Bad Dates

A friend of mine is working on a short documentary where people tell the story of their worst date on around 90 seconds. It really got me thinking about my “worst date”, so I thought I’d share. God knows I’ve had my fair share, but I think the one that sits on my mind was the last person I went out with prior to going on a self-imposed dating hiatus on Dec 1.

Let’s start by saying I’m not really a religious guy. I believe in some level of higher being, but who is to say that it is Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha or Donald Trump? Worship whoever you want, just don’t expect it from me. This evidently caused a problem when I went out with a guy last fall. Hyper-sensitive, judgmental holy-rollers and I do not get along well.

It started simple enough, we were both on an online dating site and started chatting. He worked for a government agency that had him stationed at various points around the world, and I wished I did. I was really interested in his job, so I probably kept the conversation moving by asking more and more questions. As a side note, he wasn’t bad to look at in his photo, either.

We chatted quite a while online before finally deciding to meet. We decided on a day shortly after I returned from a trip back home to KC. In our conversations, we had discussed how he had spent a short period in Baghdad. It was there he “found Jesus” and when his job brought him back to Washington he quickly found and became very involved in a local church. I made it very clear up-front that religion doesn’t play a large part in my life and if that was going to be a problem, maybe we shouldn’t meet. He as very insistent, however, so we found ourselves at a local burger joint.

When we met, he seemed very awkward and I could tell he was nervous. After a while, I realized that that awkwardness from his nerves has turned into more judgment. It turned out it was that he was extremely uptight and hyper-critical. While talking about my life and my friends, he started asking probing questions that just seemed a bit too accusatory. After a while, I made a comment that I needed to stop talking about myself or else his head would explode. To his credit, he played it off coolly – at least for a few minutes - but I could tell he was definitely ready to get out of there.

At that point, I figured I had nothing to lose and decided to play with his head a bit by trying to see how riled up I could get him. I started telling him stories of my old “party” days in New Orleans. I told him about my friends and their careers in the adult film industry and finally ended up with a story about a friend who had an infection due some of his actions at a fetish festival. I have never seen anyone so anxious to get away from me. I gave him a ride home (slowly just to torture him) and he hopped out of the car almost before I could stop.…

All I can do is chuckle.