. I open the door, and she spreads her arms wide in a practiced, flourishing "ta-da!" that can be roughly translated as "Yes, this is what I really look like, and yes, I do this all the time because I'm slightly evil, and furthermore, yes, I am monitoring your expression and body language right now to see how you will handle this because it amuses me." Generally I am not a good judge of how I appear to others, but on this occasion I know my body language, facial expression and general aura are politely saying four words: I need a drink.
We are at a bar and she warns me that she "tells it like it is". It has been my experience that people who say this either a) have a deep-seated inferiority and are constantly being brusque to deflect attention; or b) are too self-centered to be bothered with tact. During the course of the forty-five minute monologue that follows, I discover she is both a) and b). I did not pay full attention; I admit this. I have empathy enough not to say, "Wow, you are not my type, and I'm going to go inside and masturbate about someone who is" and slam the door shut. I am good-natured enough to know that people like to be heard, and if you give them the chance they will tell you something interesting. And…what the hell, you know? Why not?
Then she asked me if anyone ever told me I looked like Phil Collins.
***
Seriously by Adriana E. Ramirez
I went on a date with some guy named Michael, who's a friend of a friend who contacted me via email and who I vaguely remember meeting once, sort of. He decided to take me to a brewery and restaurant where he decided he would "teach me about beer." He was average looking enough, pleasant enough, and polite enough at the beginning. Things seemed to be going well. Until he got comfortable. Really comfortable.
"You know, you look like Salma Hayek. I bet your pussy tastes like candy."
I believe my jaw actually dropped. We had been talking about our careers, the difficulties of moving to a new city, blah blah blah. So, I thought, maybe I misheard, maybe he misspoke. I should not freak out. I should give this guy a chance. Maybe it's a test. "How will she react to me saying that her pussy tastes like candy?"
"So. You're Mexican? You ever been to Tia-juana? Isn't it pathetic how those kids try to tug your sleeves and sell you Chiclets. Then they swarm if you give one of them money. It's like, whoa kids. No dinero for you. I mean... Chiclets! Can't they sell Orbit or something. Who chews Chiclets anymore? Right? You hearing me? Oh. Were you one of those kids? Jesus, I'm sorry. HA!"
Suddenly I understood. He thought he was being funny. And charming. Great. I pulled out pen and paper, because I needed to write this stuff down.
"You going to write a story about me? That's great. I want to be the handsome love interest."
I just looked at him. "Sure," I muttered, "you're the hero."
Other favorites include:
"Could you drink your beer any slower? Geez. It's taken you forty-five minutes to drink that thing [a pint of the stoutiest stout ever while I was eating]. You want the kiddies menu? Hey, Sergei [the waiter] do you have a kiddie beer menu? Cuz we got a slow one here. She's hot and slow. All over."
"So, I gotta tell you, I'm not a twenty-seven-year-old grad student. I'm a thirty-five-year-old clinical-trial pharmacist. But that's kinda like the same thing. Except I get drugs. But I don't do them, nope to dope!"
"I stopped doing coke because I was afraid of getting STDs after my best friend got beat up by a thirty-nine year old he was fucking to get drugs. What a crack whore faggot! Didn't even know it wasn't a bitch he was fucking!"
What about me suggests that this is okay? Is it my candor? Or the fact that I laugh at everything, even when I'm totally uncomfortable, so it allows people to truly be themselves? Just because a man buys me drinks and two orders of pierogies doesn't mean I'll fuck him.
"What do you mean we have to leave? It's not even prisoner's bedtime."
It may not have been "prisoner's bedtime," but it was definitely time to break out.
***
I met Dieter online, and we arranged to meet for dinner and a movie. We met at a coffee shop next door to the movie theatre and brief introductions and niceties followed. Then he sat down and said, "I just want to make it clear that there won't be any exchange of money at the end of the evening."
Shocked, I agreed he wouldn't be paying me, and he apologized and told me a couple of stories about girls who had hung all over him, gone back to his place, and on their way out the door had said, "That'll be $300."
Given that, I decided to be generous and understanding. He asked what I did, and when I told him I was a web designer, he declared rather proudly that he had his own web server. Furthermore, he had three pet rabbits and had built them their own web site, which apparently even involved getting the rabbits' approval. He added dramatically, "Of course, I have other sites on my server too, but . . . I don't want to talk about those."
I asked him what he did. He was an accountant. Since it was March, it was his busy time of year. "The rest of the year is pretty slow and quiet for me, but luckily I have other sources of income, but . . . I don't want to talk about that."
When we arrived at the movie theatre ticket booth, I pulled my wallet from my purse. Dieter said, "I'll pay for the movie tickets. For now."
Wondering what "for now" meant, I let him pay and he offered concessions and I declined. He then went on for five minutes in a very loud voice about how glad he was I didn't want concessions because they were a rip-off.
