There is much that can be said for internet dating. Such as: it's terrifying, unreliable and usually ends with someone sending you an unwanted picture of their junk. And those are the good ones. The ones that don't end in someone becoming a skin suit.
Recently, I have put a tentative toe in the dating pool. Although, it would more accurately be described as a puddle. A small, dark, dirty puddle, filled with mosquitos and regret. With dating aids such as "Tinder" and "Plenty of Fish" and "OkCupid" it's a wonder that not everyone has found their "True Match" and are living in "eHarmony." That is, it's no wonder to anyone who hasn't tried to wade through the murky waters of those sites.
Don't get me wrong, like any girl I find it extremely hard to resist a young man with a profile picture of himself in his bathtub. Ear-deep in mud. Looking like something plucked out of a Tolkien novel and dropped into a mud pit in rural Manitoba. I'd be the luckiest Orc in Middle Earth to go on a date with that guy. [True Story]
Then there's the one who seems very sweet and well-meaning, luring you in with his soft-spoken shyness, unable to hold eye contact for longer then a few seconds. Endearing, right? Wrong. This guy's already naming your unborn children and debating the benefits of a fixed rate mortgage. Before the date is over you've got a ring on your finger and the honeymoon is booked. I'm all for showing your willingness to commit but that stretches it a bit far.
I'm not trying to be callous, but I have begun to feel a lot like Goldilocks. Except in this story there are a lot more bears. This one's too short, this one's too young, this one can't spell the word relationship, and that one looks like his best friend's name is Hannibal. There comes a point, somewhere around the forty-something-th message of "hey baby" or "ur a qt" (really? Catch me while I swoon), that you start to wonder...
Would it be considered rude to put "Must be 22 and over 6 feet tall to ride this ride" in bold on a dating profile?
There was one person who I felt there might actually be a possibility with. He aced the preliminary questions and made it to round one: The First Date. A first date can be nerve-wracking for anyone. You have to figure out what to wear, how to do your hair, think up witty and non-threatening conversation topics, the list is endless. Now, add an Anxiety Disorder to that already boiling pot. Not only am I pre-occupied with the rational worries, but the irrational rear their ugly heads as well.
My inner monologue generally looks something like this:
What if I'm too tall in these heels? What if the wind blows my skirt up? What if I accidentally bring up Hitler? Why would I bring up Hitler? Is he Jewish? Shit, I don't know anything about Jewish people! I read The Diary of Anne Frank like six times in seventh grade, did I not retain anything? It's really icy out, what if I slide all over and my legs get tangled like a baby giraffes? What if he's into baby giraffes? Is there such a thing as giraffe porn? What if I fart in the car?
And watch as the pot boils over. I have to work through every possibility, convince myself of its unlikeliness, and physically force myself out the door. Though to be honest, once I did get myself out the door, things didn't get much easier.
I can enjoy a comfortable silence. The key word there being comfortable. Stick me in a long car ride with a friend or family member and I can sit for hours enjoying a warm, companionable silence. Stick me in a car with someone I've only met once for the span of a coffee, and I become a nervous wreck.
The minute my ass hit the passenger seat I knew something was off. I just couldn't immediately put my finger on it. We exchanged pleasantries and headed off, but it was still bugging me. Did the car smell? Nope. Was it messy? No, it was actually really clean. Too clean? No, stop that. Was there a kidnappers kit in the back seat? A quick check in the review mirror answered that with a relieving no. So what was the issue? Were my nerves just getting the best of me? Definitely.
Then it hit me. The radio wasn't on.
Instead of being greeted by the familiar background noise of radio chatter, I had stepped into a cone of silence, or rather car of silence. Who drives without listening to the radio?? Deaf people, probably, and serial killers.
The first twenty minutes of my date with, let's call him Sam, was spent in a car, in dead silence. With me wracking my brain for conversation starters that we hadn't already exhausted in a weeks worth of late-night texting, and him answering with enthusiastic, if closed-ended, replies.
