Those Two Little Words...

It has been quite a while since I last blogged from work (oh the subversive feeling of blogging on company time...) so I thought I would get back to it. I have a particularly fiendish story to share with you fiends out there. I will preface it with just two words that should have your spines tingling in delicious anticipation of the horrible things to come... BLIND DATE!

Who among us hasn't had at least one awful experience in the realm of blind dating? (Well actually, this is the only one I've had, thank Jeebus, but it is so ridiculous, I am compelled to share)

A few months ago, at the insistence of several friends, I was compelled to put a profile up on a certain dating website devoted to fomenting and fostering (or festering?) relationships between singles of a particular religion. For the sake of anonymity, I will call the website "kDate."

After only a week or two of having my profile up on kDate, I had received many many emails and requests for instant messaging from many men. However, if you have read even one other of my posts, you might realize that I am something of a cynic, and definitely do not fall into the category of a "warm and fuzzy" person. Hey, I'm a fiend, I admit it. So for the most part, I ignored the requests for instant messaging, and responded to only a few emails. However, one day at work I gave into the type of deadly boredom that usually inspires me to write blog entries, and decided to answer an IM request from a fairly normal-sounding man whom I will call Igor, because it's a dumb-sounding name and I do not think charitable thoughts when I look back upon my time with Igor. (Apologies to all fiends reading this blog who are actually named Igor)

Igor's profile showed him to be an attractive man, 28 years old, divorced, some compatible interests and views, nothing too exciting. Our IM was fairly typical, with us chatting back and forth about what we did for a living, hobbies, places we enjoyed hanging out, etc. At the end of our unobjectionable, yet none to exciting conversation, Igor asked me if I would like to meet him for a date. I told him I had no objections and he proceeded to plan a dinner-and-drinks date at a posh seafood restaurant near my office, a few days hence.

On the evening of our date, I, dressed in my finest dinner-and-drinks at a posh restaurant garb, walked over to the restaurant and met Igor at the appointed time. Igor looked like his kDate profile pictures, which was a fairly good sign as many people tended to use old and outdated photos of themselves.

Our dinner started pleasantly enough, with us choosing our entrees and Igor ordering a $50 bottle of wine. We chatted and made small talk while waiting for our food and beginning to eat. Over the course of our meal, however, Igor consumed increasing amounts of that bottle, while I slowly sipped from my glass. After the bottle was finished Igor started ordering wine by the glass. When he finally passed the boundary of tipsiness into utter and complete drunkenness, our conversation became most interesting.

"So, about my divorce," Igor said.

"Oy vey," I thought to myself. "Here we go."

"I'm not actually quite divorced yet, but the paperwork is gonna be going through any day now. So you wanna know WHY I got a divorce?" He asked me slurringly.

"Uh, sure, why not."

"So I had to have surgery and my wife was out of town for awhile, so this friend of mine was helping to take care of me while I recovered and she was pretty hot so I started cheating on my wife with her."

"Um..."

"Yeah, so my wife decided to divorce me, and I've been seeing this other girl, the one I had the affair with. But a few weeks ago I broke up with her and she was so pissed at me that she sent me photos of her and my ex-wife [don't you mean your soon-to-be ex-wife?] making out at a bar."

"Um..."

"Yeah so that's what happened. Pretty funny, huh?"

"Um..."

To be honest, my fiends, I am almost NEVER at a loss for words. I ALWAYS have something witty or funny or sarcastic to say, whatever the circumstances, but for the first time in years I was utterly dumbstruck. I had not one idea how to respond to that most interesting story. Was this where I was supposed to make a joke about what fabulous relationship material Igor made? Should I have made vague off-color references to threesomes between ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, and ex-blind dates? Should I have politely pretended not to have heard that entire story and asked Igor if he preferred The Beatles or the Stones?

Fortunately this conversation ended around the same time as our meal, and the bill was brought to the table. And now you fiends are probably thinking "phew, at least it's over," but no, the night wasn't quite over.

Igor looked the bill over and said "Your half comes to about $70."

What?!? Huh?!?

I am a lifelong feminist, and believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with going dutch, or even doing the treating, however, I felt my outrage was more than justifiable under the grounds that he had asked me out; he had chosen the restaurant; he knew the restaurant was out of my price range because during our IM we had talked about our respective jobs, his high-paying computer job and my low-paying nonprofit job; and he had taken it upon himself to choose a $50 bottle of wine, most of which he drank himself, in addition to several other glasses of wine.

Once again utterly dumbstruck and completely unprepared for what to do or say, I pulled out my credit card and paid for half the check, which, with tax and tip, actually came out to more than I earn in a day. Yikes!

Of course the night still wasn't quite over yet. We left the restaurant, me walking, him stumbling. Outside the restaurant I had to fend off repeated requests from Igor that he would drive me home. After making it firmly clear to him that not only did I not want a ride from him, but that in fact he should give me his keys (which I was thinking about dropping through a sewer grate) and let me flag down a taxi, he gave me a big, drunken, gropey-handed hug, and took off at a fast stumbly walk, eager to keep his keys away from me. I walked home in utter disgust.

That is the last I have seen or heard of Igor. I even checked the papers the next day looking for accident reports, but found nothing, so I assume he made it home without killing himself or anybody else.

And that, my fiends, is my scary tale of that dreaded social ritual, the blind date. And, like Jerry Springer, I would like to leave you fiends with my final thought:

Whoever invented the concept of the blind date needs a good kick in the nads.