2016 Misadventures in Dating (Worst of the Worst)
If you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of lists and rankings. Per tradition, I got together with one of my good friends last night for dinner and we recapped our most colorful dating adventures throughout the year. As usual, mine were always a bit more...interesting.
5. The Angsty Poet
I met Poet at a professional development series. The morning of our second session we met for coffee. While sipping his Soy Honey Latte, he told me about his self-published book of poetry on Amazon. Yes, I judged his choice of beverage and I'm not a fan of poetry. He also shared with me his recent divorce and showed me pictures of his kid. Thus, that coffee date was the end of my curiosity in Poet. Upon realizing this, Poet tried to sell me a copy of his book. I don't purchase books without previewing a sample of the writing, so I asked him to share a sample of his book with me. He accused me, essentially a stranger, of being unsupportive. After I suggested he take some time to sort through his excess of feelings, he grammatically butchered a slew of insults and hit send. I wonder if I was the inspiration for his next poem on failed romantic quests.
4. The One with Poor...Timing
Poor Timing was fun! Until it hit him that he's divorced and permanently linked by a child to his ex-wife now. He also used the meaningless symbol of his old wedding band to subtly end things with me, and then accused me of being unfair when I refused to communicate with him afterwards.
3. The Reformed Armed Robber
This is one of my sister's new favorite stories to tell people about me. R.A.R. was a new transplant to the city. He'd moved here to start grad school at Vanderbilt and was looking to meet some new people. Apparently, I'd met him once before on a rooftop downtown and he'd asked around about me. We texted for a few weeks and a finally agreed to meet him for dinner and drinks. My curls were flawless, my face softly beat, and the summer heat just shy of being nuisance. It was really a fun date! After about an hour, I realized that the reason I didn't remember meeting R.A.R. on that rooftop was because my attention was focused on Number 2 below. I hate when my stories overlap. Anyway, we continued to communicate after that initial date and tried to make plans for another. One day, I decided to use my highly investigative skills and I Facebooked and Googled him. His Facebook was clean and wholesome! Then things turned into a Twitter story. In about 5 minutes I learned that R.A.R. had been involved in an armed robbery a few years back. Who decides to call up your closest, equally dumbass friends, take a shotgun, and rob people?! I started texting my best friends the link to the news story and they're extra, so of course, they let the emojis fly and started cracking jokes about how I could be a real life Bonnie to his Clyde. Meanwhile, I'm pacing my apartment trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.
Objective Self: "We all make mistakes when we're younger."
Normal Self: "Have we ever robbed anyone?"
Objective self: "Well, no..."
Normal self: "Does 18-25 still qualify as being young?"
Objective self: "Yes, it does..."
Normal self: "Then he's still young and stupid and probably makes reckless decisions."
Objective self: "So what are we going to do? Can we let it go and hope it never comes up again?"
Normal self: "Um no, we're going to mute him, of course."
R.A.R. is still on mute, and whenever I see him drunkenly swaying to the music in social settings, I slip away into the shadows.
2. The Repeat
Repeat is the college fling-turned-saga that keeps re-emerging. It never works out and it always ends dramatically. Think screen shots, secret trips, shady public insults, fake engagements, and blatant attempts at lies and manipulation. However, episodes of the saga have always made for great stories over wine.
1. The Father of the Year
F.O.Y. wanted me to commit to a relationship after two weeks and offered me a key to his apartment after three. After politely declining both, I spent another week trying to mend his fragile, bruised ego. I'd gotten used to the existence of his 11 year old son, and since F.O.Y. was 33, it didn't really concern me. At some point after month one, a little birdie told me that he also had an infant daughter. I don't really ease into any conversation, so I asked him about it one evening.
Me: "Quick question, is [insert name] your only kid?"
F.O.Y.: "Yes, why?"
Me: "Source told me you also had a daughter."
F.O.Y.: "Well yeah, she's new. Why would he (source) tell you that?"
Me: "Because he's not a liar and he thought I would want to know."
He told me it was complicated. "It's complicated" is always the beginning of an elaborate and unnecessary lie. Answering the question of whether or not you have a kid is never complicated, it's a simple yes or no. I didn't really care how the kid got here, I just wanted confirmation that the kid existed. I entertained the "complicated" story behind her existence and how he maintained excellent co-parent relationships with both baby mamas without going through the court system. Yeah, I know how those relationships are maintained, the same way he finesses his way out of child support. I expressed a few honest opinions to him that will not be repeated here, just know I have a way with insults. His his phone calls, messages, and voicemails are now all sent to the wasteland where blocked messages go to be forgotten.
My handling of F.O.Y. also led to my sister referring to me as Beastly.
Honorable Mention: The Screamer
After weeks of me dodging phone calls, chance encounters, and messages, I finally call to end things. I simply tell him I wasn't looking for anything serious and that he should pursue someone who wants what he wants. I have every intention on this being a quick conversation so I call on my way home from work one evening...you know, during the last five minutes of the drive. He doesn't handle it well. He's a bit of an emotional person and he gets excited easily, which is problematic because loud noises bother me. Six minutes into what I had hoped would be a reasonable conversation, he starts yelling "I don't understand, what did I do?!!" and it's coming through the speakers so loudly that my sister, who has just gotten home from work as well, walks over to my car with this concerned look on her face and once she gathers that I am completely unbothered, she laughs and motions me to turn the volume down. I explain to him again that we just don't want to same things and he's a bit more emotional than I can manage. After a week of first promises to be less emotional and then passive aggressive shots at me, Screamer's attempts to contact me are also sent to the wasteland, where they can keep F.O.Y.'s messages company.
