Chickens are not dinosaurs
This one was the worst yet. THE WORST YET. This guy and I texted a couple weeks before we met each other. He was hilarious, constantly making me laugh. I felt pretty good about this one.
The day finally came for us to meet in person. He asked that I meet him at the Levee. Awesome! I love the Levee, this is going to be good. I arrived and I am greeted with a big hug. I’m a fan of hugs. Bonus points for this one. We decide to go to dinner at Hofbrauhaus. As we walk there, my date precedes to demonstrate his German speaking skills. That’s somewhat impressive, although I had no idea what he was talking about, especially when he explained the difference between Dutch and Deutch.
I suggest we cross the street. His response was a little unusual, as he asked that we cross the street further down. At this point I didn’t think much about it. We go inside and get seated. My date proceeds to speak in German to me and to the waitress. I sat there staring, confused by why we are continuing this charade. I get it, you are bilingual. I’m not sure when knowing German will come in handy, but it’s noted. He ordered a German beer, being sure to complain that they didn’t have his seasonal favorite. Once our drinks arrived he offered me a taste of his beer, explaining that he wasn’t worried about germs because it was alcohol. I’m trying not to be offended that he had that thought this through in the first place.
We proceeded to attempt to have a conversation, although it was quite awkward as he told me every detail about everything he’s ever known about anything. He explained to me that Labradors are stupid. Anyone who knows me knows I love dogs, and quite frankly there’s not a man I’ve met yet that has figured out how to love me as much as my dog has. So I found this offensive. I felt like saying, Labradors think you’re stupid. But since I’m no longer in third grade I refrained.
I noticed that he was having a hard time looking me in the eyes. He very courageously pointed out that I have a “shelf” for breasts. I stared at him blankly. How the heck am I supposed to respond to that? He then pointed out that he took a chance on making such a statement and didn’t work out in his favor.
THEN THE BIRD HAPPENED. I am absolutely terrified of birds. I will cry if they get close to me. I am distracted by several restaurant employees running around and I notice that they are chasing something. That something happened to be a bird. And that bird happened to find a piece of food relatively close to the table where we were sitting. I felt my eyes begin to tear up. I scooted as close to the wall as I could, and apologize profusely while I tried to catch my breath.
This guy starts expressing how cute the “chickadee” is. I am actively having a panic attack and this man is commenting on how freaking cute this bird is! Really?!? Then he proceeded to tell me that chickens are dinosaurs. 😶 I start looking around for the hidden camera, this has to be a joke. I explained to him that due to my extreme, yet irrational fear of birds, I may need to excuse myself. The bird flew off in the opposite direction. Crap! Now I have no excuse.
We finished dinner and he gathered the leftovers for himself. He announces “this will make a great lunch tomorrow.”
The plan was for us to hang out after dinner. However I had experienced enough for one night. I advised that I was heading back to my car to go home. As we walked back to the parking garage I began to cross the crosswalk. “No. We can’t cross here.” “Ok, should we cross at that one?” I questioned. “No. We should cross over here.” I’m baffled.
The Sassy person inside of me almost said “listen buddy, I’ve lived nearly 32 years before meeting you, I have survived all this time. I don’t need you telling me where to cross the street”
But I held it in, feeling the pressure building inside me ready to explode. We reach our cars and he hugged me goodbye. I jumped in and hurried home. On my way home I replayed the events of the night. And I started to laugh. And I continued to laugh for the 25 minutes it took to return home. And I have laughed every day since.