It's Not a Match.com

Hey baby, you come here often?

Normally, I don’t date young women. I’m 32 (as far as you know), and anyone under 28 usually feels a little…undercooked to me. But a friend of mine, who is, let’s say, a douchebag, recently made an impassioned case. “Younger women are more fun,” he douched, “they’re better looking, and they haven’t been messed up by bad experiences with other guys yet.” He liked to do the messing up himself, you see. This was a gentleman who only after great argument could I get to raise his desired age range from 18-22 to 18-25 on Match. And he’s 35. Did I mention he’s a douchebag? For some reason though, from this person who one should never take advice, I took advice. And of course, because it’s this site, I regretted it deeply.

The girl I chose for my youth experiment was 23. Actually, the one I first chose was 24, but she stood me up – the only time that’s happened in the 100+ Internet dates I’ve attended. A person who is wise would probably have taken that as a sign, but such a person would probably not detail each one of their dating failures on the Internet for others to read, so why even go down that road? 23, however, did show, and she was surprisingly delightful.

She was quiet, to be sure, but had some zip on her fastball once I coaxed her out of her shell. She was a journalism student and from my hometown (as far as you know) of Boston, so my interest was piqued. And, yes, alright, I’ll admit that she was quite attractive. But in that 23 year-old, gravity doesn’t exist, I never have to go to the gym so I really haven’t earned looking the way I do sort of way. So there’s only so much credit you can give for that. But it was a nice and very mature first date, and much to my surprise, I asked her for a second. Say it with me now…big mistake.

I believe she walked right through the middle of this...

I don’t know when people learn to carry umbrellas or buy umbrellas or well, own coats, but apparently it is 24 years and up. It was raining the night of my second date with 23, and she was soaked. But not in the normal way that people get soaked when they’re caught in the rain on the way from the subway or when waiting for a cab – she was SOAKED. Like she had drowned but forgotten to pass away. Dripping, sopping, preposterously wet, from head to toe. I asked her what happened and she looked at me like a crazy person. Obviously further explanation was needed. “You’re so wet,” I said. “Oh, yeah, I had to walk.” That’s all she said. “I had to walk.” Like it was a sentence for a crime she’d committed.  She had walked twenty blocks in the pouring rain and not stopped to get a $3 umbrella or a $6 taxi at any point. Now she was going to sit down with me for dinner in clothes that were more water than fabric and try to have a pleasant evening? It was ridiculous. Her clothes were sticking to her. There were puddles under her shoes. It was the sort of thing a 5 year-old would do. They’d laugh and dance and play in the rain, then when you explained to them that they’d now have to be wet for the rest of the evening, they’d look at you confused and forsaken. The polite sushi ladies were apoplectic, and as usual I was right there with them. (Polite sushi ladies and I agree on most things.) I was growing concerned with my plan to master the under-28s…

We talked for a bit, but 23 was, understandably, quite fidgety. The quietness I noted during our first date seem to expand when wet, and complete sentences were getting hard to come by. The night was officially entering the awkward zone, and for the fifty or sixtieth time in my life I was cursing My Friend The Douchebag. Then a strange thing happened. Or rather, a stranger thing. She just…stopped talking. I asked 23 what her plans were after she graduated (did I forget to mention that she was still finishing up college? I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten that…), and she didn’t respond. Not immediately, or anytime close thereafter. It had to have been at least a minute of silence. Not really sure what to do, I decided to just ask the question again and see what happened. Again, no response. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do but wait.

The only thing the night was missing...

The night took on sort of a bizarre subtext from that point. Basically, it was a game show. I would say something, then she would wait as long as humanly possible to respond. Unwilling to bend to the pressure, I would wait longer still to fill the empty air with a follow-up remark. It was as if whoever could stand the awkwardness the longest would receive a wonderful showcase of prizes and vacations to exotic lands. Really though all either of was going to win was a confused trip home. Alone. But it didn’t stop us from giving it our all. I would open my mouth, about to say something, then close it and turn away. She would lean in, look like she was going to explain exactly what had gone wrong, then grab an California roll and pop it in her mouth. It was breathtaking really, and a performance that far exceeded her age.  If I had any idea what was going on, I probably would’ve swooned with delight.

The evening ended anti-climatically with 23, as she gave me a damp half-hug goodbye and scuttled off into the night. I never figured out exactly what I did to upset or aggressively disinterest her, but I imagine it was my fault. I have that sort of way with women. I did learn one thing beyond all measure however: do not, under any circumstances, listen to the douchebags. Date who you want to date, and if you’re 32 then 23 is most definitely way too young.

