Your Father…

I am 15 minutes late to my first date with Chris. Not for the usual reasons; I actually should have been early. I am late because I drove past the bar twice and got stuck behind a bus when I turned around… all because I didn’t want to admit I have never been to this popular bar before. It’s been four months since I moved home and I am not about to admit to my new date that JD Salinger would call me antisocial. As usual, I’m off to a promising start.

Late and embarrassed, I give myself a football-movie-pep-talk as I cross the parking lot. With one last victory grunt-and-flex, I march through the door and stride right up to the guy sitting alone at the bar, chatting with the female bartender.

He stares at me blankly as I stick my hand out and introduce myself. The bartender comes over as I continue to stand there with my hand out, insisting that this man (who has already turned back to his beer) is Chris.

We’re all just standing there saying the same words with no improved understanding when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn to face someone who looks much more like the profile picture I had been talking to for the past few weeks; he is gesturing to the table next to the door where he has clearly been waiting. It turns out I had amped myself up so much that I failed to look around the bar before striding right up to the bartender’s boyfriend who is keeping her company until her shift ends.

Boy do I know how to make an entrance.

After that point, however, the date passes in a pleasant, easy blur. We breeze through the usual topics (family, work, summer plans, etc.), but also carefully debate politics and discuss history without giving too much of our personal beliefs away. I’m relieved to hear that he’s in a band part-time while teaching full-time. I immediately decide to wait at least a month before he knows anything about my taste in music and at least a year before he can see the full contents of my iPod (no one in their 20s should have that much Disney).  What feels like ten minutes of talking turns out to be three hours.

As we walk through the dark parking lot, Chris asks when he can see me again and gives me a confident, gentle kiss on the cheek.

****

Kids, there’s something about a guy asking when he can see you again that says just what you want it to. It’s not about the good time he had (although that’s implied) and it’s not about moving along in the process. He just wants to spend time with you again. What more could you want?

It turns out… nothing. Apparently I really screwed up this blog by ACTUALLY meeting your father. Every date after that point ended with the exact same feeling: when can I see you again? There are plenty more stories of how I very nearly screwed it all up (that I’ll probably share on here… I can’t shut this thing down!) but somehow Chris has always wanted to see me again. This weekend, he asked me to marry him and I am happy to officially announce: this is how I DID meet your father.

 

 

Your Father Isn’t… Elliot

I’m listening to my current guy aggressively drumming and shout/singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” while I’m writing this. It’s an all-around weird moment. Oh well, just go with it.

~~~

Elliot sends me an incredibly sweet, thoughtful message about what he likes in my profile and how much he thinks we’ll get along. There’s no bravado in it, no showmanship, which for DC is impossible. I actually work hard on my reply because I can’t easily match his level of sincerity.

We talk for what seems like an eternity each evening for about a week, one night until 2am. I’m amazed at how much we have in common. For every personal passion or hobby that I mention, even those things I only sheepishly admit, he shares the same excitement. Baseball? Big fan. Astronomy? He’s totally into it. Late 90s pop music? He responds with this gem.

 

Even the few things we don’t have in common he tells me he’s been dying to learn more or try out, like watching the Yankees or Korean barbeque. It’s incredible and I get swept up in the giddy idea that I have found my soulmate. If I’ve online dating has taught me anything, it’s that finding ‘the one’ should be that easy, right?

By the time I finally head to meet the world’s most perfect man, I’m an anxious mess. Even though I’m permanently behind the learning curve when it comes to this dating thing, I feel like may have made a fatal error somewhere along the line.

Our online personalities have become so close, so fast, and we’ve bonded so intensely that I feel this date will either end in an on-the-spot elopement or terrible disappointment. My stomach is in knots and I fight the urge to walk straight across the Metro platform to the train heading home instead of towards my potential Prince Charming, who I’m sure is patiently waiting for me at the trendy pizza place downtown.

Elliot is in fact waiting outside the restaurant, but that is where my expectations begin the crumble. He sort of shrugs his way up to me to introduce himself.  My heart sinks but I hold out hope. He doesn’t exude the energy I imagined for him based on hours of superficial online chats. I couldn’t have been THAT wrong though. He’s just nervous… that’s why he keeps ducking his head as he talks to me. That’s normal, right?

We navigate the worst part of any pizza outing: deciding what to order. I’m surprised that Elliot is beyond thrilled to order every pizza I suggest. He positively gushes at each suggestion and my impeccable taste in pizza toppings. On a hunch, I pursue this line. I start saying increasingly ridiculous things to see if he’ll agree.

“I don’t like beer.” “Me either.”

“The only beer I like is Guinness.” “Wow, that’s so funny. Me too!”

“…when mixed with tequila and Diet Pepsi.” “I’ve never tried that but it sounds pretty good!”

“But I don’t really believe in drinking at all.” (as I sip my wine). “I actually didn’t drink at all for three years.”

“Oh? Why not? Bad experience? DUI? Religious conversion?” “My last girlfriend told me not to.”

Elliott goes on to list the various things he gave up for his last girlfriend, including alcohol, red meat, and most of his friends. In exchange, he picked up her religion but is willing to change that for me.

I think back to our internet chemistry… Elliot wasn’t telling me we have so much in common, he was just telling me that we could. Soon. Once I tell him what to like.

To my disappointment, I’m actually heartbroken. Watching this figment of my imagination dissolve, I feel like I’m going through a real break up. But with an imaginary person. Which makes it that much worse.

