The "Professional Dater" Knight

Prelude: At this point of the blog: my family thinks I need psychiatric help and my friends regard this as better than TMZ. 

I am thinking that re-devoting myself to my career and publishing this as my first book because I am nearly convinced I am NEVER going to meet anyone like this. Story time. . .

While doing my weekly check-in on my inbox on the dating site, I came across an email from a guy that had a GREAT smile.  I am talking, I think that guys teeth twinkled at me through the picture. Game show host quality smiling. I read his intro email and it showed he had actually read my profile. He talked about being a fellow entrepreneur and traveler, and he encouraged me to look at his profile. Very LinkedIn of him.

Good smile, but totally not someone I would date.

Of course I then went and stalked his page. (Is it stalking if the assumption is that you will take up the invite to stalk?)

He had standard issue stats:  5'10, career in marketing, looking for a relationship, father, entrepreneur, nearby resident, into health and fitness, divorced. OK. Requirements of not living at home, has job, not married and dating, writes in full sentences, seems interested in me and didn't write a form letter as an intro, check. He makes the cut.

I sent him a message back talking about traveling and asking about his companies. He then writes back and asks if I wanted to have dinner with him to discuss any of these questions further.

I have now gotten much more expeditious with this dating thing. I started this blog MONTHS ago with the hopes of banging this out in a month. I am now nearly 8 MONTHS in. Nearly another full year of my life!!! You know that I am saying yes.

He sends me his number, and tells me to text him to confirm the day before a date we loosely agreed on. I get totally harried with my week, and forget to text him the day before, because I am hair brained like that. Since we have not confirmed, I assume that we are not meeting and I text him the day we had  originally specced to meet when I realize that I have missed the prior day's deadline.

He sends back this text saying that he's at the restaurant by himself. He texts he's never been stood up before.

Wait, what the hell? I scroll back through the texts. I didn't agree to a place or a time. . .What the hell is this man talking about?

I send back: "Being stood up would imply that we had landed on a place and a time. I don't see that. Did I miss something?"

He sends back that he is just joking, but I can buy the first round of drinks because I moved the date. I don't agree, but tell him I am willing to reschedule. He asks if we can reschedule for the weekend. I agree, put it on my calendar and am still baffled by the previous texts. Whatever.

He tells me he will text me later with options on where to go.  I feel that even if we don't have chemistry to date, he seems like a pretty interesting business person, and if all else fails, we have our work to talk about.

He offers Roots, or Urban Table. I choose Roots because I haven't been there in AGES. Keep in mind, Roots is a steak house. I ask what time, and he tells me our reservation is at 8.30pm.

This is the first man who has made a reservation for dinner and only the third man I am having dinner with.  Yes folks, this is what the fish bowl is like these days. . .

He suggests that we meet at the bar at 8pm for a drink, and then head to our table. I agree. I see what he is doing though. . .If it sucks having drinks, or he wants an out, he can bail before dinner. I would do the same. Touche.

He then sends me this odd text:  "And I don't  eat red meat."

Strange. Why would one pick a steak house then. My dreams of a lovely Porterhouse, great wine and great conversation have been squashed. I wonder what he's going to eat? Why do I care? Whatever, not my problem.

The day of our date I arrive just before 8pm.  The bar keep clears a place for me at the bar amongst the throngs of patrons. I thank him and order myself a Stoli, dirty martini. Two can play the half hour game.

I text him that I am sitting at the bar wearing jeans and a black shirt.

All of a sudden my Knight is standing next to me and immediately slinks into the seat that is available to my left. He is as attractive in person as he was in his pictures. You can tell he works out and he is dressed well in his pressed, black button down shirt and jeans.

He orders a Tito's and club soda and gets settled in. He sort of busts my chops about moving the dates, but I brush it off and tell him how "happy I am to be here today."

He begins by talking about his work in the health services industry and how he got his start building his empire. He is quite accomplished and he is very eloquent. He is exceptionally engaging and probably kills it at business development. He's a great conversationalist.  He asks me about my work in marketing and for the first time on pretty much any of these dates, the man totally and fully understands what I do for a living. I am impressed.

The maître d' stops by us at the bar to tell us that our table is ready. The bartender asks if we are going to transfer our tab to the table. I tell them that is is fine and leave a cash tip.  My Knight then tells them that he doesn't want to transfer it to the table. I say OK and reach into my wallet to get out my money to pay for my drink. My Knight then looks over at me, says "thanks," and walks off towards the table.

