The Eternal Truth of Seinfeld and Parisian Greetings

Although I’m nearing the end of my Match stories and getting to the exciting decision last fall to join a free dating website, there are two last memorable ones I wanted to share. First, there was Jared* the Caveman. Do you remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry was dating a woman whose attractiveness was completely altered by changes in lighting? One minute, she was beautiful and he was smitten. The next, she looked like a ghoul and he couldn’t get away fast enough. Well, that was Jared. From one angle, he was fairly hot. From another angle, he looked like a slightly less hairy caveman. We met up at a bar and when he first sat down next to me, he looked great. We chatted, joked, flirted; it was all good. After I returned from going to the ladies’ room and sat down on the other side of him, I thought he had just hopped out of those annoying commercials selling car insurance. He had a distinctly Cro-Magnon look about him. His personality also tended slightly to the Jekyl/Hyde dynamic. One moment he was charming and witty. The banter was excellent –slightly sarcastic and biting but not too mean. Just 30 minutes later, and he was a creepy slimeball. This became even more evident when he discovered that I wasn’t immediately going to invite him back to my place. Although he said he would call so we could meet up again I was not surprised and was a little relieved when I never heard from him after that initial date.

The second match was perhaps more memorable for the beginning of the date than for any resemblance to a Seinfeld character, although he was a bit of a close talker. Bill* and I had emailed for a while and he really peaked my interest; he was funny, intelligent, and actually volunteered his time with the elderly. No, that wasn’t a line – I really do believe him. It’s just unusual and really cool; we actually did similar types of volunteering by visiting nursing homes with our dogs just for different organizations and at different facilities. And when I say he is intelligent I should be more specific; he was an actual physicist. I felt a little out of my depth but he did seem too good to pass up for fear of intimidation.

As promising as all of that sounded, I pretty much knew from our phone conversation that the date was not going to go well. He was highly nervous and had very annoying conversational habits. He ended every sentence by repeating the last phrase of that sentence or by clearing his throat and saying “uh huh uh huh ok.”
For example, when I asked how is day had been going he said “Today’s been going pretty well, pretty well. It’s been very busy at work, though, very busy at work. How was your day (throat clearing) uh huh?” I thought maybe it was a fluke but when I asked him where he wanted to meet the following day for a drink he said “How about that bar down by the lake, down by the lake? Its pretty cool (clears throat) uh huh, ok.”

There was a split second when I thought about ending it then, not even bothering to meet him. But I convinced myself that I was being too hasty and that he was probably just bad on the phone. Uh huh. Ok.

To set the scene, keep in mind that Bill* and I had never met before. We had exchanged several emails, seen each others pictures, done a little instant messaging, and talked once on the phone. So when I walked up to the bar and saw him standing outside, I was more than a little taken aback when as I reached out to shake his hand, he tried to kiss me. Open mouthed. With tongue. In my shock I was still able to turn my head so that instead of him frenching me hello, he ended up licking the side of my head and my hair. That’s right, I said hello and he licked my hair.

Time stood still for a bit as I gave a sort of strangled yelp and he looked at me nonchalantly as if nothing strange had happened. That is when I really needed the ganas to just walk away. Inexplicably, I stayed. I felt too mean to leave even though I was totally freaked. So I just kind of hurried inside the bar and he followed after me. I was a little smarter than usual though and ignored him when he was standing at the hostess stand saying he wanted to get a table and have some dinner. I pretended I didn’t hear him and hurried to an empty stool at the bar.

After such a horrible start, the only place to go is up right? If you actually believe that, then this must be the first of my posts that you’ve read. For the conversational “quirks” I had noticed during our phone conversation were omnipresent during our conversation at the bar. The scary thing was that I found myself adopting some of his habits, some of his habits. Trying to take control of the conversation and prevent me from losing all powers of thoughtful speech, I decided to talk to him more about his volunteerism. How could that go wrong? Well, when he told me that the name of his dog was Nixon and that he named him after the single greatest human being who has ever lived and then waxed rhapsodic about the wondrous traits of our former president for TEN SOLID MINUTES I knew it was time to call it a night. I knocked back the rest of my cocktail, slapped some money on the bar, and told him I had to hit the road. At this point, he tried to french me again! Yes, that’s right. He is that bold and I am that clueless. Of course he would try again! I had stayed in his presence for almost 30 minutes and hadn’t run away screaming so clearly we were meant to be together. This time I intercepted his face with my hand which he almost licked so I wiped it on the barstool, wished him luck in his future endeavors, and fled. Even as I was running away I heard him saying that he would give me a call so we could do this again, do this again…