Noodle Juice On My Tit

My Worst Date Ever.

I had already had five dates with this dude. He was a web designer and lived in a great, arty neighborhood here in Atlanta. He was a couple of years older than me and one of those wonderful artistic hipster-types that actually HAD a good job.

Our first five dates were pretty great. He was a perfect gentleman, insisted on paying for everything, and there was never a moment during any of those dates were I was uncomfortable or irritated. After our second date – which was amazing – he didn’t kiss me goodnight. I was a little thrown off by this, but just assumed he was a gentleman. I kept hanging on, waiting for him to make a move and so by the time he asked me out for our sixth date, I was thinking, “It’s do or die time, homie.”

We agreed to meet at this Malaysian restaurant and then go on to a Korean bakery for dessert. I arrived abnormally early, and didn’t see his car, so I decided to take the time to make some last-minute primps to my face and hair. I was rubbing my lips together when I saw his car pull into the lot and, Ace Ventura style, barrel through the parking lot and slide into a space, narrowly missing the other cars around him.

I couldn’t help but chuckle and threw my phone in my purse and got out of my car to meet him. As I approached his car, I saw his door fly open and I nearly stopped in my tracks. He swung his feet out of his car and he was wearing the most AWFUL shoes. I am not a fashionista, by any stretch, but these were the kind of shoes you cut grass in… Or washed your car in… They were NOT the kind of shoes that you wore past your property lines. What used to be all-white walking shoes, the likes of something a blue-haired lady would wear, were now grey and sort of yellowish-green at the toes. The strings were also grey and missing their plastic caps and hang loosely, touching the ground and flopping about.

Ok. Don’t panic, I told myself. Maybe he’s had a shoe emergency or something. He had always dressed fashionably and even had cute hats. This was an out of character shoe emergency. I was certain.

We exchanged pleasantries, a short but warm embrace and then entered the restaurant. We were seated quickly and he ordered this giant bowl of noodle soup for dinner.

Now, noodle soup is messy. You’re expected to lean down, grab a pile of noodles with your chopsticks, shove them in your mouth and slurp them up. This is perfectly acceptable dining behavior. What is NOT acceptable is twirling the noodles onto your fork, then the lifting your hand waaay up above your head to break your noodles free from the tangles in the bowl. If you do this, you will no doubt be splashing noodle juice all over the table, and more importantly, your date.

So there I was with little orange spatters of noodle juice all over my glass, the table, and my shirt – one splotch directly nipple-center, watching this man slurp up the drips of noodle juice that landed on the back of his fork-free hand.

And the conversation on this date? Oh, just your run of the mill judgmental accusations of poor parenting. Apparently, as an artistic mother of a four year old, I should have been ashamed of myself for stifling my son’s creativity by forcing him to use coloring books rather than encouraging him to draw. Oh, yes… He went there.

So, the check comes and he ignores it, but honestly, I ignored it, too. I’m plenty-happy to pay for myself on a date, but he had set a precedent on all of our previous dates so I didn’t bring any cash. We walk to the counter to pay and on the way, he says, “Can we go dutch? I’m approaching broke-city.” Our ticket was only $16. I offered to pay for dessert at the bakery and with an irritated sigh, he obliged.

At the bakery, he ordered the largest, most expensive item on the menu and then didn’t finish it, made racist and sexist statements about Asian women, told me weird stories about a woman he used to date — complete with sexual romps, and finished off by saying (this is a direct quote),

“I have a hard time looking you directly in the eyes because when I look at your eyes I see your makeup and then I get distracted by the thin layer of mucus on your eyeballs.”

PAUSE.

Mucus? On my EYEBALLS?!

It was painful. And it was only made worse by the fact that he was sitting in the booth across from me with his back to the wall and his legs stretched out over the bench and THOSE SHOES dangling and bouncing in my peripheral vision.

Finally, the date was over. As we left the café, there was a row of international periodicals and he stopped himself mid-sentence to go collect one from each box. All in all, I’d say he had a stack of about 20 newspapers in his arms. I inquired what his plans were for all of these papers and he said, “Oh, I don’t know.”

I recall just cocking my head, shoving my hands in my coat pockets and pivoting on my heels towards my car.

Thanks to the folks at MetAnotherFrog.com for letting me guest-post again!