vaguelyaware.com

i was having dinner last night at a sushi place near UCF, just after our food came out two people walked in to get a table, after seeing this odd couple i immediately assumed they weren’t getting a table together, after one of them spoke up and said “two please” i knew, this was an internet date. i really wish i had a camera phone at that moment, i don’t think this poor twenty-something year old, slim, well-dressed, decent looking black girl was expecting a fifty-something, balding, over-weight, poorly-dressed (jean shorts and jesus sandals - on a date WTF?!) white guy that was so desperate it was sad. I’m no date expert but I’m pretty sure that honesty is the worst possible scenario for a first conversation. Busting out lines like, “I have no family or friends and i spend all my time while not working looking for a mate, i want to start a family with someone like you…” just have no place in a first date. Well after about 20 minutes of semi-controlled laughter at how pathetic this guy was we sympathetically said farewell and good luck to the girl and walked out.

On the way home I started thinking, you know, if this guy was looking for a mate, maybe, without knowing it, he isn’t as stupid as I originally thought. If he really wants someone to be happy with (to like him for who he is), although he was starting WAYYY our of his league, it is probably best to show up in his usual fashion (even if its terrible) and be pretty damned honest about his intentions and goals. If he put on an armani suit and told her he was rich, powerful and had friends, even though he probably would need extensive surgery to fit into said armani, she would be interested (maybe) in someone that is not him. this late in the game, its probably the best plan for him to be his rather pathetic self. Most people, as i’m sure we all know, will put on a façade of who they think the other person wants them to be. Not a bad plan if you are just looking to get lucky, but 8 months down the road when you are firing farts at her and she is liek WTF?! and doesn’t think it is nearly as funny as you do, you will realize, maybe you should have been more honest then, or mature now, whichever. But the pressure for interesting small-talk and good first impressions often persuade even the most noble intentioned people to let slip little fallacies as part of their dating ‘game.’ Which leads me to my next business venture - “Small talk for the socially inept” and for a Christmas stocking stuffer, i’ll make a pocket sized ‘companion’ version. Maybe have it divided in to chapters by intentions : looking to get lucky, looking for a long term thing, looking to get out of this terrible blind date. Something like that… And just for all you that love to yell at me for being cruel to this guy, i’m not making fun at him, or his dating skills, i don’t have any either, I was just laughing at the preposterousness of the situations that arise from internet dating (and how poorly (i think) he handled the situation) and made a nice preface to my book. i wish i could have worked up the nerve to ask them where they met, so i could avoid it like the plague. I think this book would do quite well in the engineering college scene…