I guess he did get his free drink on me after all.

When I arrive at the table he is standing there waiting for me talking to the waiter. Seems he is a regular. I am a bit ticked that I just plunked down nearly $30 for the drinks. This was going to severely cut into my personal steak budget.  Dang.  Now I am at a steakhouse and I'M not eating steak. WTF?

As I turn to sit down I notice that I TOWER over this man. He is not only shorter than me, but think middle school dance girl boy height ratio difference.  Awesome.  5'10 my ass.

I re-compose myself, and for whatever reason decide I am going to stay for dinner.  Probably because I am starving and well, I am one of these people that always hope for good to come out of situations even if it looks bleak.

He orders a Caesar salad and a mac and cheese side and a glass of wine. My budget has me now down to a tomato salad. I am assuming I am paying for at least my dinner and have embraced this.  However, I now have no budget picking up his dinner as well as mine. Not happening.

We chat through dinner about his work, my work and then we begin to discuss the topic of dating. He tells me of the many, many dates he has been on. How he can tell if someone is into him or not, how he usually dates early 20somethings, how some of the dates have been complete disasters. I agree that dating is a real challenge and ask him about his worst date. The conversation continues like this, and I realize that this man may actually have been on, as many, if not more dates than me! I am fascinated by the stories and we carry on like this for a while. We wrap up dinner and decide against dessert. He is a charming man, but seems to be happy dating and lying about his height. No worries, just not for me.

He offers to pick up dinner and I thank him. This was a lovely gesture.

He walks me to the door and I tell him that I will find my way to my car. We sort of nod to each other good night in a very business-like fashion and head our separate ways. As "professional daters" we both know that this is the end of the line.

As I arrive back my car, I realize that, after quite a bit of digging,  I don't have Svetlana's key. Usually it is buried in some nook in my bag, but tonight the car key is gone. Legit.

I am in monstrous heals and am dreading the three block walk from my parking space BACK to the restaurant.  As I get a few steps into the restaurant I walk right smack into my Knight. We look at each other quizzically.

"I think my key fell out of my coat pocket during dinner," I stammer.

"I had to go to the bathroom," he replies.

Neither of us have unscrewed the shock on our faces at this point though.

I begin to head towards the booth we were sitting in hoping I won't have to ask some poor person if I can crawl under their table. Thankfully there is no one there. I crawl all over the floor while the staff shines phones and my Knight jockeys chairs. No success.

The search party now carries over to the bar, which has significantly cleared out. Thank God. This is just awkward enough without digging under more chairs.

As I walk over the bar keep smiles at me. He asks me if I am looking for "this," as he holds up my car key. Turns out the sucker escaped into the crevasse in the chair I was sitting in, and the guy sitting next to me found it in my chair when I stood up.  I thank him and the Knight and I begin heading for the door for the second time tonight.

Again, he offers to walk me to my car, I politely decline. It's like Groundhog Day with my date. I say goodnight and wave as I wander off.  I meander back to my car, feet aching. As I stare up at the moon, just to check if it's full or not,  I again question why it is I am doing this.

If everyone says that you meet someone when you are not looking, maybe I should really stop looking. Or do I believe that everything does, in fact, happen for a reason. Hence the reason I am trying to stick out this thirty date endeavor is because this is what needs to happen. I don't know. Each day I seem to feel differently. The dating has been 80% terrible with the two exceptions: it has given me a lot of perspective and this has provided me the ability to learn that, perhaps, I can write.

I hop in my car, throw on my flip flops and drive home to my sanctuary on the hill.  I try to author my text message farewell to this evening's Knight, but I end up falling asleep watching Real Housewives of Atlanta.

I awake the next morning and see no signs of him having text. Well, I feel I am absolved from messaging. Super!

At lunchtime the text comes in. He had a great time, and maybe we could do it again, but not at a steak place. I send back that I had a great time and hope he has a great week. Nebulous and polite. I believe that the professional dater will be able to take the hint.

The "Dodgy" Knight

dodg·y  (dj)

adj. dodg·i·er, dodg·i·est Chiefly British

1. Evasive; shifty.

2. Unsound, unstable, and unreliable.

3. So risky as to require very deft handling.

During the Giants season I was trying to catch all the games I could while I wasn't working. This is a difficult depending on how my day business was going, and how much I was working during the evening.  

