Dr. WTF aka The Reason I Don't Date Anymore

It’s been years since I’ve gone out on a blind date, because Google seems to have images of everyone. Social media has allowed anyone to stalk and see the most intimate details of a stranger’s life, sometimes a bit TOO intimate. (i.e.  I don’t need to know that the Mexican restaurant gave you the runs, “instagrammed” with 250 selfies of you in the bathroom, WHILE this occurred.) So when an “old friend” called me and wanted to set me up with a psychiatrist,  I agreed, even though I couldn’t find ONE picture of him online.   Visions of a short, bald and pale academic, with maybe some asthma and allergies, kept popping up in my head. I agreed to meet him, because of the free therapy and meds he could possibly prescribe for me, but really; Who, in this age, doesn’t have a FB account or even a Linkedin profile pic?  Red flag numero uno.

Within a day or two, I received a text from “Sam”, requesting a good time to call.  I thought it was peculiar, but I figured, some people are more formal than others.  He, then, called me and I discovered that he was never married and did not have any kids.  (He was not, by any means, “young” and an “MD” doesn’t, usually, last long on the singles’ shelf.)  Red flag numero dos.

We had a very nice conversation, but I, already realized he was analyzing me.  I knew he was a bit strange, but I’m not that “normal” either and at this stage in life, a “pulse” is enough to warrant a date.  To make it even MORE appealing, he did not own a car, lived in the city and from the sound of it, was extremely jaded and paranoid.  The conversation ended with me offering to drive into the city on Saturday night and choosing a restaurant close to where he had been living for at least twenty years.   Still, I “let it go”.  I supposed this guy had probably been dating for thirty years.  That could make anyone jaded, paranoid, suicidal or even homicidal.

Since I’m a vegan, I recommended a terrific place in his neighborhood.  The traffic was insane and I had a very difficult time parking.  I cursed myself for being in this position, since I volunteered making it as easy as possible for him and more difficult for myself.  Guess I AM “passive-aggressive” and always feel it’s my job to make others happy before myself and then resent it.  Yes, it was “my bad”, but “his worse”.  I reached the restaurant and braced myself for “Frankenstein”.  (I’m sorry if I’m not “PC”.  I guess all the “Frankensteins” will file a class action suit against me.)

I took a deep breath and dove into the noisy, crowded establishment.  I caught sight of an overdressed man in a three-piece suit (red flag numero tres).  The fashionista in me wanted to drop dead right there.  He didn’t know who he was messing with.  I looked terrific.  It was a “good time of the month” and I was only ten lbs away from my skinniest goal weight.  We, awkwardly, seated ourselves at a small table, between the kitchen and a table full of twenty year olds.  I smiled broadly, in a nervous, uncomfortable way and he exacerbated this by barely looking at me nor smiling.  I wondered if I had inadvertently sauntered into a wake, where they seated me across from the corpse.  He wasn’t “Frankenstein”.  He was “Lurch” from the “Adams Family”.

Thus, began one of the most uncomfortable evening of my life.  I, actually, love people. When someone is awkward, I like to make them feel at ease.  I pride myself in my hypersensitivity and intuitiveness.  This guy did not make ANY eye contact with me, nor did he smile.  He didn’t compliment me and was immune to my sense of humor.  Again, I wasn’t upset. I don’t think EVERYONE must be captured by my charismatic personality and beauty.   It only takes one. Right?  (OK, I might have been a tiny bit upset.)

To my relief, an hour later, he asked for the check and asked if I was ready to go.  I offered to drive him the ten blocks to his apartment building.  Suddenly, he turns to me and says,
“It was very nice of you to offer to come here.  Do you want me to go back home with you in your car and take an Uber back”?  I knew this was not a proposition, because this guy was NOT normal.  I realized that it was his “way” of trying to be respectful and chivalrous.  It’s not.  It’s stupid.

The next day, our “matchmaker” called me.  I thanked her and relayed the disaster from the previous night.  She opined that I was “intimidating” and he didn’t want to mess it up.  He did call me a few times and was stilted and unemotional.  I had to arrange the next “date”, as well.

After that one, he was irritated and was goading me the entire evening.  I knew it wasn’t "about me".   Red flag numero cuatro.  I should have stopped at “tres”:)