Dating is fun, dating is hard, dating can be exhausting but
every first-date is a new experience. Sometimes first-dates are a little
awkward and sometimes it feels completely natural and sometimes you want to rip
your fucking ears off rather than listen to him say one more thing about his
dog. So here’s the part where I get all Chelsea Handler on you guys and give
you a run down on my past few weeks in the dating world.
By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the infamous Tinder. My
roommate turned me onto this feisty little app and now we’ve become little
addicts lying on our couch, swiping left and swiping right as some mindless TV
show plays in the background. I’ve always thought of myself too good for a
dating website, it feels like something for desperate or elderly people. Plus,
I was convinced that any guy I would actually want to have a relationship with
would be too prideful to ever utilize a dating site as well. Cue Tinder. It’s
like a dating website for the superficial, super busy, millennials, and it lacks
the typical stigma of eHarmony or OkCupid. So I figured since I didn’t actually
know any of these young men, why not perform a social experiment by dating and
then writing about my experiences? So after a few weeks of swipes and matches,
I finally bit the bullet and accepted a date. Up until this point, I had only
exchanged witty banter with a few guys and added a few others on Facebook so
both parties could determine that this wasn’t going to be a Manti Te’o
situation.
So it’s a busy Tuesday at work when I get a text from Ryan who’s asking if I want to get drinks after work. I’m not sure was possessed me
to say yes, maybe it was the sun shining outside or the fact that I liked my
outfit that day or maybe that he’s Indian (did I mention, I have a thing for
ethnic guys?), but I agreed to meet him down at The Tippler for a few
cocktails. Turns out this guy is pretty hilarious, much cuter than I expected
and successful *ding, ding, ding*. So we chatted about his work at NBC, our
families, travels, all of the typical first date topics were covered. And I
have to be honest, I liked what I heard.
He was just witty enough to keep up with the banter and I even let him
give me a nickname. It’s hard to say a lot about a good date, the bad dates are
the fun ones to read about so I’ll save that for later. This guy will get a
second date.
Wednesday was a second date with a non-tinder guy, Johnny.
We had been set up on a double date the weekend prior and were both very
anxious to see each other again. He’s a handsome Southern gentleman, very tall,
great smile and works for some tech start-up or something like that. He sounds
great on paper, right? The problem with this one is that he has somewhat of a
knack for sexting. We could be chatting about the weather and it’s like he has
a gift for making whatever topic turn completely sexual. I get it, I mean I
guess I’d want to have sex with me too if I were him but cool your jets until
at least our second date. We split a bottle of wine, got a little drunk and
told the other person what we thought about them. Hearing him say that I look
like I go for “dumb but handsome pretty boys” was one of the better
conversations of the night, mostly because it couldn’t be farther from the
truth. I shook it off and told him he was smart and ugly but I still liked him. To be
continued…
Thursday rolls around and after many attempts at
coordinating a date, we finally had one on the books for tonight. Jamie is
currently getting his MBA at Yale and he must have really wanted to take me out
because he took a 2 hour train into the city just for this. So I’m actually on
time for once and show up to Butter at exactly 9PM. Jamie is there and though
he’s a little shorter than I expected, he was so friendly and he could handle
the little teasing I threw his way. Despite the fact that he was a bit more
“urban” than I typically go for, he was really fun and we even went for
post-dinner drinks. So he had to catch the midnight train back to Connecticut
and just before he puts me in a cab, he kisses me. First-date kisses are always
interesting… First of all, the fact that they’re throwing caution to the wind
and going in for a smooch must mean they really felt a connection. It was just
a peck so there was no lingering which I appreciated, but it almost felt more
friendly than frisky. He’ll probably get a second date.
Finally, it’s the weekend and even though I had friends in
town, Nate had already made us reservations at Spasso for Saturday night. I
don’t know what attracted me to him, he definitely wasn't the cutest or the
brightest but he had a whole photo album dedicated to food on his Facebook and
I can gets down with that. Conversation flowed pretty easily although he talked
a lot about himself. Maybe that’s my fault though, I always engage and
encourage conversation about the other person for fear of talking about myself
too much. Apparently no one else has this fear because I constantly find myself
listening to a one-sided conversation about a man's work and family life. For
someone as self-involved as me, you’d think I would butt in a little more. We attempted
a post-dinner drink but I was tired, tired of him, tired of smiling, and tired
of sipping vodka sodas. We texted back and forth for a few days following but
not much else happened. I’ll write this one off as an average date with great
food.