~~~

Kids, let this be a cautionary tale. After this experience I approached each new date with a perhaps aggressive level of skepticism, aware of the pitfalls of Internet-based rose-colored glasses. And I still managed to screw things up a few more times. It’s a jungle out there.

 

 

Your Father Isn’t… Any of these guys

Good news! I found an old journal full of dates I wrote about but never posted! The bad news is that I’m not totally sure when I wrote them, so they’re all completely randomly spaced throughout time. It’ll be like a sci-fi anachronistic dating adventure… or my dating life doesn’t progress all that much, so the order doesn’t really matter. Let’s go with time-travel adventure.

~~~

I’m on my second hand’s worth of mediocre dates, which for me are the worst kind. I’d much rather suffer through a couple hours of cringe-inducing awkwardness than these forgettable ones, because I know there is at least some payoff in the end of the bad ones (this blog!). Yes, I realize that I’m complaining that my dates aren’t bad enough.

I went out with an accountant who finished my food. I agreed to a second date with a psychology Ph. D. student (sorry Mom) but he can’t think of anything fun to do downtown. One guy told me all about how he keeps his beard long ‘because the ladies love it’ then got food stuck in it. Ok, I might have to write about that one.

I even went out with a very nice LA (legislative assistant for you “outside the beltway” types). We had a lot in common and the date showed promise until I learned that he someday hopes to run for office. I’m too much fun to be a political wife. Can you imagine when the press finds this blog?

Maybe this means that my filter is improving, or maybe I’ve just been through so many dates that nothing phases me, like how my nurse friend handles vomit like it’s just spilled ice cream. The fact that, as I sit here, I can think of blog-worthy stories from more and more of these dates is making me think it’s the latter.

Crap.

 

 

 

 

Your Father Isn’t… Oliver

Sorry guys… things are going to get un-chronological for a bit. I’ve got backlogged dates (yea, I know, it’s awful) from various points in my dating career and since I screwed up my blogging research by meeting someone awesome, this is what you get. Enjoy! This one is from this summer, not too long after I moved to New Jersey.

****

Oliver surprises me. After only two online messages of the terribly mundane variety, he invites me out for a drink. Since I’ve got nothing else to do, I say yes.

In his profile picture, Oliver is really quite attractive but in person he looks like Mr. Clean’s completely average, red-eyebrowed cousin. Of course, a completely average looking guy who photographs well seems like a step up from past dates, so I’m pretty pleased with my choice.

The bar we meet at has an awesome sign out front, “If you can’t stop in, smile as you drive past!” I immediately love this little pub, so I’m feeling very at home while I wait for him to arrive.

He’s late enough that by the time he arrives he has to explain why he’s soaking wet; it was still sunny when I arrived. As the raindrops on his bald head sparkle in the overhead lights, I make a mental note that my love of all things shiny does not extend to scalps.

Oliver is another case of ‘perfect on paper.’ We have so much in common that we breeze through typical date conversations because we just agree and move on. In some ways, it’s great. The talk flows from topic to topic with little effort and I’m genuinely impressed with Oliver.

Trouble starts when we start talking about work and graduate school. I’m in the 5^th circle of MBA application hell and he’s just finished his MBA, so he has plenty of advice. At first, it’s great. Business school is pretty much all I can think about these days and I’ve finally found someone who can speak the language… if he would let me.

It takes about ten minutes to realize that he hasn’t asked a single question about my plans for business school. Instead, he has been talking in a breathless stream about his various accomplishments, from grad schools he had been considering to promotions at work to trophies earned in athletic events that I’m fairly certain took place in elementary school. Without even pausing to find out if I had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting into the schools I mentioned when I first broached the topic, he launched into the braggiest humble-brag I’ve ever encountered… and I lived in DC for eight years.

When he starts bragging about his 2-year-old nephew as a personal accomplishment (Oliver sees him twice a year, but “my brother’s not the brightest, so I teach the kid most of what he knows”), I make a break for the bathroom. When he brags about his uncle installing the hand-driers in the bar’s bathrooms, I motion for the check.

Oliver hugs me goodbye and confidently tells me he’s looking forward to our second date, assured that the hard part is over now that I have heard the litany of his awesomeness. The storm has passed by the time we leave the bar and a beautiful sunset glows across the parking lot, its pink and purple rays reflecting off Oliver’s glistening head as he walks to his car.

****

Kids, Oliver is not your father. Your dad will be so awesome that he won’t need to tell anyone about it. People will just know.

Your Father Isn’t…Danny

I should be working on grad school applications right now but I’m experiencing severe writers block. Consider this a writing exercise instead of the productive procrastination it really is.

