U + Ur Hand

“I’m not here for your entertainment; you don’t really want to mess with me tonight. Just stop and take a second. I was fine before you walked into my life. ‘Cause you know it’s over before it began. Keep your drink, just give me the money. It’s just you and your hand tonight.” Pink 

Oh the joys of another bad date! I know they say you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince but I feel like I meet the slugs upon which the frogs feast. At this point a frog would be an upgrade. I think my radar was off for this particular slug to slip through.

We met casually at Busboys during one of their open mic nights, exchanged business cards, but I didn’t bank on hearing from him (nor did I care either way). About three days after our initial encounter he texts me. We exchange short, sporadic texts until he eventually states that we should meet that upcoming Tuesday at Mister Days. Though I may not be overtly interested, when a man makes decisive plans without my input it pique’s my interest.

On Tuesday, I received a text saying: “Are you ready for the best date of your life? I was born ready [so] Bring it ON! J”. Now the mute anticipation I had towards our date has transformed into dread. Every date (first or otherwise) where a guy has uttered similar words has ended in huge disappointments because I’ve spent the night warding off thirsty advances.

Not sure what it is about being a plus-size girl, but it’s like the guys who hit on me think I should fawn over them in gratitude for “picking” me. Even worse they think I’m some deprived self-deprecating loser that will reward their choice with bouts of bedroom activities. You’ve got to be kidding me!?! Paula Patton I am not, but I still think I’m beautiful and even more of value.

But I digress… it’s safe to say that I lost all initial excitement for the date.

I get to the restaurant before our scheduled time. It’s nice to have enough time to primp in the bathroom and scope out exit routes before the dude arrives. But when a guy’s late without a polite warning text that’s just rude.

We sit outside, chat, peruse the menu, chat some more, order, repeat. When the conversation lags, he glances expectantly in my direction as if I’m supposed to fill the gaps. When I feel like I’m talking too much, I get quiet or start asking questions. When I receive monosyllabic answers, I just get quiet. “I feel like women just naturally talk more. Especially crazy women they talk the most. But then all women are crazy, so…” Really Jesus?

Another lag and he pulls out some Myers Brigg type game having me describe a cube, a ladder, a horse, some flowers, and a storm. From there, he uses my responses to psychoanalyze me … or in his words “get to know me better”. Men around the world should be so proud that I didn’t fall for that trap. Though he made reaching statements like “from your answers it seems like your past had a lot of conflict”, not sure how he got that from a small purple cube, a yellow daffodil lined latter, a green horse, and a gray storm, but again how would I know. At any rate, I kept my business to myself.

When he breaks for the bathroom, I realize it’s time for me to gracefully make my exit (i.e. come up with a solid, yet polite, excuse). Here’s my fundamental problem, I’m genuinely a nice person and I don’t like to disrespect others. I also believe in karma so I try to make sure my interactions are as neutral to positive as possible. When he comes back, I decide I better break for the bathroom myself. I come back to the table and he’s scooted over, arm over the seat, eyes beckoning me close: “come sit over here the view is great”. I must have lost my gift of imagination because I see a construction site and a crosswalk… but whatever.

The arm around my back starts caressing my shoulder while he asks “did you clean your house?”. Of course I didn’t clean my house; it’s the middle of the week. I feel a tug at my hair, slight so I thought maybe his hand slipped. Then I feel an actual yank with my head snapped back. “What the hell are you doing?”, “Oh that’s punishment for not cleaning your house like I asked you”, “Have you lost your bloody mind?” “You don’t like that?”, “No it’s real and it’s attached, don’t touch me.”

Then his hand is there again and he pulls me in for a kiss while trying to grope my boob. You can’t even imagine my shock. Its outside, in public, first date, and I don’t even like you. I abruptly stop everything and tell him I have to go. “You don’t have to go”, “yes, yes I do. I have to get up for work tomorrow.”, “I mean you don’t have to go home, you can come back to my place”, “Umm no I can’t and I won’t. I’m going home”, “but I paid for dinner”. Listen jerk, my salad was less than $7 and I ordered water because I thought we were meeting for drinks, not dinner. Do you want $10? Make sure the waitress gets her 30% tip.

I leave and realize that he’s taking the same metro as I am home. As we stand on the platform he’s making small talk and somehow we got on the topic of butts. He asks if my butt is like Kim Kardashians’. I flippantly reply that I would have to get surgery to have a butt like hers. “Let me see how big your butt is” as he reaches his hand behind the hand rail to pinch my butt. I shove him and say, don’t touch me. He says, “You don’t need surgery. You need to love yourself. You do need to lose this (pointing at my stomach), but you are kinda cute”. Judge me all you want, but I’ve never been good at responding to these types of situations. In my mind I’ve gone all Waka Flocka and told ol’dude to suck my drinkin’ balls, B*tch. In reality, I just stand there flabbergasted.

I’m not deliberately mean, so while this man is picking apart my supposed flaws I could have said you’re two inches shorter than me when I’m barefoot and six inches shorter than me with heels on. You can’t comfortably reach the top rails of the metro. While my hands are large enough to cup a basketball, your hands looks like they can barely cup a golf ball. You have touched me with said hands, and I could have sworn a feather graced my skin they are so freakishly soft. I wanted to scream grow some calluses and some height so that you can be a real boy Pinocchio. Instead I count back from 10 and then recite the 12 names of Jesus I can remember.

Finally the train comes and he says let’s sit down. I don’t want to sit next to you because you have serial rapist intentions with toddler-tipped hands. I’m going to stand thanks. Finally he gets off before me and tries one last time to get me to go home with him. I’ve never been so happy to hear the ding of metro doors closing in my life! Yep this is me living that single, single LIFE!

Readers: Do me a favor? Grace my comment box with some first date horror stories so I don’t feel so bad sharing my story lol. 

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