5. The Angsty Poet
I met Poet at a professional development series. The morning of our second session we met for coffee. While sipping his Soy Honey Latte, he told me about his self-published book of poetry on Amazon. Yes, I judged his choice of beverage and I'm not a fan of poetry. He also shared with me his recent divorce and showed me pictures of his kid. Thus, that coffee date was the end of my curiosity in Poet. Upon realizing this, Poet tried to sell me a copy of his book. I don't purchase books without previewing a sample of the writing, so I asked him to share a sample of his book with me. He accused me, essentially a stranger, of being unsupportive. After I suggested he take some time to sort through his excess of feelings, he grammatically butchered a slew of insults and hit send. I wonder if I was the inspiration for his next poem on failed romantic quests.
4. The One with Poor...Timing
Poor Timing was fun! Until it hit him that he's divorced and permanently linked by a child to his ex-wife now. He also used the meaningless symbol of his old wedding band to subtly end things with me, and then accused me of being unfair when I refused to communicate with him afterwards.
3. The Reformed Armed Robber
This is one of my sister's new favorite stories to tell people about me. R.A.R. was a new transplant to the city. He'd moved here to start grad school at Vanderbilt and was looking to meet some new people. Apparently, I'd met him once before on a rooftop downtown and he'd asked around about me. We texted for a few weeks and a finally agreed to meet him for dinner and drinks. My curls were flawless, my face softly beat, and the summer heat just shy of being nuisance. It was really a fun date! After about an hour, I realized that the reason I didn't remember meeting R.A.R. on that rooftop was because my attention was focused on Number 2 below. I hate when my stories overlap. Anyway, we continued to communicate after that initial date and tried to make plans for another. One day, I decided to use my highly investigative skills and I Facebooked and Googled him. His Facebook was clean and wholesome! Then things turned into a Twitter story. In about 5 minutes I learned that R.A.R. had been involved in an armed robbery a few years back. Who decides to call up your closest, equally dumbass friends, take a shotgun, and rob people?! I started texting my best friends the link to the news story and they're extra, so of course, they let the emojis fly and started cracking jokes about how I could be a real life Bonnie to his Clyde. Meanwhile, I'm pacing my apartment trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.
Objective Self: "We all make mistakes when we're younger."
Normal Self: "Have we ever robbed anyone?"
Objective self: "Well, no..."
Normal self: "Does 18-25 still qualify as being young?"
Objective self: "Yes, it does..."
Normal self: "Then he's still young and stupid and probably makes reckless decisions."
Objective self: "So what are we going to do? Can we let it go and hope it never comes up again?"
Normal self: "Um no, we're going to mute him, of course."
R.A.R. is still on mute, and whenever I see him drunkenly swaying to the music in social settings, I slip away into the shadows.
2. The Repeat
Repeat is the college fling-turned-saga that keeps re-emerging. It never works out and it always ends dramatically. Think screen shots, secret trips, shady public insults, fake engagements, and blatant attempts at lies and manipulation. However, episodes of the saga have always made for great stories over wine.
1. The Father of the Year
F.O.Y. wanted me to commit to a relationship after two weeks and offered me a key to his apartment after three. After politely declining both, I spent another week trying to mend his fragile, bruised ego. I'd gotten used to the existence of his 11 year old son, and since F.O.Y. was 33, it didn't really concern me. At some point after month one, a little birdie told me that he also had an infant daughter. I don't really ease into any conversation, so I asked him about it one evening.
Me: "Quick question, is [insert name] your only kid?"
F.O.Y.: "Yes, why?"
Me: "Source told me you also had a daughter."
F.O.Y.: "Well yeah, she's new. Why would he (source) tell you that?"
Me: "Because he's not a liar and he thought I would want to know."
He told me it was complicated. "It's complicated" is always the beginning of an elaborate and unnecessary lie. Answering the question of whether or not you have a kid is never complicated, it's a simple yes or no. I didn't really care how the kid got here, I just wanted confirmation that the kid existed. I entertained the "complicated" story behind her existence and how he maintained excellent co-parent relationships with both baby mamas without going through the court system. Yeah, I know how those relationships are maintained, the same way he finesses his way out of child support. I expressed a few honest opinions to him that will not be repeated here, just know I have a way with insults. His his phone calls, messages, and voicemails are now all sent to the wasteland where blocked messages go to be forgotten.
My handling of F.O.Y. also led to my sister referring to me as Beastly.
Honorable Mention: The Screamer
After weeks of me dodging phone calls, chance encounters, and messages, I finally call to end things. I simply tell him I wasn't looking for anything serious and that he should pursue someone who wants what he wants. I have every intention on this being a quick conversation so I call on my way home from work one evening...you know, during the last five minutes of the drive. He doesn't handle it well. He's a bit of an emotional person and he gets excited easily, which is problematic because loud noises bother me. Six minutes into what I had hoped would be a reasonable conversation, he starts yelling "I don't understand, what did I do?!!" and it's coming through the speakers so loudly that my sister, who has just gotten home from work as well, walks over to my car with this concerned look on her face and once she gathers that I am completely unbothered, she laughs and motions me to turn the volume down. I explain to him again that we just don't want to same things and he's a bit more emotional than I can manage. After a week of first promises to be less emotional and then passive aggressive shots at me, Screamer's attempts to contact me are also sent to the wasteland, where they can keep F.O.Y.'s messages company.
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