My shrink.

I’ve met a lot of great women through Match.com, I really have. I would say at least 90% of the ladies I’ve been out with have been sweet, attractive, and utterly likable people. My problem is, it keeps being the other 10% that I ask out for a second date. Why? No idea, you better ask my shrink. Piece of advice though, she charges by the word and has, let’s say, a liberal perspective on the merits of falling asleep while someone else is talking.

The first woman I had a long-term relationship with that I met on Match was definitely one of the good 90%. She was very attractive, wore glasses (official It’s Not A Match quirky turn on), had a great sense of humor, and was generally irresistible. She also lived six blocks from me and for some reason enjoyed the pleasure of my company, so things were off to a promising start.

There’s always a thing that, after you break up with someone, you look back and realize “oh, I’m an idiot.” Something that, at the time, you justify and explain away and decide not to worry about, mostly because this person is willing to let you see them without their clothes on and allowances must be made for such behavior. But then, after you separate, you slap your hand to your head and wonder how you couldn’t have seen it coming. In the case of 90% Nanette, it was this statement: “Oh, I don’t call back.”

Her ideal telephone

We had just returned from spending Christmas with our families, and she had been distant. I would call her, she wouldn’t call me back, then I’d wait for a few days and call her again. Maybe I’d get her, maybe I wouldn’t. But the whole time she sounded pissed, which was confusing, but such is the life of one who tries to date women. When we returned to New York she yelled at me for not calling her enough over the break. I pointed out that in fact I called her plenty and it was she that didn’t call me. Her response: “Oh, I don’t call back.” She just doesn’t. Never has. How I had dated her for several months without noticing this I don’t know, but she explained that it’s not the woman’s job to call a man back. Men are just to call her until she eventually picks up. Because she’s a princess living in a castle and the entire world is a fairy tale and her hair is made of gold and unicorn eyelashes. I told her plainly that that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. Apparently that was also something she didn’t do – get told that she was an idiot – because she didn’t care for that one bit. This was when I should have known that I wasn’t dealing with a 90% Nanette, but actually one of the crappy 10% Tinas. A woman with an opinion about gender roles and the telephone that predate the actual invention of the telephone wasn’t gonna work for me. But we talked it out, I looked past the obvious (mostly because of that whole potential for clothes being off thing), and we moved on. Mistake.

A few months later, entirely out of the blue, 10% Tina sent me an email saying we were through. No real reason was given, because after all she was a 10% Tina. The only thing she said was that she wasn’t good at discussing such things in person so we wouldn’t be doing that. No talking, face to face or otherwise, would be going on. What can I say, she liked restrictions on communication, generally. At the time, I was young and delicate and it hit me pretty hard. I tried to talk to her, but she refused. It was all very confusing and awful and I felt bad for a few months. Yeah, I said it. Months. I was listening to a lot of Nick Drake and Elliott Smith in those days and oh how the cigarettes were smoked. The cherry on the cake of the relationship happened one day when I saw her on the street in our neighborhood and she pretended not to see me and walked right by. That one hurt for sure. She was downgraded to a 5% Phyllis after that. But then, maybe a year later, it all changed.

My replacement

I ran into her roommate in a bar and after pretending to care about catching up, I asked her the big question: so…what’s up with 5% Phyllis? That was when she uttered the one sentence that fixed everything, that turned this into one of the great dating experiences of my life. The roommate said…AHEM… “after she broke up with you she moved in with a guy who lived in a shack.” How do you know you’ve won a breakup? When within 90 days your ex is without running water or indoor plumbing. When her mailing address becomes “Next To The Big Oak Tree With The Knot In It.” When she has to throw away her electric toothbrush because it draws too much on the generator. AWESOME.

The way the story goes, she broke up with me and for a while dated a guy who was married. But who hasn’t really? Then she met this fine gentlemen who entirely swept her off her feet, which was wonderful until he announced that he was morally opposed to modern conveniences of city living, so had built himself a shack. AND SHE LIVED IN IT WITH HIM. I could never figure out where this shack was located exactly, but when you get a gem like this you don’t go looking too hard for fault lines. The point is, I was upset at her choosing against me when a few months later she would also choose against a toilet and working faucets. Luckily, she probably didn’t run into the problem of not calling people back again, as it’s hard to place a call when your phone is plugged into a tree stump. She was nuts and I was scott free! All because of one beautiful sentence…

“After she broke up with you she moved in with a guy who lived in a shack.” I’m considering it as a tattoo.

