No_YOU_get_over_it wrote:
Dates are overrated, but you need a few of them under your belt in order to be truly convinced of that.
Last date was in May. Awful. I'd met the guy at a garden center on a Saturday morning when I was itching for contact; he came up and asked if he could invite me to lunch (in a restaurant) that same day. Hoping my first read of him was wrong, I agreed. Figured we could at least talk plants. We figured out when & where to meet. He was relieved when the place I'd selected was closed, so we went to his favorite place.
He killed any chance he might have had by first trying to move to using the informal version of 'you' and then when I said I'd rather not, by saying that people 'our age' usually use the informal version with each other. Ugh - he was 13 yrs older, and I'm fine with my own age, don't hurry up time for me.
We couldn't talk plants at all, b/c he was ignorant and not interested. The amount and mix he'd bought for his balcony was guaranteed to look scraggly and cheap, but I told him it would all fill in really nicely, hoping he'd counter me, say he wasn't sure. Nope, he thought it was the best EVER. I told him about a monastery nearby that runs a greenhouse with a gazillion varieties of hardy 'ivy' (hedera helix), to use as a base so the boxes would have green in winter. Zero interest.
Despite that, I managed to keep conversation going really well, but it was like an interview for a job you don't want. Except in a job interview it could be a useful contact and you could get interesting information about the company. None of that w/ this guy. He was basically a smaller, older (and my ex was too old for me), less attractive version of my ex. An open book, pretty much - I guessed his birth order and some other stuff, which wowed him.
The only amusing thing was that the waiter on duty didn't recognize date guy, b/c he was subbed in from one of the owner's lower-market restaurants. Here it's a kind of date trick to take the woman to a place where people are happy to see you, so if that's what he was trying, it flopped. Instead the waiter recognized me, b/c I used to go to his restaurant with a bunch of people after a discussion group. The waiter gave me the same warm smile he gives all women, and brought us little appetizers and pro secco on the house. I know my glee over that is kind of schadenfreudig, but to have beat an NT at his own game was satisfying, even if by accident.
Smoke a cigarette, take 20 minutes off your life. Go on a lame date, take 2 hours off your life. Plus 10 minutes typing out this post. Ugh. When we parted the dude said I should call him if I got bored and wanted to so something. I said sure, but did he have another card b/c by the time I unpacked my plants I'd already lost the one he gave me at the greenhouse. That, and that I stiffly continued using the formal version of 'you' and that I wouldn't tell him my first name probably gave him the math on that deal.
That was the only first date in my life where I let the guy pay. I told him that, too, as we were leaving. Well not so directly, just that I'd never let a man pick up the check like that but this time I was going to let him. What I wanted to do was bill him for pain and suffering, but that was my own fault.
Dating is kind of baloney, from what I can tell. gsilver if I lived in your area I'd take you on a date, and I'd pay. It wouldn't be a real date b/c I'm likely too old for your tastes, and b/c I hate dates. But your numbers seem to be bothering you. If you want to try meeting people on-line, there are a few people on the board w/ experience who could help you tweak your profile & strategy.
I hate to say it, but in this post, it sounds like
you have the miserable attitude. It sounds like you were distant and negative, and you had basically prejudged him. Obviously you weren't going to enjoy yourself, and it sounds like he was being a gentleman beyond necessity by still paying for your dinner (as ungrateful as you were). Someone less polite would have probably just excused themselves to the restroom and actually walked out on you. It's called being rotten company.
I don't know what country you're from (since you come from a country where the native language has an informal
you), but in the United States, working in a garden center is a part-time job that college students might take in the summer or after class or that retirees might do for some extra income and a chance to get out. It's not necessarily a job a person takes out of a great passion for plants and gardening.
10 Aug 2008, 8:46 am