I spent the entire movie squished into the side of the seat far away from him, with both hands resting on the opposite armrest .
For dinner, Dieter took me to Boston Market. At the counter, he ordered two meals. I thought he was ordering for me, so I stopped him. "Oh, I'm not ordering for you," he said. "I'm really hungry."
Dieter walked away from the counter to find a seat. Apparently, it was my turn to pay for dinner — which with his two ridiculously large meals was well over the amount he had spent on movie tickets.
I hunched over my dinner and shoveled in my food as quickly as I could. Dieter went on about his personal crusade to end prostitution on Craigslist and how he was hounding the Hollywood police department to put a stop to it. He said, "I've become very familiar with the Hollywood and Vine area lately, but . . . I don't want to talk about why."
We finally left the restaurant and headed back toward the movie theatre. "I'm parked up here to the left," he said. "Oh, I'm to the right. I can cross the street now! Better go before I have to wait through the light! See you later!" I called over my shoulder as I ran across the street.
— Natalie MacLees
***
I'd been out with this girl a twice before. She was hot: body of a dancer, face of a model and attitude of Marilyn Monroe. Only problem was she liked to drink — a lot — and she liked male attention. So after dinner and a few rounds of pool at a bar, she's smashed and starts flirting, actively, with other guys at the bar, ignoring me completely. I tell her I'm leaving. She chases me out of the bar trying to apologize. I agree to drive her home, only because I brought her. During the drive, she starts crying and declaring her love for me! Love? This is our third date and she was sitting in another guy's lap whispering in his ear! At this point, I think she's not even feeling all the shots the other guys bought her. I pull over and tell her it's just not going to work out. After a half-hour of crying and begging, she gives up, but asks one favor: Not to take her home tonight. She doesn't want her five-year-old son to see her so drunk. Fine, I'm a single parent too, and she's way too drunk to care for a child anyway.
By the time we get to my place she's passed out, I can't wake her. So I have to carry her into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom. I tuck her in and crawl in bed next to her and crash.
A few hours later, I awake in the dark hearing the sound of water pouring. I jump up and flip on a light, expecting to catch my dog in the act of peeing on my bedroom floor. Only it's my date, squatting in the middle of my floor, with her undies around her ankles and her skirt pulled up, just letting the dam burst. I call out her name. I yell her name. No response, she's asleep. So I toss a towel under her and wait. She really had to pee. When she's done, she gets back into bed and zonks out again. I took her home the next morning and never saw her again. She remembered the break-up in the car, and the reason why. I didn't ask if she remembered peeing on my floor.
— Charles Freeland
***
Yellow, Just Like Galliano by Sara Percy
I'd never been the girl to grow moist over a man in uniform, but figured I had nothing to lose and agreed to go out on a date with a cop.
Not surprisingly, he spent the entire drive to the restaurant talking about himself and his job.
"I feel really comfortable with you. Like I can tell you anything," he said and proceeded to tell me about all the women who hit on him while he's on patrol and how he once hooked up with one while he was working. He hadn't been able to finish up, but had happily driven around the rest of his shift with the smell of her pussy on his fingers.
I tried to change the subject, asking what he'd done before he was a cop. He told me he served in Bosnia. Unfamiliar with anything military-related, all I could muster was "that must have been tough."
"The toughest part," he replied, "was the lack of sex." Apparently, he and all the guys in his unit used to go into the port-a-potty at their camp to jerk off. On one particularly hot day, despite it smelling like "a thousand exploding assholes" in there, he decided to spank it anyway.
Beaming with pride, "it hit the ceiling of the port-a-potty, man! It was awesome. Then, I realized I had to clean it all up before the next guy came in."
Unsure if the pun was intended, I didn't dare ask, not wanting to encourage him.
"Do you know what I learned while I was in Bosnia?"
"I can't even begin to imagine." I replied.
He pointed at the rows of bottles behind the bar. "See the Galliano over there on the left?"
"Yes."
"Well, I bet you didn't know that dog jizz is yellow just like Galliano."
Almost certain I was on some sort of Jackass version of Candid Camera, I couldn't help but ask, "How is it that you know that?"
One night, they'd all been playing poker with the stray dog they'd adopted lying under the table, when he'd felt something hit his leg. Looking down, he realized that the dog with full "eraser dick" had just jizzed on him and that it was bright yellow. Before he could clean himself, the dog began to lick it off. Disgusted, but not really wanting to do it himself, he let him continue until it was all gone.
What can one possibly say to that? There are no words. In shock, I remained mute as he paid the bill.
When we got up to go, he pointed at my purse and whistled: "I bet that purse probably cost more than everything I'm wearing put together or maybe even one of my truck payments. What kind of purse is that?"
It was pretty much the only question he'd asked me all night. And I was only too happy to answer. "Dior by Galliano...of course."
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