I had the whole season laid out for me on a wallet sized card, but weekly I never knew what was going to come up that I would prevent me from watching my Boys in Blue. I tried to make all of the games I watched, while not standing at work, as enjoyable as possible. I generally went somewhere that had a TV larger than my 13 inch so I could actually see the ball when it was thrown down field. 

There is a place that we "locals" refer to the bar down the street as The Box.  I think that it was supposed to be a sports reference, a dog's age ago, but now we have no idea why it's called that. Judging by the crowd there on any given night, I could sometimes call it the penalty box. 

Truthfully, most of the locals that come here are lovely. However there is another faction of bar goers that laddered up, (as you corporate people would say) to one of two camps.  Either people had been cited for a penalty and were waiting their time given, or were spending their time given in this bar. I liked the fact that no one really came there to watch the hockey games, and usually the football games still had seats available even well into the second quarter. It was a good place to meet your Bail Bondsman, and in hindsight, maybe not a potential boyfriend.

On this day in particular I was there watching a Sunday evening Giants game. I had made my way down to The Box and had watched the Giants lose this particular night. Nights when I come to watch the game, I generally bring my laptop with me as to avoid conversation with some of the patrons which are part of the Box penalty serving crowd. 

I was going to wrap up the work I was doing on my computer, finish my beer and head home in disappointment. I began to collect my various items: pad, pens, laptop.  As I was putting all of my materials back into their respective bags, I noticed that a man had walked in. He waved hello and smiled at the other folks at the bar.

OK, so he must be a local too. He was wearing a knit hat, so I couldn't see him well, but even from this cursory glance, I could tell I had not seen him before. 

As he took off his coat, he was wearing a Giants jersey. I check out the number on the back. Cruz. OK. Interesting.  Popular choice.  Actually a fan though?? Hmmmmm . . .

I continue to watch my version of the Nature Channel here at the Box. The main programming tonight is a roughly six foolish, dark haired, swarthy man. This species looks like he could be Latin or Italian. His jersey, jeans and work boots make it look like he's been working hard somewhere.  Men in work boots = employed? Now I am making all sorts of wild assumptions. 

He puts his belongings on the chair a few down from me, asks the bartender for quarters, and heads to the jukebox.  This is about to get good. All I need is popcorn. I am starting at this man like he's the after school special "New Guy in Town". God help me. This is the best entertainment I have had all night.

The jukebox now goes from silent to the words, "Yeah, this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin'," and I realize that this young man is playing Biggie. The Notorious B.I.G is one of my all time favorite artists. I'm just sayin'.

So just to recap for you folks at home, our Nature Channel pic of the week is: a Giant's fan, employed(?), likes good music and I find him attractive. He's smiling as he turns from the jukebox and makes his way around the bar shaking people's hands as he goes and the bar tender buys his drink. OK. So he's well liked by The Box patrons.  Plus or minus column?

The next song comes on. It's TuPac. Old school rap. My favorite. I decide that there is more work to be done with this man and re open my computer, take out my paperwork and decide to continue to work while someone else is playing DJ. A Dr. Dre song later and my eye candy wanders past me. Up close he remains a good looking guy. Probably late 20s? Looks like he's a happy man and he smiles as he passes me. 

As he returns by me a short while later, he stops by and asks me if I liked the music he put on.

I responded, "yes," and that it was rare I ever heard rap coming out of the jukebox here. He asked me what songs I liked that he chose. I told him and he laughed. Apparently, for whatever reason, it doesn't seem like I should be a fan of Gangsta Rap. 

Yea boi! 

He offered to buy me a shot and I decided what the heck. I think the bartender suggested some kind of Three Olives Vodka that tasted like a fruit loop. We decided we would have a shot of it to give it a try. 

Drinks poured, presented and poof. We giggled at how much it did taste like fruit loops and continued chatting about the music. I asked him about his interest in the Giants and shared that I was a huge fan as well. He asked me what sort of work I was doing and he seemed fascinated with the spreadsheet. He just kept staring at my Excel spreadsheet like it has the answers to the universe embedded in it. If only it did.  

He worked outdoors and enjoyed the labor intensive job. He told me how it was challenging but he had a good work environment and liked the hours. 

