The Bug Guy
Chapter 2: So many red flags.
If you've ever been active on a dating app, you know that you match with more people that you're so-so about than you're excited about. It sounds harsh, but it's reality. Hopefully, things lead to a date and you're pleasantly surprised, but that isn't always the case.
A few years ago, I matched with a guy from a town about an hour away from where I live. He seemed nice enough and I agreed to meet him in a town kind of in the middle of us for dinner one Friday night. After setting the date, he asked if he could call me one night and I said, "Sure!" and gave him my number. I knew approximately three minutes into the phone call that we were probably not going to be a good match, but got stuck, for close to 45 minutes, in that conversation. We were just very different, and I was aware of it pretty quickly. I didn't cancel the date because I thought, "Well, maybe once we meet face to face things will click better." Things kept going downhill though. The next day, we were texting and at some point in the conversation he essentially said, "It's a good thing you're pretty..." because he thought something I'd said was dumb or whatever.
I actually think what he said was that he gave me a "hot girl pass" on my comment that I’d had a protein shake for lunch and was excited that I’d found a brand that actually tasted good, not chalky.
Either way, it really just made him look dumb.
The day of the date finally arrives and now I'm pretty much dreading it. By this point I’d learned that he worked for Terminix, and earlier that day he'd sent me a picture of a room of a job site and it was completely infested with roaches. I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it. Please, no unsolicited roach pics, in the future, fellas. It just made the ick factor even greater. I arrive at the date and he is perfectly nice and conversation flows for the first little bit, but as we got further into dinner, the harder it was to find things to talk about and I was ready to go. We finished eating, but instead of getting the check, he ordered another drink. I tried to act like I hadn't completely checked out halfway through my pasta, but I have no poker face so we’re just gonna hope I faked it well enough. For the record, I know that this is something I'm really bad at. My best friend tells me all the time, "Mary Clyde you have GOT to learn to keep your face in check because I can tell exactly how you feel at every point in a conversation." I'm working on it.
Anyway, throughout all of our communication, but especially that night at dinner, he'd made it very clear, without saying explicitly, what his views are as far as the role of women is concerned. They were what you'd expect from a man who'd described his mom as, "Simple. She’s just simple… But we love her anyway." Ick. At some point he indirectly referred to me as a lady, when sharing one of his opinions on how a lady should behave. When I didn't respond or act flattered, he said, "I just called you a lady." "Yes you did," I replied, and he just stared at me with this look of disbelief on his face. I guess he was shocked I wasn't blushing and fanning myself while batting my eyelashes at him, the big strong man across the table. (In reality he was only an inch or two taller than my 5'4".)
FINALLY, he paid for dinner, I thanked him, and he asked me to text him when I got home - I said I would. He texted me three times during my drive back first telling me he had a good time and wanted to see me again, then to see if I'd made it safely, and the third time to make some snarky comment about my not responding to him, and to say that he could "see how it was, but he'd thought I'd at least have the courtesy to respond to his messages." After I got home, I replied telling him that I'd been driving, had just arrived home, and thank you for the dinner, but I think it would be best if we didn't go out again. He didn't respond to that one… but I didn’t expect him to.
Oh well. On to the next!
xo, MC