Past is prologue – Top 5 Worst Dates

If past is prologue, my future looks grim.   My dating life resembles bucolic landscapes littered with mines.  Flowery starts, explosive ends.  But the Bard didn’t leave us tethered completely to our history.  The line ends, “what to come, in yours and my discharge.”

And so I begin 50 Dates with a prologue of dates past – my top 5 worst dates, that is.  Tempests I have seen.   Six degrees of separation from me, rainbows I hope will follow.

#5 – The BMW

His BMW convertible was an odd shade of purple, with the top down and the music loud.   The letters B,M, and W linked together on a logo normally would not have held my attention.  Contrary to prevailing tastes, I am not the gold-digging kind.  In fact, I have trust issues with men who possess money.  It seems to inspire a desire for more acquisitions, and I am no man’s door prize.

What caught my eye was the license plate.  A special tag bragging that the driver was a triathlete.  I looked up to see his biceps unfettered by sleeves, and the cuts of his dark-skinned muscles sparkling like diamonds in the noonday sun.   I was behind the BMW, waiting for the light to turn green.  I had 39 seconds to put the car in park, primp, open my windows, change lanes, and then act as if I hadn’t noticed him at all.

Yes, that’s right.  I put myself in position, and then did what any sensible girl should do if she wants a boy.  Ignore him.   More accurately, ignore him while looking decorative.  That man in that car with those guns for arms was not looking to be chatted up.   The package, tags and all, bellowed confidence.  We were at the corner of 7^th and ‘R’ Streets, NW.   His peripheral vision was acute, and if he were interested, he’d make a move by ‘P’ Street, latest.

Our triathelete didn’t waste time.  By ‘M’ Street we were talking cars, by ‘K’ we were laughing about his last race, and by ‘G’ we were pulling to the side for a speeding fire truck and swapping digits.  I feigned shyness and hesitated to share numbers.  5 minutes, 39 seconds.  I had surely beaten my personal record.

Over the coming days, voicemails were exchanged and details were discussed.  The triathelete was a cop by profession, patrolling the waterfront because he was also a licensed diver, naturally.  Given the unpredictably of nocturnal marine criminality, we chose brunch for our first, and only, date.

We met at a diner, conveniently named The Diner, in the funky, relatively affordable Adams Morgan neighborhood.  From the moment I sat down, it turned into the ‘I am man, hear me roar’ show.  The triathelete showered me with tales of undercover busts of pimps and narcotic rings.  When he wasn’t talking cops and robbers, he was explaining how astutely he had flipped several properties in his neighborhood and hoped to retire early, leaving more time for – triathlons.

Granted, he was doing all the talking, but I couldn’t have been surprised by his testosterone display.  I envisioned a couple weeks of late-summer silliness, peppered with joy rides in the BMW and boat rides on the river.  He could talk all he wanted. I picked at my dry egg sandwich and exclaimed at the appropriate moments.  That is, until our server came back.  She looked at me directly, asking if we would be paying together.  He answered before I could process her request.  “No, she will be paying separately.”

And so, one hour and $7.19 later, I was on my way home, on foot, alone, and stunned.  I remind you, dear reader, that my boy vice of choice that day was not greed, but vanity.  Yes, I was shameless in my pursuit, but the wealth that the convertible suggested was a secondary pleasure.  My primary delight concerned the definition of body parts.

But the story doesn’t end there.  On cue, he called me the next day, asking me out on another date.  I pressed delete on the house-flipping, BMW-driving, hater of egg sandwiches.  Gentlemen, please find this man a clue.

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I invite you all to share your horror stories with 50 Dates.  Misery loves an audience.  Gentlemen, I am under no illusion about the craziness that is the female of the species.  Feel free to tell your tales of woe.  I will post the best tales on a separate page dedicated to bad dates.