Me: "So! Where are we going?!"
Sam: "I thought we could go to my favourite sushi place!"
Me: "Awesome! I love sushi!"
Sam: "Great!"
**Long awkward pause**
Me: "How was your day?"
Sam: "It was ok! Long and fairly dull, I spent most of the day excited about our date!"
Me: "Awe, that's sweet! I'm excited too!"
Sam: "Perfect!"
**crickets**
There are two crucial signs that I am reaching for help conversationally. The first being when I bring up the weather. A pretty standard one, I'm sure everyone can agree. But the real warning bells go off when I bring up sports. I know nothing about sports, and I care nothing for sports, so little so that in my time of need I couldn't even remember which sport was being televised that night and so my desperate attempt to keep the car from going back to road noise was:
"Sooooooo... did you catch the sports game?"
A low point, even for me.
Thankfully, by this point we were pulling into the restaurant's parking lot. I am not well known for my speed. In fact, I am known for the exact opposite. But you can bet that the minute that car was in Park, I was unbuckled and had launched myself out of there like I was an Olympic runner and the starting gun had gone off.
To anyone else, this might have been interpreted as a sign that things were off. But poor, sweet Sam mistook my eagerness to leave the quiet-mobile for eagerness to get on with our date. While I was relieved and rejoicing at the return of background noise:
Thank Christ! Freedom! Street noise! Look! It's been so long since I've heard anything but the sound of my own breathing that I can SEE SOUNDS!!
Sam must of thought I was thinking:
Wow! What tantalizing conversation! We both like sushi! We are both excited! He has a job! What a good provider he will make for our future children!
Things only went downhill from there.
The dinner itself wasn't terrible. Good food, a sweet and eager to please guy. Overall the evening was starting to redeem itself. I was starting to relax, my worries solely focused on how to remain somewhat lady-like whilst eating massive rolls of sushi. (And before you say "just take small bites", you can climb right off your high horse because you are wrong. That is not how you eat sushi and you should be ashamed of yourself.) I went with the dainty hand-over-your-mouth-to-cover-the-full-chipmunk-cheeks method.
I was halfway through a Philadelphia Roll when things started to go south again.
Sam: "Yeah, so, my Ex cheated on me, and I feel like you should just know that I don't think that's acceptable behaviour in a relationship."
Uh oh. Slowly chewing my mouthful, I nodded.
Sam: "We were together for a few years, and then one day, out of nowhere, she just does that. I think it's disgusting and juvenile. You wouldn't cheat on me would you?"
Warning! Warning! I swallowed painfully. The rice felt like it was trying to choke me all the way down. I shook my head.
Sam: "Good! I just feel like we need to start our relationship out with complete honesty, and I really think I could see us going the distance, so it's important we're on the same page."
Relation-whaat? Going where now? What page?! The only page I was thinking of was the possibility of ending up on the front page of the newspaper under the title "Chloroformed and Committed" or "Narcotized and Nuptualized". Unable to think of a response, I just nodded dumbly as he continued on about his expectations. Dinner had come to close, and we were moving on to the entertainment portion of the evening, and since I hadn't figured out a way to gently excuse myself out of continuing with the date, I was grateful for the respite the comedy show was sure to offer.
We got to the comedy club after the show had already started, which was great considering he wouldn't be able to continue the conversation about his ex that he'd been having in the car on the way over. We were seated at a table in the corner, at the back. It was dark, blessedly dark. Aside from the spotlight on the stage, all that could be made out were the whites of everyones' eyes and teeth. (It reminded me of the 'Friends' episode where Ross bleached his teeth to impress a date, only for her to have blacklights in her apartment.)
