I never really talk about dates on this blog for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is that most of them just don't make very good stories - usually they are either pretty good, in which case they aren't very funny, or, more often, they are just really boring. Earlier this week, though, I went on a date that was actually ridiculous enough to talk about here.
The guy sent me a message on OkCupid right before the holidays, and I agreed to grab a drink after he got back in town. The night before we were supposed to meet, I got a message from him saying that he had just found out that a movie theater in town was having a screening of a pretty great cult film from the 90s, and, while he knew a movie for a first date wasn't a great idea, maybe we could go and then get a drink after. I happen to love this movie, so I said sure.
We met in line, and there was of course the normal awkwardness that comes with talking to a person for the first time when you know very little about them. We hadn't actually had much of a conversation online, so I didn't even know some basic things, like what he actually did for a living, where he was from, etc. I asked him those questions as we paid for our tickets and found our seats, and he answered, but didn't ask me similar questions in return.
After the movie was over, the first thing he said was how tired he was. I thought he might be trying to end the evening, but then he asked if I wanted to get a drink, and he suggested a bar right around the corner with a good beer list.
We both got our pints, and while I sipped mine, he finished in about 10 minutes. I was probably about a quarter of the way through mine. I thought maybe he would get another, but he didn't, so we just sat there over my beer. It was all for the best, though, because this gave him a great excuse to talk. For the entire rest of the time I was drinking. He did not ask me a single question. During rare pauses, I would start to talk, but then he would decide he wasn't finished and cut me off. I probably contributed 10% of the conversation, total. At one point he started fidgeting around and announced that he "gets bored easily." I apologized, sarcastically, for drinking my beer so slowly, and he made fun of me for it. I said he should get another beer, and he said he didn't want one because he had to drive. I then apologized, again sarcastically, for wasting his precious time. I seriously considered telling him he could leave and I would finish my beer on my own. Instead, I quickly finished the rest of mine while I listened to him tell me about walking in on one of his co-workers masturbating.
As I drove home, I just got more and more annoyed. Isn't the point of a date to try to get to know someone? Or at least to try and have fun? How can you possibly do either of those things if you don't even let the other person talk? For other the sake of other women he might go out with, I hope that he just decided early on that he wasn't interested, and that if he were, he would've been a little more engaging. But, somehow, I doubt that's the case.
