Ten Days in Burma - Part 3
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
This was not my first foray into J-dating territory. I first went on a Jdate in June of 2001. I posted my picture and profile and within 24 hours, received over 100 emails. Of those, most boys bored me, a few boys scared me, but one boy intrigued me. We talked on the phone for an hour. I had very little interest in prolonging the mystery of the emails and the man behind the voice, so we arranged to meet for dinner. (Dinner? DINNER??? DON'T EVER MEET A BLIND DATE for dinner. A drink is sufficient. If you like each other it will lead to dinner but you rarely do...Sadly, as you will see, I didn't learn this until waaaaaaaay into my dating days.)
Everything was going just fine until he revealed to me on that very first date that he had been in rehab. For cocaine. And heroin!????!?! According to him, it wasn't a big deal. He didn’t really have a problem, but his parents had felt that he needed to be there. Just this small feeling they got when they found out their son was SHOOTING UP HEROIN. A recovering drug addict in denial of his addiction. That’s encouraging. I suppose I applaud him for being upfront. Sort of. We all have skeletons and history and secrets in our closets. But sometimes it’s best to keep them there past the first HOUR of a date. And it's probably best not to tell me this right after you order your second scotch on the rocks.
The evening only got worse when he kissed me good night. I felt like a fish out of water…in my MOUTH. I couldn’t escape quickly enough. I collapsed into the backseat of a cab feeling frustrated, slightly disgusted, and lonelier than when the evening had begun. Dating was supposed to feel good, I thought. I was supposed to feel excited by the fact that I was putting myself out there. I wasn't supposed to feel let down by a single date with a guy that I never wanted to see again. But alas, I spent the drive uptown contemplating calling my college boyfriend.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the next day I got an email from him asking me to go out again that said:
How about that kiss? WOW.
Cut to the summer of 2002 when I had a very BAD experience with a member of the opposite sex. Recently, when someone referred to this person as my ex-boyfriend, I corrected them and told them I prefer to refer to him as “my learning experience.” In my closer circles, I also refer to him as Fuckhead. After dealing with this selfish, self-centered, childish asshole, my best friends encouraged me to give JDate another go. With reluctance, I agreed.
I went on date 1 with a guy who looked nothing like his picture, lied about his height, and basically lied about who he was (although I truly think that last part was unintentional - I don't think he knew who he was.)
Let's discuss the lying - shall we? I can’t really understand lying about anything – I mean, ultimately, isn’t the goal to meet the person on the receiving end of your emails? When they SEE you, they're going to clearly know that something about the way you described yourself is a bit far from the truth. Personally, I don’t think that’s the best way to start a relationship that's supposed to have a foundation built on trust. At least that was one of the things that I'd said I hoped for in my list of relationship wants.
Lie Guy was nice enough and sweet enough and most definitely not for me. Still, I found myself being flirty because it felt fun, even though in my heart I knew I wasn’t interested. I think that this was probably because a. I had made the foolish mistake AGAIN of agreeing to dinner and b. because of a., I decided to have a LOT of sangria. Way, WAAY too much sangria. Judgement impairing sangria. Sangria that made me agree to go see his apartment. What the hell was I thinking? Ummmm - clearly, I wasn't. I’m not naive or stupid (except when consuming copious amounts of sangria), and I don’t make a habit of going home with men that I LIKE on the first date, never mind ones I’m quite certain I’ll never see again. But at dinner, it was nice to feel wanted again. I could tell this boy was interested in me, and my ego was still severely bruised and banged up from Fuckhead. So when he invited me over, I let both my ego and the sangria (mostly the sangria) convince me that I wanted the feeling to last for just a little bit longer.
As soon as I stepped foot in the apartment, I knew I’d made a horrible mistake. Lie Guy seemed like a nice guy, but I was quickly overcome with the realization that I didn’t really know a thing about this person, not to mention the fact that the first thing I had learned about him was that he was a LIAR. My ego was over it and my mind started to spin about how I could get myself out of there as quickly as possible. We both took a seat on the couch and he inched forward to kiss me. Although the kiss was a million times better than the aforementioned dead fish, it was starting to make me sick. I stopped him.
“I had no idea how late it is!” I said, putting my former acting skills to good use. (Unfortunately, my creativity skills were lacking a bit. A girl can't have everything.) “I really need to get going.”
“Let me call you a car.” Lie Guy was big on impressing me with his cash.
“Will it take long? I really need to get going.”
“Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
“OK. I’ll wait."