We talked for a while longer about living in the area and some of the hobbies we had. He showed me some pictures of fish he had caught recently and just seemed like a genuinely nice guy.  I realized it was getting late and that I should probably be heading home to finish up my work. I thanked him for the drink, packed up my belongings and started to leave. He stopped me to ask me if he could get my number. I thought, "why not?" and scribbled my number down on a piece of paper. I'm a dater of the 90s.  I still put my number on a slice of paper, and sometimes, said person and I have a laugh about it as I realize that I CAN just put it in my phone.

If you ever used one of these phones, yes. You are old. 

I pulled my things together and wandered home. I sat and thought about the evening. I didn't think that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this man but, it was another date and I still believed in the power of positive thinking. 

We sent a few texts back and forth over the week and decided we would catch a Giants game at a local pub that Sunday. I had the day available, which seemed to never be happening these days, and was excited to get to see my Men in Blue!! He offered to drive us to Miami Mikes which is a giant sports bar. I had never even been there to see a game but there is a first time for everything right?

He picked me up in his late model Honda. I don't want to that to sound condescending and this is not intended to be.  I think of it as more Lloyd Dobbleresque 

"I can't really work it all out now, I'm just kinda hanging with your daughter."

That, and I choose not to throw stones in a glass house. My Jetta is 13 years old, has had 14 recalls and is literally the 90K dollar Volkswagon from the amount of work that has gone into decoding and attempting to fix her lemon ass. Svetlana, as I have been calling her for the better part of a decade, was a befitting name. She was no different than the Russian girls that used to  dance where I bartended (not the other way around). They were attractive from the outside, took a ton of maintenance to keep happy, cost a small fortune to keep up with and at any given time when they had a meltdown or malfunction, it was epic. I digress. . .

As we headed for Miami Mikes he was asking me about my week. I had mentioned that it had been a particularly busy and he was happy to swap stories about work and the like on the way to the restaurant. 

He was a bit late to pick me up, but I wasn't upset. I was just happy to have  the night off and get to sit and watch a football game.  Part of me didn't even really care how it went. I just wanted to embrace my eight plus hours of not serving the community or the social media sphere.  

We may have arrived as the dead last people at the day's festivities. As  I walked in, my enthusiasm was quenched by the throngs of colorful jerseys.  This facility had a number of rooms, ALL OF WHICH were filled.  It was the second quarter and we looked like the Johnny Come Lately's to the party. I was going to make the most of this.  I immediately surveyed my setting.  I was like one of those chefs at a cooking competition. I had foie gras, white chocolate, seaweed and a squirrel to make an amazing meal with. Go. 

Same concept.  

I scoped out a chair which may have been used for a bouncer, and one last chair at a comfortable table of eight I could easily poach. Wa- la VIP seating. . .

I am the missing member of the A team.

As we sat ourselves at my miracle invention we happened to sit right smack in the middle of the stations for two severs. . Manifique! Everyone had pitchers of beer.  I thought that popular convention was the way to go. We got our pitcher of Miller Light and the waitress put in orders for lunch.  I decided on beef brisket and he had a burger. We began some small talk.  The ride over we had gotten in a bit of conversation, but now we really had no way of talking.  

The televisions on multiple walls boomed over us.  He leaned in to ask how things were going. I said great. I noticed that he and I had nearly drank the first pitcher. I having now hit my two glass maximum, was going to head the water route. It was still pretty early in the game, and I wanted to make sure everyone was getting home in one piece. He ended up ordering another pitcher. 

I had not thought about dining when I got our "create your own table" location. Thankfully, the nice men at the table next to us were amenable to our sharing their table. This made for a great way to have a squatters picnic, but kind of made for an awkward first date.  

My Knight would periodically lean in and chat me up about the game.  He had  mentioned  during this time how he really wasn't drinking that much since being out of rehab. Hmmmmm.  I didn't think you were supposed to drink AT ALL when you were out of rehab, but, maybe there are different techniques I am not aware of. 

I didn't really ask about his time in rehab but he offered up that it was instead of doing more jail time. Hmmm. I wasn't really sure why he had done his jail time, but I have this feeling, without even asking he was going to tell me. And of course, he did. It was the blow that jammed him all up.  

Fantastic. 

I've dated people in recovery, people who have been in jail and people who have done drugs. Everyone deserves a second chance. Lord knows the universe helps me out every now and again.  It just seemed that this specific sequence of events didn't bode well for me or honestly even him, seeing as we were a pitcher into his recovery efforts. 