~~~~

Danny messages me with the New Jersey standard introduction message: “Hey, what’s up?” I answer, mostly to keep my profile out of that “responds selectively” category. If he’s not putting any effort in, though, neither am I. A promising start.

Our conversations consist of him telling me something that went wrong and me responding cheerfully. That he responds always surprises me; the conversation seems on the verge of sputtering out and yet he casually persists.

I give him my number by mistake. I thought I was responding to another message, but oh well. Weeks go by before I receive an oddly specific question. No ‘hello, this is Danny.’ No ‘sorry it took me so long to get back to you.’ No ‘hi how are you?’ As usual, I go with it.

We continue these random spurts of emotionally-unbalanced conversation through the summer. Danny texts me a question. I answer, ask about his day/week/month. He replies that things could be better because of x, y, and z. About every third time he asks if I want to get together. I say sure… then we don’t talk for a few more days, sometimes weeks, as though the step of actually planning the date is just too daunting to tackle right away. Like something will probably go wrong anyway, so why bother?

I’m dying to know one thing about Danny: when will he have a good day? I’m sometimes annoyingly cheerful, more of the Tigger than Eeyore type, so Danny’s ability to find the negative in everything is morbidly fascinating for me. It’s like my own sad, dark reflection.

I want to meet my online Eeyore, but that would a) break my rule about not using guys as blog fodder, b) be a waste of time and probably pretty miserable and c) require more patience that I currently possess. And I will not be able to cheer him up (accept it, Heather, and move on!).

So no, Danny and I will probably never meet. I’ve decided that I’ll have to tell him that I’m seeing someone else (yea yea calm down, I’ll get to that), whenever he decides to text me again. Poor guy.

~~~~

Cheer up kids! Even though your future mom is still stuck wading through the dating pool, Danny is definitely not your father!

Your Father Isn’t…Bill

Do you remember the last time you ate white bread? Does any memory of actually eating white bread really stand out to you? I have a distinct memory of smooshing white bread into a tight little ball, but never of eating it. I can describe it’s appearance, the texture and weight in my hand, feeling it stuck to the roof of my mouth. But actual taste? It’s like someone erased the memory. It’s a total blank for me. Or, more likely, it’s been overpowered by all the competing stimuli that are so much more memorable.

I bet you see where this is going.

~~~~

Bill asks me out and I suggest drinks or coffee. He proposes coffee on Sunday afternoon at Starbucks. I’m deeply reminiscing over my first date ever (I was 12), also at a Starbucks, so I don’t immediately notice when Bill walks in. We order iced teas because it’s one of those balmy, moist late-June evenings and anything else would have been absurd, then grab seats by the window.

We chat as I watch a woman walk her cockapoo past the Starbucks four or five times. Bill and I actually have a fair bit in common, such as swimming which I’m trying to get back into, and growing up in the area/still being here (I’d like to clarify that at one point, for a long while, I DID leave. I’m just back now. I’m not bitter or anything). A group of young girls come in, hugging each other and squealing like they’ve spotted Justin Bieber. I alternate between wondering where one got her yellow shorts and the legality of banning caffeine for 13 year olds.

The sky is beautiful as the sun starts to set. We’d had storms not too long before and the clouds are those wild, thick, puffy ones… dark underneath but the top turning brilliant shades of pink and purple that deepen as we talk.