You're wondering WHAT THE HELL was I thinking?? Why on earth would I stay and wait for a car when I could get out NOW and grab a cab on the street? Weeeell, I was broke and a cab home was going to cost me at least 10 bucks. That’s $10 I could spend on Chai Lattes, a movie, a manicure, or a martini the next evening discussing this with the girls (where they would promptly tell me what a FUCKING
Lie guy got up and called a car and came back to join me on the couch.
“If you’re tired, why don’t you lie down and put your head in my lap,” he said.
EW! I thought. I haven’t even known you for 3 hours. I’m NOT putting my head in your lap, you pervert. What am I still doing here? WHAT THE HELL AM I STILL DOING HERE?
And when I came back to earth from Planet wake up and smell the roses, I realized that Lie Guy had very strategically eased my less than sober head directly into his lap – yes, that very same lap that I’d just rejected - and was stroking my hair. I started to feel sick again. Only this time, I think that my body was trying to convince itself to puke so that he would want me out immediately.
“I can’t believe I’m going to let you leave. I had the best night with you. If this were anything other than our first date, you wouldn’t be leaving right now.”
That was it – Now I was DEFINITELY going to puke. I bolted up and started to gather my things.
“I think the car is here. I heard it honking,” I said nervously as I ran to the window to check the streets of
“Relaaaaaaaax. They’ll call when they get here.”
And at that moment, the forces above came to my rescue and the phone rang to let us know that the car was waiting for me downstairs. Lie Guy walked me to the door.
“I’m headed out of town tomorrow for a few days, but I’d love to take you to dinner on Saturday night.”
“I may have a friend coming in to visit. Why don’t you call me when you get back.” I lied as I backed out of the door escaping his attempts at another goodnight kiss. I’d already done waaaaaaay more kissing than I’d bargained for. I practically ran down the hallway and into the elevator, but it wasn’t until I got into the car and leaned against the plush leather seats that I knew I was really safe. And a total and complete IDIOT. No matter how nice it felt to have my ego stroked for a moment or two, it wasn’t worth the lying I had to do to myself or the other person about how I felt about them. Who was the liar now?
Date 2 was with a guy who strongly resembled Ducky from “Pretty in Pink.” Finally, it seemed I had learned my first date lesson and we decided to simply meet for a drink. Of course one hopes that your date drinks as quickly as you do - especially when it's painfully clear that you couldn't have less in common. But Ducky sipped slowly, even as I refused a second cocktail. I sat there staring at this guy, wondering how we had even gotten to the date part of this whole process.
By the time Lie Guy called for that second date, I had gone on Jdate 3 and it wasn’t so bad…in fact, it was good. So good that when I told Lie Guy that I’d met someone else, I didn’t feel like such a liar. Bachelor Number 3 was cute, he seemed smart, mature and he was Jewish (although I guess that part was a given.) We had a good first date and a good first kiss. A good enough first kiss that when his email arrived the next day to tell me he wanted to go out again, my stomach flipped. SCORE! We had a lovely second date with a bottle of wine in the park and dim sum in Chinatown.
Things seemed to being moving along nicely until we connected on the phone one evening. He happened to catch me on a night when I was packing up my very small Upper West Side apartment to move to a slightly less small
I should have canceled date 3 with him, but out of guilt (I was, after all, on Jdate) I went. For some reason, I felt that I owed it to this guy to give it another shot. Even though I spent the entire day obsessing about how badly I did NOT want to go, I somehow determined that what he needed was more important than what I needed. Hmmmm. People pleasing issues much? Dreading the evening, I literally made myself physically sick to my stomach. I should have seen that as a window of opportunity to cancel. But being the slightly naïve dater that I was, I felt if I cancelled, I’d have to reschedule. Silly me. Eventually I would learn that in the world of dating (and in the world of life) the first person I needed to make happy was me. But for now, I went on the date.
The poor guy didn’t have a fighting chance. He annoyed the hell out of me within the first 10 minutes of our walk to Tribeca. Every single word he said was annoying. The way he said it was annoying. The way he breathed was annoying. I was so sick, I sat and watched him eat dinner, while I sipped a gingerale, and then I went home after the movie. I never saw him again and I removed myself from Jdate for a second time.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 1:58 PM
Labels: 10 Days in Burma, past, writing exercise, yeah...i'm a little bit crazy
my goodness lady! those are some horrible dates! and here i was considering joining match again! maybe i should think twice?
so when do we hear more about burma boy????? ;)