I asked if this was a good idea coming to a sports bar for lunch. He just shrugged at me and said "nah, it's the other stuff I have to stay away from." I am glad to see that the drug community is now distinguishing between class A and class B drugs for rehabilitation purposes? We both leaned back into watching the game and I just wondered to myself "who is this man I am out with?"

It worked out well that we sat where we did.  We have conversations with those around us, hi-fived other Giants fans and heckled the opposing teams' fans. We watched the game to completion. The second pitcher still had quite a bit of beer left when we were getting ready to leave. We hadn't really spoken all that much to each other. He had stepped outside a few times for cigarettes and I had gone to the ladies room a few times to text a friend or two to share the license plate and make and model of the car just in case they heard of a renegade drug cartel shooting up a late model Honda on the news at 6. 

As the check came I politely took out my card with every intention to split the bill with him.  He immediately looked at me holding my card and answered "Oh cool. I'll get the next one." Huh?? I guess I was footing the 70$ plus bill which was way outside my free/I'll pay for myself dating parameters. I just quietly paid the bill and collected my bag and coat to leave. I asked if he was OK to drive and appeared to be.  

On the way home, he shared more stories of his sordid past. The crazy ex-girlfriend, the strung out buddies who made random appearances at his home and the Probation officer he wasn't looking forward to seeing next week. I just sat there wide eyed, nodding, having NO REFERENCE POINT for any of this lifestyle. When we arrived out front my house, I wondered if it had even been a good idea letting him pick me up. There were four choices for what apartment I could live in, but even that made me uncomfortable. 

He said he had a great time and he definitely wanted to take me out again so he could repay me for the afternoon today. I told him it was OK, and thanked him for accompanying me. I wished him well with his probation officer, pending court case and continued success (?) in recovery. 

I walked up to the wrong door and walked into the wrong apartment hallway just to make sure that he wasn't sure where I lived. I think it was safe to say I was NEVER going out with this guy again no matter how great his taste in music was. 

The "Perfect" Knight

To say that this has been a successful endeavor so far would be like calling the war on drugs successful. 

I was beginning to wonder if perhaps by choosing a free dating site, was this what was hexing my dates. Perhaps segueing to a paid site like Match.com would get more Knights in "buying mode" if you will, and produce better affects. While I have been mulling over this idea, I decided maybe I had to be more proactive in my pursuits.

Maybe I was relying too much on the luck of the draw of the dating site, and I had to get out  in public and make myself known. Take initiative, if you will, and try more traditional modes of meeting men.

I have no shame in approaching someone and introducing myself. I guess it comes from the life mantra  I have of, "if you don't want to know me, I've come this long in my life without you. I will continue living without you hereafter."

I must say though, most of my great relationships have started with me introducing myself. Knowing now what I didn't know then, they probably would have NEVER approached me in public. Many mentioned well into our dating I appear unapproachable when with my friends, or that they didn't think that I would "go for" someone like them. This is all very odd to me. Why would they think that?

But using this research and developing based upon the past mistakes and newly acquired intelligence, I began to put myself out there as much as I could in real life; not just my virtual one. 

I have attended concerts, gone to night clubs and attended parties where I didn't really know anyone but the host or hostess. I even stumbled upon a singles mixer (actually I had no idea it was going on, I was just there having birthday drinks), joined day trips and taken a small engine classes to "put myself out there" in a traditional manner. It's gotten me what my father likes to call "gatz." (If you are Italian you will know the answer before I translate it for our non-Italian peoples.) Nothing. 

I was beginning to get concerned that perhaps I would not be able to do a blog with 30 dates, if there were not going to be 30 Knights. The pool that had been soliciting me, however unique and interesting they were, just weren't what I was looking for. 

I was reaching a new level of despondence with the blog.  As I sat at my local watering hole with a few friends, my mind wandered and I wondered why I was doing this blog. For whatever reason at this time, I happened to look across the bar and see a large gathering of what looked like co-workers getting together for a happy hour. I noticed one man in particular that seemed to be the center of the conversation of the group. He was laughing and smiling, and telling some story that had the whole group engaged. He was tall, well dressed, with nicely styled light brown hair and eyes that seemed to twinkle when he laughed.  He seemed to be fit, and employed, judging by the group he was with.  He also seemed older. Perhaps in his early or mid forties and I DID NOT SEE A WEDDING RING! 

