Disastrous Date
There was this time I went out on a blind date. OK, not totally blind, because I’d met this guy on the Internet, and had sort of seen pictures. But this is back in the day when Internet dating only first kicked off and digital cameras weren’t what they are now. Anyway, you get the picture – the photos weren’t that clear. I thought it was a bit weird that when we were corresponding the guy kept on asking how tall I was, making a real big deal out of it. In one email he said he even got out a measuring tape to convert (I only knew in cm’s and he only knew in feet).
Well my question was answered when I arrived (a bit late) at the fancy restaurant he had booked for us – he was tiny. OK, not that I have a problem with short guys, but I’m short for a woman, and he wasn’t much taller. That and the fact that the guy was old enough to be my grandfather – early 60’s at least – I was in my early 20’s. In emails prior to meeting up he’d said he was older, but didn’t give out any specifics. I quite like older men, so it wasn’t really something on the forefront of my mind, and I just assumed he’d be in the age category I had specified in my profile criteria.
Well, let me just say this, there’s older men and then there’s just old. And this also has a lot to do with how much a guy looks after himself, his dress sense, his outlook on life etc. Dinner was long, drawn out and awkward as hell. We had zero things in common and the guy was really boring and from a totally different world and generation to me. He also had this habit of making a sort of ‘hmmmm’ sound when he looked at me across the table which was totally creepy. I’m not sure if it was a nervous tick or if he thought it was a sexy kind of thing to do.
At one point I had a brief vision of those small old hands touching my bare skin and I wanted to run out of there screaming. If a friend had told me this I would have said to her, why didn’t you just leave? And the thing is it was such a fancy place, with the whole three courses, plus little things here and there from the chef, that it just didn’t feel right to up and leave after the starters. Also, although we were unsuited to each other, this guy had clearly gone through some trouble to book a nice place and make it special, and I felt it would have been rude to just leave him stranded there.
Finally dinner came to an end and I couldn’t wait to beat it out of there. Outside he hailed a taxi for me and said in the same weirdly creepy old guy trying to be sexy voice, “You know, I don’t have to be up early tomorrow morning, unless of course you want to be my alarm clock? ” To which I replied (nervously laughing), “You know, unfortunately I do – have to be up early that is, maybe next time. ” Before beating a hasty retreat. I guess I didn’t come off much better in the date either, because I didn’t hear from him after that.
