The night before our coffeedate and ten days after I’d first made his acquaintance he told me over the phone about a woman he’d been interested in a few months back. “The first date was just awful,” he said, sketching out a scene which, if it had happened to me, would surely merit inclusion in AAG’s Top Ten Odd Dates1 “I really should have left after the first half-hour but I stuck it out to be a gentleman.”
Ah, I’ve had those, I said. So I assume there was no second date?
“No, I didn’t want to be abrupt,” he said. “We went out once again even though I knew it was a bad idea.”
Why in the world would you waste your time like that?
“I didn’t want to be a jerk,” he said. “I thought I owed it to her.”
I pulled out my sternest teacher voice. XXXXX. Don’t ever do that to me. If you’re not feeling it I’m a big enough girl to handle the truth. I do not need pity-dates.
Hesitantly he agreed. “It doesn’t seem very polite though,” but somehow overnight the idea must have caught on for when I awoke the next morning I found a text canceling our date and since that curt missive I’ve heard from him nary a word.
Of course we all know of my winsome personality, bewitching smile and shiny, shiny hair, so none of those things could possibly account for his abrupt change of heart. I have to wonder if something else was to blame, and if that something else had to do with the direction our conversation took immediately after the exchange related above.
You see, I’d met this man through a straight-laced dating site, one which traditionally pairs off thin, Christian women with men seeking a lady with “good family values.”2 But he seemed different; he had liberal political leanings and (I thought) enough dating experience that he wouldn’t completely lose his head over my colorful history.
We had several quite lovely conversations before he inquired if I had profiles on other sites; when I answered honestly he immediately, and much to my surprise, created a profile on my favorite pervy site. Despite my best efforts to steer things back into safer waters, after that point all he wanted to discuss was sexsexsexsexsexsexsex. I tried to emphasize that while I was very3 interested in the physical part of a relationship I was not, at this moment, looking for just a fuckbuddy — but by then I think it was too late.
On the night in question he asked about my plans for the weekend. “Are you going to the party that’s listed on the site?”
I might, I said. You’re going to be out of town, correct?
He was, he said, but offered no more details before turning back to my possible engagements. “Do you think it’ll turn into one big orgy?”
I very seriously doubt it, I said. That’s really not how it works.
“Well, do you think you’ll get naked?”
It’s possible, I said. I’ve known some of these people for years and I love them. But it really depends on the atmosphere and my mood.
“I’m just not sure how I feel about that,” he said.
I’m confused, I said. Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t see other people when we’ve not yet even met?
He offered no definitive answer to this question.
Are you prepared to follow the same rule, I asked, remembering that he’d told me (I hadn’t asked!) about the other women he was currently courting, and after he hemmed and hawed a bit about that we bid each other goodnight and honestly? I wasn’t all that surprised to find his text the following morning.
Because of this episode and others all too similar in nature I’m left with the conclusion that it is not in my best interest to disclose my pervosity so soon. In the future perhaps I shall simply refuse to entertain discussion of anything remotely salacious unless it is to give off the impression that the only sex I’ll tolerate is man-on-top, lights-off, once-a-month. Then it will be a pleasant surprise to find out later that I’m open-minded instead of a source of distraction (or abject terror) in the tentative early stages.
Dear Reader, what say you to this plan?
