The one who must have thought I was hideous

I honestly don’t think he thought I was hideous, but that’s what I could have thought. I mean I’ll never know. And I don’t really care.

Let just called him “Mr. Confused,” because I was looking cute that night and he must have had some crazy shit going on in his head. And calling him “Asshole” just doesn’t seem right, although it warranted. I know, I’m being very kind to this guy by giving him this name.

I met Mr. Confused on the Jewish dating website. He was a school teacher, tall, skinny and really not much to look at. But I guess he seemed nice enough.

I was volunteering to work at a screening of a film at the Jewish Community Center. I told Mr. Confused about this he said he wanted to see the movie, so the plan was to watch the movie and go out afterwards. He had also told me that he used to work at that same Jewish Community Center. This was a good sign

Something funky happened with scheduling and some people thought that the film started a whole hour later than it actually did. Mr. Confused was one of these people. I was able to watch the film and grabbed a spot in the back so I could slip out quickly and do whatever need to be done afterwards. Mr. Confused walked in about ten minutes before the film was over and randomly ended up sitting right next to me.

“Oh, hi!” I said looking at him when he sat down, immediately recognizing him from his picture.

“Hey!” He said smiling.

“You must have gotten the time wrong too, sorry about that. There was a problem with the scheduling.”

I don’t remember where the conversation went from there, it was a little awkward but no big deal. The lights came up and I had to jump up to do my job.

As I was talking to my supervisor for a second, Mr. Confused comes over.

“I’m going to take off.”

“Um, okay, well you have my number.”

He bolts.

I thought maybe he didn’t want to stay for the Q&A for a film he didn’t see. Maybe we would meet up later?

No call, no text message, no email.

Nothing.

I’m sorry, but people get away with the craziest shit in the name of dating and it pisses me off. That’s just not right. And if I were someone else, I could have thought that he just didn’t like the look of me and so he bolted. Who knows what was going on in his life at the time, I don’t care, you don’t treat people like that.

“Maybe you should pick your dates more carefully” a friend said. He’s a Jewish day school teacher? What raises red flags about that??

I gave him a full 24 hours before I sent him this email:

Dear Mr. Confused,
I obviously can't claim to know what you're looking for, but the way that you've handled the last 24 hours is not the way you're going to find it. The fact that you bailed last night with no reason and haven't even bothered to email me saying that it was nice to meet me but there's other things going on with you is pretty disrespectful and rude. I don't care if we were supposed to be on a date or not, I think it's pretty terrible that it's okay with you that you would do that to another human being. Please think before you do something like that to the next girl you try to date.

Kinky

I felt amazing. It was so good to tell someone off like that. It’s one thing to ignore someone when you haven’t even met them in person yet. But it’s another thing to meet them, not give them a chance and then run away. Not cool.

I wouldn’t have cared if he emailed me back. In fact I expected him not to.

But he wrote this email right back:

Kinky,

I'm so sorry that I didn't handle this better. I just didn't know how to express what I was feeling.
I hope that I have learned something from this mistake.

Mr. Confused

At least “the one who went to the bathroom was funny.”

This was just lame: "didn't know how to express what I was feeling"? What the hell does that mean?

It only gets better and better doesn't it?

The one who made me cry

Just to get it out of the way if you were wondering, it was the good kind of cry: you know, the one where someone says something so sweet to you that you cry? Not the you-hurt-my-feelings kind of cry.

And also to get it out of the way, the one who made me cry, let’s call him “Sad Lawyer”, was the reason why my ipod is now broken.

Let me explain.

I met Sad Lawyer online as I meet most of these interesting characters. He was in his last year of law school, and he hated it. This dude was a downer.

Sad Lawyer and I went to another bar to talk some more. After a couple drinks, he fessed up to being recently out of a relationship. It ended because the love of his life cheated on him. Like I said, this dude was a downer. 

Somehow we got on the topic of education and the worth of each individual. I happen to believe every person in the world has some skill or talent that could be of productive use or enjoyment to the world. Sometimes individuals just don’t have the means or access to cultivate these talents. I mean how do you know you’re an amazing skier if you’ve never seen snow?

Anyway, the point is that this is a very optimistic, idealistic way to see the world. One which I suppose at the age of 29, I should have lost.  I'm very proud of this part of me, it's also what keeps me dating by the way. I am a hopeless idealist and romantic at heart.

“You’re a good person aren’t you?" Sad Lawyer said.  "Most of the people I know, including those older than me (he was 26 I think) don’t think that way anymore. We are all so jaded. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

That made me cry. It took a total stranger to look into me like that and say it to my face. I’m sure my mother has said something like that to me before, and maybe my friends think that about me. But hearing those words from an emotionally devastated stranger made me emotional. It was sort of embarrassing. 

Given Sad Lawyers' own emotional status, it is no surprise that he didn’t call me for a second date. He was probably too embarrassed too. I've found that if I drink too much on a first date, too much information is exchanged, and second dates are rare. There's also the occasional making out, but that didn't happen on this date.

But back to the dead ipod…

I had a little too much to drink I guess that night. And the next morning I had to get up relatively early for something and was a tad hungover. Not the I-feel-terrible-sort, more like the, I’m-in-a-grumpy-daze sort. I’m sure only some of that feeling had to do with the booze.

I went to the kitchen to fill my water bottle, when it was full I  put it in my purse.

“Why is your purse leaking?” My roommate asks.

What? I looked down. Shit. My purse was indeed leaking.

I was so out of it, I put the water bottle in my purse WITHOUT the top.

Oy.

Turns out that I drowned my ipod. It needs a whole new hard drive. That was several months ago and I haven’t spent the cash to get one. I work out at the gym without one.

I blame Sad Lawyer.