I thought perhaps that the glass of Pinot Grigio I was having had gone to my head. From a distance, this man looked like opportunity knocking. I was not going to miss this opportunity! I pulled out one of my business cards, scribbled a note that read "If you would like to grab a drink at a later time, give me a call" on it, and proceeded to pull myself together.  Unlucky for me, because I was in all black, I looked like the rest of the waitstaff at the restaurant. Damn my all blacks!! Whatever. My business card clearly said that  I had a job outside of the world of waitressing so maybe this would help. 

But what about this crowd of people around him. . . If this didn't go well this could make me the laughing stock of the whole group. 

"Oh screw it," I thought. 

I had never seen these people before and would probably never see them again. 

I stood up, straightened myself out, took my hair out of its ponytail, did a flip and fluff and walked over to him. I tapped him on the shoulder. I looked straight at him and said "I am sorry to disturb you while you were with your friends. I just wanted to give you this," as I placed my business card in his hand.  I then proceeded to walk as if I was continuing to the ladies room where I shut the door, pushed my back up against it, (like he was somehow going to come in) and wondered to myself "what the hell did you just do?"

I shortly thereafter scurried out of the bathroom, making sure to hide myself as I returned to my seat across the room. I happened to glance at my unsuspecting victim and his cadre of people. They were huddled around him holding up my business card. My worst fear confirmed!!! Oh Christ. What have I done.  I was awaiting the prank phone calls asking for an Al Coholic or text messages with lewd pictures. I began to assume the worst. What have I done!

I decided it was a good time to make a break for it. This looked like it wasn't going down well, and maybe this was a mistake. Nothing like sneaking out the side door as you are publicly humiliated by the man that you thought was hotter than baked bread.

I slinked out the side door unnoticed, and that is when the text messages started.

"Who is this," someone from a strange number wrote.

Trying to make light of it, I decided I was going to play dumb. 

"I don't know. You're the person texting me," I responded.

The next text came as the ultimate surprise.  "Are you some sort of stalker?" he responded.

Oh man. This was going south at warp speed.  How can I salvage this?

"If you are texting the number that you received on the business card, as I believe you are, I am not some sort of stalker. I am a girl that was sitting at the bar and thought perhaps it would be nice to see if you wanted to get a drink. You were surrounded by your friends, and I didn't want to disturb you, so that's why I dropped the card and ran. Remember me?" 

"Were you the waitress," was the response I got back. 

Oh jeez.  

Clearly this man has had quite a bit to drink, but I guess being in all blacks, it was easy to assume I was the waitress. I think I could still salvage this. 

I authored the next text which was either going to make or break my situation. "Does this help?" I attached the most G rated, wholesome, above board picture I had of myself. 

"Yes, yes, yes!" Was the response I got back. 

Now here is the affect I am looking for from these men!

"I thought you were the waitress!" he proclaimed.

"Well that's OK," I thought. Then the next text rolled in. . ."And who would have thought such a beautiful woman would have given me her business card." 

Now we were getting somewhere folks.

"What are you up to?" he asked.

"Well," I responded, "I am heading home right now," as I scooped my belongings and ran out the door before he could see me. 

He asked if we could get together in the near future, and I told him I was game.  After all, I was pleased as punch that he was interested in meeting. 

We decided via a few texts that we would meet at the Famished Frog around 7pm for a drink or two. I put on a sweater dress, leggings and boots and bundled up to head out in the freezing weather.  I was excited. I recalled what he looked like, but I find that over time, even if it's a few days, I begin to get hazy on the specifics. I blame it on anything from the conga line of bar patrons at my night job, to glamorizing people to some extent. I hoped that he would be somewhere obvious, so that way I would be able to spot him easily. And there he was.

He was half into his pint of Yuengling when I arrived. He stood up to greet me.  He was more handsome than I had recalled. He had this smile that sparkled like a game show host when he greeted me "hello!"

He stood from the table dressed in a chunky sweater, jeans and black shoes. I thought to myself "what a snazzy dresser he was!"

I sat down across from him and just sat and stared for a minute. "Wow, this guy's even better looking than I remember!" I thought to myself.  I actually began to get nervous.

My ship has come in!

He remarked at how it was so odd how we "met", and that how he wasn't sure who I was so he was a bit pensive about our meeting. I told him that it was a little odd, but really, who wants to meet totally normal people. 