Bill suggests we go for a walk and like a true gentleman, he always lets me go first… through doors, when the sidewalk narrows, when we have to get around a group of teenagers with an enthusiastic German Shepherd outside an ice cream shop. He deftly sidesteps most awkward pauses (there are a few, as with any first date) and he laughs while telling me about an old man wearing a tshirt that says, “I suffer from CRS… Can’t Remember Stuff.” He didn’t see the old man, he just saw a picture of it online, but old people are funny.

I tell him about my grandpa yelling at people, not because he’s a crotchety old man but because he can get away with it now that people just assume he’s a crotchety old man. I think to myself, ‘that’s really not a good story.’

We get to the edge of the “downtown” area we’re strolling through and decide to turn around. I ask what school he went to and he tells me his high school (he did go to college, we get to that later). We talk about traveling and apartment prices in the city and the weather. We talk about the beach. Turns out, we both like the shore and have great memories of going there as kids. Go figure.

By this point we have arrived back at the parking lot by Starbucks and we both move towards our cars. Or, maybe just I move towards my car. I think I at least move a little faster, but maybe not. I thank him for the iced tea (I almost said drink, but that would imply a drink-drink, of which we had none). He says we should do it again sometime and I say, ‘yea definitely’ a little too fast.

We pull out of the lot. I go left. He goes right.