After a week of non-stop dating, I decided to give myself a
break. I eased up and focused on work the whole next week… Until the weekend
that is.
Have you ever been on a sober day date? I DO NOT RECOMMEND
IT. This was one of the worst dates, though definitely not the worst, that I
have been on. I agreed to meet Jonah for coffee on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday morning, he asks if I want to go see an acoustic musician perform… In
the subway station. I was pretty thrown off by this and thankfully the
performance was too early for me to make so I dodged that bullet. However, he
then asked if I wanted to walk his dogs before grabbing coffee. Being that I’m
a HUGE dog person, I willingly agreed! So when we met up and he’s holding the
leashes of two pit bulls, I’m stoked. He lets me take the reins on the smaller
dog for about 30 seconds before he shares the fact that they’re both rescue
dogs that aren't friendly. Perfect. So we walk around a bit and I listen to him
talk about his business, he owns a chain of coffee shops around the city. And
then he talks about how he rescues dogs. And then he talks about his business
some more. And then about how he’s a vegan who’s been sober for 9 years. I am
so fed up, ready to rip my ear drums out and find the nearest steakhouse, so I
finally make up an excuse and bid him adieu. This date lasted 3 hours too long.
I was hell-bent on recovering my Saturday so as I’m
freshening up and putting on my sassy bar-going outfit, Brad texts me and asks
if I want to go to dinner. Well Brad has been drinking all day at Day &
Night but we’d been blowing each other off for too long and it was time to pull
the trigger. He picks me up at my apartment and we cab it up to his favorite
restaurant. Did I mention that he’s a surgeon? He knew the owners, waiters,
bartenders, bus-boys, etc. and they treated this guy like a king. They even let
me get behind the bar and start pouring drinks for the thirsty patrons (there
are too many embarrassing pictures to prove it). Even though the restaurant is
packed, we managed to get a table quickly and start ordering more goose on the
rocks. Then things get interesting because no more than 10 minutes later, my
heart jumps into my throat as I see someone I recognize walking towards me.
Get
ready because this is some rom-com story-line bullshit. I had been Facebook
friends with this guy Dan, who used to hook up with my old roommate a few
years ago. While I was home over Christmas he reached out to me since we’d
actually never met due to their late-night schedule. We started casually
chatting and we sort of hit it off, though I noticed from his profile that he
seemed to have a lady-friend who seemed a bit more than friendly. We made plans
to grab drinks when I returned but I flew back to the city the next week and
never heard from him. Then last Wednesday, 5 months later, I got a completely
random, out-of-the-blue text message from Dan, apologizing for blowing me off
because he ended up getting serious with the aforementioned girl. He asked for
forgiveness and I’m not one to hold grudges so we exchanged some banter the
rest of the day and that was it. 
Well, who do you think is walking towards me at
this completely random restaurant on the Upper East Side?! The very same guy
and his GIRLFRIEND. Cue me getting really drunk, hand-feeding my date and completely
ignoring the fact that I could have reached over and pet his girlfriend’s hair.
Brad and I ended up getting sloppy drunk and called our night a success and
retired for the evening. 
It wasn't until 7:30AM as I’m feeling around my bed that
I realized I had left my phone in the pocket of his jacket. DAMMIT. Finally at
around 10AM, I decide to make my way over to his place and collect my phone
along with my dignity. While skimming over 23 angry text messages from the
friends that I had ditched, I found one from Dan at 1:58AM saying that he hoped
I had fun tonight. I DID HAVE FUN MOTHERFUCKER. Kidding, it was actually kind
of nice. But why on earth is he even bothering when he has a girlfriend?! Ugh,
men. I’m still in disbelief that out of the thousands of people and hundreds of
restaurants in the City, we still managed to get seated next to each
other.
Is New York getting smaller or am I just dating too much?
.JPG)
