Dont Mince Words

I got over that metrosexual man thing more than a decade ago when I realized my husband used more hair products than I did. It wasn’t the ‘80s, after all. So when I met a man who said he was in touch with his inner lesbian and he’d come over and fix my furnace on our second date, I had to say yes.

He showed up sporting a thrift store chic workman shirt with a “Todd” name patch and “Greco Heating and Air Conditioning” above his pocket. I giggled as he came in the door and hugged me. When he sat down on the sofa he squirmed around.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“You are probably sitting on one of my crazy pillows,” I answered.

He pulled out a stuffed rooster from his back pocket. “I could of brought you flowers, but I thought you’d like cock instead,” he said.

A sense of humor, good, but can he fix a furnace? No, but he spent 45 minutes trying, which is about how long my ex-husband used to spend in the bathroom doing his hair.

I’ll take cock any day.

In Los Angeles, we don’t make a move in our car without checking SigAlert. This useful website helps us plan around idiot drivers. What it doesn’t help with is the trouble we may find when we reach our destination.

I agreed to drive to Long Beach for a first date tonight. Going 34 miles in 80 minutes is good during rush hour. But I knew as soon as I got to the bar, the only thing this trip was good for would be the beer I would need to get through the date.

When he answered his cell phone, it was over. But traffic wasn’t. So I sat there another 40 minutes listening to a me-monologue while I mentally mapquested my way back home.

Without SigAlert as a gauge, I got out after my second beer and made it home in record time. I have good instincts for traffic and bad dates.

Dating is an exhausting exercise, but I support my friends as they venture out there. What is more tiring is when they have a bad experience and state, “I thought this kind of crap only happened to you, Marna.”

Once again, I have to repeat IT’S BAD ALL OVER.

Marci was approached online by a hospital social worker that lives east of New Haven, Conn. Marci is on the upper east side of Manhattan. They spent a week talking on the phone and Social Worker decided to take the train down and take her out for the day and then they’d have dinner. Seemed like an innocent proposition and a typical New York weekend: walk around/eat.

He arrived nervous and it never stopped. He directed his behavior into a few verbal assaults, which finally sent Marci over the edge. She stopped the date and asked him what his problem was. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pill bottle and said, “I didn’t take my Xanax this morning.”

She asked him to take his meds. He then revealed he has had depression since birth, severe anxiety, OCD, and a sleeping disorder. He also hasn’t worked in a year. Marci told him she could almost tolerate the medical disorders, but lying about his employment was a deal breaker.

“But I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t go out with me,” he said.

His send off was classic. “All those nights we talked on the phone were long distance calls for me and I can’t afford it. Do you think you could call me? Will you call me?” he asked.

Instead, Marci emailed me and I had a telephonic intervention with her while he was on a train north. She’s done with dating, she says. “This should have been your date. You would have had fabulous new, insane material,” Marci added.

Well, Marci, I haven’t had a date in more than a month. Thanks for reminding me what’s out there. This blog’s for you.