Before I reach the first traffic light, I realize I can’t remember anything specific about him. Just like white bread.

~~~~

Kids, sometimes people just aren’t memorable. There’s nothing bad about them per se, but nothing stands out as good either. You deserve a father that we don’t all forget to miss, so I can say that your father isn’t… wait, who were we talking about? Yes, Bill.

Your Father Isn’t… Eric

The takeaway: I’m a stellar BSer.

****

Eric has a great photo (from a wedding, always the best), so I’m girlishly-giggly when I see a message from him on OkCupid. We make internet small talk but manage to avoid the default questions (what do you do, where are you from, how long have you been here, where do you live now), which works out well since my answers to those questions are not inspiring (just got laid off, New Jersey, 8 years and Virginia… Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids would be a step up).

He messages me a few times from a guys ski trip in Colorado… clearly he’s in love. He’s also a firefighter so I hope he’ll make up for my missed opportunity with James last year. When he suggests we meet for a Saturday night date at one of my favorite and super-convenient-to-me restaurants, I’m positive this is going to be the best date ever.

I brave the February wind and arrive to the restaurant with a lovely wind-burned flush. I feel like a million bucks and then I see my date. He’s more attractive than his picture and I flick my eyes to the ceiling as I mutter a quiet “Thank you.” It’s been so long since I’ve been on a great date; I deserve this.

We do the awkward handshake/hug dance then head to the bar. I’m pre-glowing from my impending successful date that I’ve imagined as we struggle through the usual awkward pauses and conversational lags. Gradually, I start to worry.

I ask how he became a firefighter. He tells me the actual steps required to become one, including the classes, tests, and physical requirements. If you’d like more information, I’d be happy to guide you through the whole process; I’m an expert now.

He realizes that I didn’t mean my question quite so literally and launches into an indirect history of his experience with firefighting that eventually ends with, “But really, my neighbor is a fireman and suggested I try it, so I did.”

Every subject goes more or less this way: a long roundabout answer to my question that leaves me with no viable options for follow up. Insert long awkward pause here.

Something about him is throwing me off my typically-professional-grade conversational game. Not his dashing good looks… he has a small metal hoop earring pressed back horizontally against his ear lobe. I keep waiting for him to flick it back into its God-given vertical orientation but he never does. I still can’t figure out if it was on purpose.

By the end of the night I ferret out two of his passions: music and cars. I miraculously manage to coherently debate the evolution of talent coming through the 9:30 Club versus the Black Cat (two small but popular concert venues) and to (apparently) intelligently debate the virtues of German engineering (thanks Nick!). I failed to mention that I’ve only been to the 9:30 Club for a Katy Perry concert and NEVER been to the Black Cat. And I don’t even have a car.

****

Kids, as much as I would love for you to be tall, athletic, blond-haired, blue-eyed beauties (or at least halfway there anyway), Eric is not your father. But if I’m now a lawyer, the decision may have stemmed from this very date.

It’s Over Chicken Recipe

I popped into CVS briefly the other day for a quick errand, however I wasn’t mentally prepared for the three aisles of shame-inducing blatantly-consumerist Cupid-vomit bombarding me as I entered. I swear they had less candy on display at Halloween and yet the piece de resistance was this gem staring deeply, beckoningly into my eyes:
I somehow passed him up, although at the moment he’s my best prospect for a Valentine… wait, what am I saying?  Instead of letting these displays of crass consumerism start me tallying which of my friends are single versus attached, I have to remember that I have at least three weeks to procrastinate.

Since this experience primed my romantic mood, my thoughts wandered to relationships while I baked a new chicken recipe this morning. I thought of how therapeutic beating the pretzels to little bits can be, the satisfaction of pounding chicken breasts to 1/2 inch thick, and the weirdly perfect combination of sweet honey, spicy mustard, and bitter vinegar to represent the end of a relationship. With that I give you the recipe for “It’s over” chicken:

Ingredients

4 cups hard sourdough pretzels

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup creamy Dijon mustard

1/3 cup honey

 1/4 cup water

1-2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

coarse salt and fresh ground black pepper

1 +  pound boneless chicken breasts, sliced and/or gently pounded to 1/2″ thick (Perdue sells thin cut chicken breasts, I recommend just going with that)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray (butter flavor works best).
2. In a large plastic bag, pound the pretzels until all of the large pieces are broken up and you have a good portion of fine crumbs too.  Some people will tell you to use a food processor, but don’t let them steal this emotional release for a few minutes of quiet. To make the most of this exercise, really get angry! Put your back into it! Then place the pretzels in a large, shallow bowl and set aside. He’s not worth your time anymore.
3. Add the oil, mustard, honey, water and vinegar to a food processor and pulse until smooth. I’ve already discussed the metaphor here.
4. Season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust the flavor to suit your own tastes by adding more mustard or honey. Ok, no metaphor with this step, just make it taste good!
5. Pour half of the dressing into a large shallow bowl and add the chicken breasts. Turn to coat them evenly then dredge them in the pretzel crumbs. Make sure to scoop the fine crumbs over the chicken to fully coat. In my mind, the chicken represents the heart post break up: a little bruised and beaten, certainly tender and very delicate, but full of promise. I’m going to ignore that I fully intend to eat this “heart” when all this is done.
6. Set chicken breasts in the baking dish and bake 12-15 minutes or until cooked through. Remember, it won’t take long since they’re so thin.
7. Let the chicken sit 5 minutes before serving with the remaining honey mustard dressing. While you wait, think about how gross it would have been to eat raw chicken, whole pretzels, and the other ingredients before going through all this pain work. Appreciate that something better will come out in the end.

That’s enough of my cheesy metaphors for today, but the recipe is fantastic and the pretzels can stand in for anyone you want to beat the living daylights out of. I highly recommend it!

Assorted Advice I’m Not Qualified to Give