Hi, I'm Ted. I'm looking for someone who's as comfortable at home on the couch as they are out dancing! Also, someone into being murdered.

Everyone researches their date. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. If a real email or last name happens to get dropped in conversation, then yeah, you’ll jump over to Facebook and check the person out. Maybe to see a few more pictures, or find out if you have any friends in common, or make sure they have friends at all. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe you’ll even do a Google search, though I don’t know what a person’s Linked In profile and an article they wrote for their college paper about the delays in renovating the new science wing will really teach you. But whatever you do, don’t tell the person what you found out in your research of them. Because that’s more than a little, well, Ted Bundy-ish. How do I know? Well…

For you who have been reading my riveting prose for weeks now, it will not surprise you to learn that I am a writer. “But what about the typos?” you say. “But what about my fist in your face?” I reply, and it’s clear to you that I mean business. As a writer, you can Google me and probably find more stuff than you would for the average person. But when one young lady, let’s call her Shawna, announced on the phone before meeting me that not only had she Googled me, but found an interview that I forgot even existed, I was perturbed. On the one hand, I was charmed that she was so interested in me (my shrink would have a field day with that one), on the other, I wondered how many pages deep she must have gone in her Google search to find this interview. Turns out…nine. I checked myself and it took NINE pages to get to a seven-year-old interview I did on a friend’s podcast that itself lasted only three episodes and no one ever listened to. That means she waded through pages and pages of things that weren’t even close to being about me just to find this terribly pointless waste of ten minutes. For someone she’d never met before. And then for some reason, told me all about it. And somehow I ended up charmed? I don’t know. Like I said, I have a shrink, we’re working through it.

There's something about him in here somewhere, I can feel it!

So I go out with Shawna the night after the big Google admission, and things go pretty well for a time. The banter is lively, she’s actually quite attractive, and seems to be fairly rich – which is good news for Daddy Nobucks over here. She’s a succesful lawyer, why was I so worried about a little Googling – we’ve all Googled, right? Who hasn’t Googled? And then she got up to order food. That’s when the trouble started.

Shawna goes up to the counter at this cute little coffee shop and orders a sandwich, or something equally simple. I realize I have to head out to a birthday party in about an hour, and tell her when she returns. Her face turns almost immediately to disdain. “What?! An hour from NOW?!” she half yells. Honestly not knowing when else it would be an hour from, I nod tentatively. “Well that is outrageous!” she now fully yells. We’ve already been there, mind you, for over an hour and twenty minutes. Ending it an hour from then would put it safely in the two-hour category, which I insist is plenty for a first Internet date. One hour if they’re bad, two hours if they’re good, three hours if, as Vince Vaughn likes to say, you’re gonna make some bad decisions.

“I’m sorry,” I say, even though no one was buying that shit. “I thought two hours would be enough time. How long do your first Match dates usually last?” You’re guessing in your mind what she’s going to say, aren’t you? You think she might say three hours, or she doesn’t have an expected time, or some other answer that is nowhere near as awesome as what she actually said which was…FIVE HOURS. She’s never had a first date of any kind that lasted under five hours. And she had planned this evening accordingly. We were going to have coffee and sandwiches, then go to a movie, then play some pool, then “see what happens.” Except actually she would be the only one who was seeing what happened, as I would have long since hung myself in the bathroom.

“Why didn’t you tell me before I ordered my food?!” she continues to yell with her ever-reddening face. My thought: why didn’t I tell you I would have to leave in an hour before you ordered a turkey sandwich? Because that would be ridiculous. Should I tell you about everything that I’m planning on doing in the next six hours on the off-chance that it conflicts with someone insane plan you’ve concocted? I’m probably gonna take a crap in a little while, wanna know about that? My actual words: “I guess I wasn’t thinking.” That, clearly, was insufficient. “Well, what am I supposed to do, just wolf down my sandwich?!”

The last time anyone tried to eat a sandwich in under an hour.

I stopped talking at that point, because really, what was the point? Shawna shot up from the table to ask the people at the counter to cancel the sandwich that she couldn’t possibly eat in the next 60 minutes. She came back and sat down and pretended to compose herself for a few minutes then announced, not unexpectedly, that “my time is clearly about to be up, so I think I should just leave now.” Then we had the most awkward walk to the subway in the history of awkward walks to the subway, and I bid her adieu.

The lesson I take from this? When someone tells you they’re crazy, either explicitly or by admitting they Googled you to a ridiculous extent before you even went out, then you should believe them and cancel the date. Learn this lesson, loyal reader. One day I may actually learn it myself. That’s what my shrink says, anyway.