I ordered myself a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and settled in for what I hoped was going to be a great chat. His first question, was the same as many of my dates.  "What type of business do you own," he asked.  I find that across the board, everyone wants to know what I do for work during the day since I profess to "work for myself." I often feel like this is some sort of qualifying question to make sure that they aren't going to have to pay for the date beyond drinks or something odd like that. Generally when I explain the work I do in marketing, you can nearly watch their faces awash with relief. 

I inquired about his work since he had mentioned he worked independently and had flexible hours as well. He was an investment banker and had been for nearly 20 years. I was now doing the math trying to figure out how old he was. 

He looked like my peer.  I would have said late 30's and probably bet money on it. He was fit, with a youthful face and a thick head of dark brown hair. However, the way he was talking, I could tell that he was older. That was totally cool with me. I'm not an ageist. 

He asked what I had been up to in the recent past, and I mentioned that I had been planning my birthday vacation to St. Lucia and the last trip was a girls night out in Atlantic City. He then asked me how old I was. Well, where this bothered me at the beginning of this Tour de Dates, now it was just old shoe. Besides, if they couldn't take the heat, better to get out of the kitchen now. 

"Thirty five," I responded, with near pride.

He then told me that I didn't look a day over 25 (points) and that he was 48. I nearly fell off my chair. This man looked AMAZING for near 50. 

I told him how great he looked and asked how he kept up this great shape. Turns out the guy was totally into yoga, biking, running and diving. Wow. This guy just gets better and better!

I asked him about his diving experiences, having had my fair share as well. I enjoyed listening to him talk about his adventures and felt quite comfortable talking with him since we seemed to have a number of hobbies in common. This may be the perfect knight!!

He mentioned that he had two children that were not yet teenagers, and how active they were with sports and activities.  I commented on how proud he must be of them and he shared that they were "great". However the next story was kind of off-putting. 

He shared that he had not felt well over the Christmas holiday and despite the fact that he had missed Christmas with his children, he had managed to rally to go skiing the following day. Hmmm. Didn't seem very fatherly of me, but maybe I was being super critical. 

We continued on with our conversation. He asked me questions about my work, and I about his. We talked about how we had both enjoyed living in Morristown, past trips we had taken and some of the things we were looking forward to come Spring.  We talked about how we love horror films, good wine and great food. He asked how my trip to AC had gone and I told him it was a brief girls night out, and how bizarre AC could be on a Sunday night.  He then launched into an odd story about his last trip to a casino in Pennsylvania. He shared that he and his buddies were three sheets to the wind and a group of girls came over and started to chat them up. Then he divulged that one of the women made her home on his lap and how he could tell she wasn't wearing any underwear while he was grinding on his leg. And that was the story.  Gross. Really? 

"But you were doing so well!" I thought to myself.  

Why ever would he want to tell me this story?  Well, maybe it was because in less than two hours he was now enjoying beer number five, that I had seen. Hmmm. 

I got up to use the rest room. I walked off assessing this date. It had started out so magical. What happened? Was I being critical? Had I just come to the point of dating fatigue? I was going to rally and give this the old college try to make sure I was to remain open minded.  

As I went to sit back down in my chair he commented on how "bootylicous" I was.  Really? Was I getting punked? Oh shit.  Here we go. 

Growing concerned about his drinking and potentially driving, I inquired if he had far to go. He divulged that he lived down the street and had walked. Phew. This segued to his next lot of stories that to save time I will entitle, "Times the Police Definitely Should Have Carted Me Away for Public Intoxication/Drunk Driving". There were roughly a half dozen of these. 

Now I am doing this weird running check sheet in my head. 

This near 50 year old man, acts like a boy on Spring break, parties like a Fraternity kid, has the self control of a toddler, who seems to be a self-centered crumby father and keeps referring to me a being bootylicious.  I think it's time to bow out gracefully and exit the first door, or window I can find. 

I then proceeded to do my patented "Oh my gosh, I'm so tired," while yawning. . .

He tells me he has had a great time, and we should do this again soon. I nod in silence. I tell him I am going to head out, and he tells me he is going to stay behind to have a "few more" and watch the games. Awesome. I am getting away scott free. 

I walk to my car fearing I have been judgmental and I don't like that. I tell myself that I am going to give this man another opportunity if he texts me and asks me out again.

The following day he texts me.  He asks me if I want to bring my bootylicous self by to his place one night this weekend to watch horror films and have a sleep over.  I don't even respond. Why have a sequel to this horrifying event.