As 2012 rapidly comes to catastrophe a close, I feel the overwhelming need to share something witty, insightful, and possibly life changing. Of course, if I knew any such insights, I probably wouldn’t have a bad-dating blog, would I?

But… isn’t providing dubious advice based on questionable expertise the purpose of the blogosphere?

I’m caving in to imagined peer-pressure and offering up the following advice that should probably be actively disregarded.

1. Choose Kelly Clarkson over Britney Spears.

At least in terms of Christmas carols. Kelly pleads “not for myself, but for a world in need.” Britney wants a boyfriend because other people do.

I’m not going to lie and say I don’t belt out Britney’s song in the shower, the car, or any time I have the apartment to myself between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it’s not good for my emotional or psychological health to beg Santa for a boyfriend, or anyone’s ears when I start singing.

This year, I’m going to focus on wishing other people well and indulge in this classic only once… a week. Maybe.

2. Dating is not a hobby.

Recently my roommate Claire trained for and completed a marathon. Another friend volunteers teaching Spanish classes, while another is a member of the Capitals Red Rockers in her spare time. So when one of them asks me what I did this week and I answer, “I went on three dates,” and don’t even have a good story to tell, even I start to  judge me.

“But Heather, you have this blog at least!”

Thanks Mom dear reader, but can I put “humorous blog recounting dating disasters” on my resume? I think not. Dating is not a hobby.

3. Make things interesting.

When we were 14 years old, my surprisingly wise friend Nick told me, “80 years from now, you’re going to have to watch the movie of your life. You better make it interesting.”

It’s fabulous advice and anything I try to add to it sounds either whiny (who am I to give life advice?), trite (who am I to give cheesy life advice?), or conceited (in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, am I qualified to give life advice?). Listen to the 14 year old.

4. Being bad at things can be helpful.

I’m terrible at sports. My lack of patience, self-awareness or physical coordination leads me to dread any and all team activities, even drinking games. My entire life, I’ve been battling – in a decidedly off-balance way- the everything-you-got-swing-and-miss.

You know that moment: time screeches to a halt. Sound becomes simultaneously muted and thunderous. Everyone in the entire world is watching you but you are confident this will be your Babe Ruth moment.

You step up to the plate. As the ball comes hurtling towards you, you throw your entire body into a hurricane-force spin. Then time stops.

Nothing happens for a split second. You feel the elation of success… only to hear the ball slap into the catcher’s mitt. That’s when you realize you hit nothing but the ghost of your dreams as they whizzed past. The disappointment and humiliation battle for precedence in your mind as you slink back to the bench.

Seriously, this happened to me EVERY time in whiffleball.

While  that might be slightly melodramatic, it’s essentially that’s the gist of my 2012. I confidently called 2012 as my year to get things right, and yet I’m going into 2013 the same way I entered 2012: single but happy, completely unsure of my future, (again) preparing for the GMAT, and hoping to be accepted to business school by the end of next year.

The nice thing? I can’t swing or fall harder than last time and I’ve spent so much of my life managing the public embarrassment of pretty much every physical activity I’ve ever done, I’m actually quite well-prepared.

So at midnight on January 1 (assuming it happens), I’ll be toasting the New Year with friends and family, ready to try it all again.

How do you feel about 2012 and 2013? Are you excited for next year?

Your Father Isn’t…Justin

Justin and I exchanged only a couple of emails before he suggested we get coffee… no, how about drinks? We should just do coffee…lunch… or maybe drinks? Let’s do dinner. That all came from him; I’m mostly passive in this process. Promising, no?

I nearly forget about this date, but somehow I make it to the hip sushi spot Justin chose in a timely manner. It’s on my always-wanted-try list, so I take the venue selection as a good omen.

The loud music fills the awkward pauses and dim lighting hides our fish-fumbling (remember back with Kevin when I swore off sushi as date food? Remind me next time). Even with the restaurant conspiring on our behalf like that scene in Lady & the Tramp, it’s still not enough to generate any real chemistry.

Justin and I agree on many things: we both love baseball and enjoy football between October and April. We both have great relationships with our dads. We’re both from Jersey. We share a few laughs but still nothing clicks.

Toward the end of the night, Justin has long ago finished his meal and I’m not touching my nearly full plate of sushi, which he’s not-so-subtly eyeing. So, I offer him the rest of my food. He’s gracious as he devours it, popping one roll in his mouth before he even puts the plate down. You would think he hadn’t eaten in weeks if you hadn’t just seen him calmly and reasonably eat his own plateful of food. Within seconds, Justin has demolished all but one piece, clearly on principle. I watch the dilemma play out on his face as he stares at the final sushi roll. He explains that if food is in front of him, he eats it, which makes me wonder how he’s still so skinny.

Something clicks in my mind. Some tiny warning light starts blinking. I’ve just told him how my brother was a picky eater (a date is going well when I’ve resorted to my brother’s childhood eating habits as conversation fodder), when he admits he was/is a picky eater himself. He reveals that he generally dislikes condiments, especially sour cream, ketchup, and mustard. He not only thinks bacon is overrated but actively dislikes it (too salty and crunchy?). I finish my wine. He also hates onions, at which point I stop trying to remember the list.

Justin lopes beside me as we make the endless three block trek from the restaurant to the Metro, listing other non-food items he seriously dislikes (winter, tv, Panera Bread restaurants, fun) before I can duck safely behind the train doors.

I realize on my ride home why my internal warning system was flipping out. Unfortunately he’s not some cannibal who wants to make me into an overpriced Panera sandwich (good story at least). No, it’s just that… I’ve dated him before. For two years.

Justin is exactly like my ex-boyfriend. He’s a shorter, less attractive, less fun version of him, but generally, they could play cloned versions of each other in a low-budget sci-fi flick.

Have I really dated so much that I’m cycling back through? Oh what joys I have to look forward to!

~~~~

Kids, find a way that isn’t detrimental to your psychological and emotional well-being to easily remember why you broke up with the people you’ve already dated. That way, when you date “them” again, you can quickly decide whether this person will mean more of the same or is different enough to be worth it. On that note, your father isn’t Justin.