Two Things I Never Thought I’d Hear

 When you think of smooth lines a guy is sure to try on a lady he is attempting to woo, did you ever think they would include the following sentences?

1. “Yesterday I neutered a chinchilla.”

2. “Last month I gave a snake a bunch of enemas.”

As I value entertaining my readers far more than I value my personal safety apparently (and despite what I try to tell myself I have not given up actually meeting a guy I dig who digs me before I reconcile myself to maiden aunthood), I jumped back on the horse last week and met another fella from one of my two current online dating subscriptions.  I decided to go with the site with a fee for my reentry into dating life since the disastrous golfing date with Glen* was from a free site.  So I chose Brick* from Physics.*  Brick* and I had emailed back and forth a few times but I have to admit that I was emailing quite a few guys at the same time on that site and they had all started to blend into one.  I remembered that Brick* was from the South and that his parents still lived there but I couldn’t remember precisely what he did for a living when I agreed to meet up with him for lunch last week. 

I had learned that Brick* was a man of few words.  His emails were way shorter than the other guys I chatted with – Brick* didn’t have a lot of free time and kept his messages short and…well, not sweet exactly but definitely short.  His 2^nd to last email was approximately 4 lines.  He answered a question I asked in a previous note, confirmed that we were meeting 2 days from then, and then closed off with saying “Yesterday I neutered a chinchilla.”

I cannot express how relieved I was when I checked his profile and confirmed that he was in fact a veterinarian and not just a guy with a deeply weird hobby.

I titled my return message to him “That’s a First” and explained in my equally brief note that I had never had anyone tell me that they had neutered a chinchilla before.  His reply, sent the day before we were to meet, was “Last month I gave a snake a bunch of enemas.”  This is far and away one of the most disturbing and intriguing things I have heard.   My mind still boggles at the thought.  I think that was actually one of the first things I asked him when I met him the following day.  How do you give a snake an enema?  Do you often have to give snakes enemas?  Did this one dislike it heavily or was he more agnostic about the process? 

I figured that Brick* had to either have an extremely quirky sense of humor (which I would dig) or be a very strange guy.  He was neither of these things actually.  He was a really decent guy, wicked tall and huge, a slight southern accent, occasionally made this weird throat clearing “ahem” sound after long sentences…and that’s about it.  We had a good conversation at first but it started to feel a little contrived about half way through.   Perhaps I peppered him too much with questions about his work (at some point I realized that talking about enemas was probably not a good sign on a first date).  Neither of us seemed too terribly smitten with the other.  We had a good lunch, okay conversation, he offered to and paid for lunch which was lovely, and then he walked with me in the direction of where my car was parked, telling me to have a nice day before he walked off to his own ride. 

There was no follow up call or indication of interest on either side really.  I probably would have gone out with him again to hear some more interesting work stories or at least to figure out how in the hell you give a snake an enema.

Whoa.  I need to think about that for a minute.  My dating life has come to the point where I would willingly go out again with someone who showed no interest me, in whom I was really not interested in order to find out how to do something I really hope I never ever have to do.  Well I guess there are worse things.  I wouldn’t have a long term relationship with such a guy just to find out bizarre facts in case I ever have to compete in the weirdest trivia contest ever.  But I did find him interesting enough to spend an afternoon or two with to learn his stories and expand my horizons in a way I never thought possible.

 

*Name has been changed