Mommy Issues

On a first date, my expectations are simple:

1. Look like your dating profile,
2. Ask me questions, and
3. Don't bring up exes.

My guy had the first two covered, but he failed miserably with the last one. Would you believe me if I told you I know about his ex's dating history? How about his ex's parent's job titles and salaries? Or how his dad hates his mom and so does he? No? Well then have I got a story for you.

After five years of on-and-off use of dating apps, I thought I had finally found the man of my dreams. Or at least he was one of the first attractive, ambitious, and successful men I found found on an app that I did not already know. As a 26-year old woman, I am beginning to feel a little worn out using these apps. That said, when you see a profile like this guy's, you are reminded as to why you have hope when using Bumble, Hinge, etc.

Given this excitement, I did what I have always sworn not to do - I sent him (we will call him Tom) a like on Hinge. Yikes. I felt a little desperate, but it ended up working out. Tom messaged me immediately and we totally hit it off. There are not many men who interest me over text, but this guy managed to. He was funny, charming, self-deprecating in an endearing way, among other positive things. That said, there were some initial red flags that I mentally tracked over the week we texted before our first date, but I was willing to look past them if our date went well.

When Tom asked me to go on a date, he was interested in knowing where I would want to go - green flag. After a bit of discussion, we landed upon this fancy Thai place near the city that had great ratings and a very expensive menu. While I do not expect that a man takes me to the most elaborate place in town, there are certainly bonus points when they do.

Another thing that I do not expect and I infact do not want is for the man to pick me up before the date. While I would love to have a billion drinks to help me loosen up a bit on the date, I will deal with being relatively sober so as to prevent a complete stranger from knowing where I live. It is a very nice gesture to ask to pick up your date, but its a no-go for me.

Upon date night, we drove separately (thank the good Lord). We arrived around a similar time and went to the hostess to get our seats. Somehow, someway we were placed at the ONLY table in the entire restaurant that only offered a same-side booth as our seating option. Therefore, we looked like one of those annoying couples (see image below). Unfortunately, I did not appear nearly as happy or relaxed as they did. I am not necessarily awkward, but I definitely do like to have my space to assess how comfortable I am near someone new. Perhaps this was the universe laughing at me, seeing just how uncomfortable I could become as the date went on.

Unfortunately, sitting like that (^) was not even the worst part of the date. As soon as we sat down, Tom looked me in the eyes and said, "Before we even talk, what political party do you support?" LOL. For that day, I was part of the Green Party. Simply put, I was not trying to ruffle any feathers and, in the age of technology, I did not want him to use my party affiliations against me in the future if things didn't work out (good call, past self).

After that frightful question, our conversation was not flowing overly smoothly, but I was able to pull from some of the better parts of our conversations we had via text. That said, he presented ~15-20 red flags throughout our dinner. Namely, he constantly talked about his exes and talked negatively about women in his life (well... really women in general). How I see it, if a man puts down his own mother, the chances of him respecting you are slim-to-none.

How did we get to talking about exes you ask? Well, awkward me felt the need to Google "Questions to ask on a first date" prior to the date and one of the interesting ones was about pet peeves. I thought it would be a surface-level question that would potentially help us bond over shared annoyances. Unfortunately, he took it a different direction by saying, "I HATE it when parents get too involved in relationships." Finding this humorous, I lightly chuckled and said "Oh... sounds like this has happened to you?" To which he responded, "Yes. I also hate it when women LIE to me." I then really laughed and said "Damn. I thought you were going to say something more along the lines of 'I hate when people chew too loudly'. That works though."

Unsurprisingly, he did not catch the hint that I was uncomfortable and that I wanted to make the conversation lighter, so he proceeded to ask if I am still talking to any of my exes. Truth be told, audience, I have not seriously dated anyone since college. So, my answer was "No, I dated my ex five years ago, so there is no contact." He then relaxed a little bit and said "good..." before going on a diatribe about how his most recent ex moved to LA just to get back with her ex. FYI - Her and her Pre-Tom ex are now engaged. Congratulations to her for escaping this man!

I worked hard to salvage this at this point, because we had a long way to go on the date. We had already ordered, but were still waiting for the food to come out (Mmhmm, that's right - these discussions all occurred within the first 15-20 mins). It was REALLY hard to not down each of my drinks. I would have loved to be hammered for this. But I had to drive and had to ensure that I could get away from this man as soon as we paid for the bill.

Now, perhaps up to now, you don't completely understand why I was so ready for it to end. There were lots of other little things that I won't waste too much time on expanding on, such as how he said his ex's mom's salary was 340k "was decent for a woman" (in a condescending way) or how he stared at every blonde girl who came into the restaurant (I am also blonde). As a side note, I later found out what his exes looked like and they all look like me - safe to say he has a type.

The last big thing that I will point out is that, as the night winded down and he had several beverages, he started to get a little intoxicated. We began to talk about our families and he asked if my dad played golf and if he liked smoking cigars/drinking while playing. My father is a very disciplined and focused golfer, so I replied "no" without expanding much.

Tom then asked, "Oh, does your mom not let him have fun? Is that it?"

I said, "No, he just chooses not to smoke cigars. He doesn't like them."

Tom then became angry and with dramatic flare said, "Well my mom doesn't let my dad smoke them, because she's a b*tch. Don't understand how she can tell him to do anything, though, since she smokes cigarettes. F*cking disgusting."

He then got up abruptly and walked away without explanation. I would have been okay if he did not come back, but he was back in his seat 2 minutes later. Not sure what happened lol.

But, as soon as he was back, I was like "okay (awkward laugh).... I'm ready to go."

As we left, he offered to walk me to my car. I am not good at saying no, so I said he could. As we got to my car, I was prepared to just give a hug and walk away (and never speak again), but he decided this would be a good time to attack my face.

Never in my life have I wanted a kiss to end so badly, but it just kept going. I tried to pull away, but he had his hand holding my head so that I couldn't escape him. Do not fret - he wasn't trying to be aggressive or anything - I genuinely just think that he thinks he is an amazing kisser. Not sure what his exes were thinking when they never reprimanded him for his style. It was just so sloppy and weird. Teeth clanging, tongue darting, etc. Big yikes.

All in all, this was the very first date (and hopefully only date) I have gone on where I knew almost immediately that I would not be going on another date with them.

To add a bit of drama to this story...

After the date, he texted me several times, but I was not ready to respond yet. The next day, he texted me in the morning annoyed that I hadn't responded. While I did not want to keep him waiting, I also did not want to put him down yet during his work day. So I waited til 6 PM to text him and let him know that I was not interested. His response was "Hmm... okay." I just left it at that. Then a week later, he texted me at 2 AM (gasp) asking why he wasn't good enough for me. It was not necessarily a thing about him not being good enough... he just kind of freaked me out and I think he has a lot that he still needs to work through re: his past ex trauma and things with his mom. Ultimately, I decided not to respond with the hopes of him just getting the hint that I don't want to talk at all. That said, this story might not yet be over as he just added me on snapchat this week (over one month since our date)...