Somewhere around the second act I began to feel a bit queasy. A new wave of uncomfortableness trickled down my back and Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" started to play in the back of my head. I glanced over at Sam, and there he was, with his back to the stage, smiling at me. His eyes and cheshire cat-like grin glowing at me in the dark from across the table. I tried for a smile (which came out an uncomfortable grimace) and pointed to the stage. Turn around, crazy pants! Watch the show! You paid for these tickets! I mimed. His smile got wider and he nodded enthusiastically, grabbing my hand before he turned back to face the show. I don't know what he thought I had been trying to tell him, but it definitely wasn't that. Even if I had been planning a backdoor escape, it certainly wasn't going to happen now.
His hand was clammy and, upon closer inspection, tiny! It was like being held onto by a child whose hands you'd just wiped all the stickiness off of with a wet-nap. To make it worse, he started to graze his thumb along the top of my clenched fist. It felt like a slug was sliming up and down my hand.
It was becoming more and more obvious to me that I was the only one who wasn't enjoying myself. Shit! He thinks this date is going great! I can't just say "Thanks for dinner, lets never do this again" now, can I?
A waitress came by our table to ask us if we wanted anything to drink. While Sam ordered, I tried in vain to blink my distress in morse code to the waitress, but it was dark and she wasn't paying attention. I debated ordering something strong enough that I wouldn't have to remember anything in the morning, but I decided on water. (A decision I still regret.)
I can't remember anything from the main act, because I spent the entire set trying to think up plausible excuses to get me out of the 'goodnight kiss' he would likely be expecting.
"I'm like the Duggar's, I'm saving myself until marriage"
"I have kissing narcolepsy"
"I'm allergic to lips."
"Look! ALIENS!!"
In the end, it seemed I couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't leave me feeling like an ass. The instinct of not wanting to kiss him was strong, but not as strong as not wanting to hurt his feelings. Honestly, I felt bad for Sam, even if he was a stage 5 clinger. So as the show came to a close, I resigned myself to the fact this date was going to end in a kiss, whether I wanted it to or not.
Thankfully, the ride home was a short one. The night was ending, and soon Sam's one-sided conversation about how happy he was to be with me, and how special I was, and how I was "the one" would stop. It was making it very hard to keep my resolve about kissing him goodnight. As we drove down my street, I broke out into a cold sweat, my brain screaming It's not too late! It's a residential area! He's driving slow, and there is lots of snow! Just open the door and tuck and roll!! Too quickly, we pulled into the driveway.
He put the car in park and shifted in his seat so he was facing me. This is it. I thought to myself. Get in, get out. A peck on the lips and we are home free. Netflix, cats, and Long Islands for the rest of your life.
Me: "Thank you for dinner, the food was great!"
Sam: "You're welcome, I'm glad you had a good time"
I don't think that's what I said..
And then he closed his eyes and started leaning in. No warning, no nothing. Just straight to the point. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the inevitable, and started leaning in to meet him. If you keep your eyes open, it doesn't count. I told myself. I'm pretty sure there is a Cosmo article that says if a kiss stays under 5 Mississippi's, it's not a kiss. I continued to lean in, when I noticed something -- he was doing something with his lips. Something weird.
Sam was doing what could only be described as fish lips. And I don't just mean they were puckered, I mean it looked like a fish was gasping for breath on land. They were puckered, and yet still opening and closing. (And if that wasn't descriptive enough, I suggest this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk0gTbPjJSI ) It was the strangest, most horrifying thing to be leaning towards.
What the hell is he doing? Is this a joke? Nope. Definitely not a joke. Maybe it's like some kind of weird warm up? Like lip exercises? And it will stop as soon as- Abort mission! Abort! Abort!
Sam kissed like a salmon.
Sam's lips wrapped around my closed ones, and slimily opened and closed on top of mine. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like I was a character in a Miyazaki film. Holy shit, what is this? One mississippi, two missi-fuck it!
I was out of that car, had my front door unlocked, and I was drinking Listerine in my bathroom before he had even opened his eyes. It took about a week but, eventually, he stopped texting me.
I guess that's what I get for going out with someone I met from "Plenty of Fish". To this day, I have horrible flashbacks whenever I hear the Filet O' Fish song.
