My Creepy Crush

September 21, 2007

Sometimes the worst dating experience isn’t with a total stranger, blind date or an online guy. It can be way worse with someone you’ve known for years! At least it happened to me. It was a guy I went to high school with. I actually had a crush on him back then. He was a senior when I was a sophomore, but his locker was near mine and we checked each other out a lot. He played on the basketball team and was kind of the silent type, but maybe I’m just saying that because he was older and I didn’t get to know him that much. Anyway, he already had a girlfriend in his year, and the year after that he was gone and I lost track of him.

So, fast forward to like four or five years later and I see him when I’m at a movie with friends. He was dressed all in black and looked totally different but still hot. I should have known it was weird when he wanted me to dump my friends right away and go out for coffee with him, but I was flattered that he remembered me and so we hooked up. The story he told me was REALLY interesting at first: he left town right after high school to pursue his dream of becoming – seriously – a professional magician! At least that’s what I thought, but he got all agitated when I used that word and told me he wasn’t a magician, he was an “illusionist”. He actually got quite upset about that, and that’s when he launched into this long speech about his hero David Copperfield, how he followed him on tour for a few years to learn the magic trade (oops, sorry “illusion” trade!). But he was so passionate that at first I was really into seeing him again. He said he was living in town but was leaving soon to do his show at Universal Studios. We got together a few nights later.

So we sit down at the restaurant and right away he started asking me if I wouldn’t mind dying my hair blonde. I thought it was a joke but he pressed me a little on it and finally I started getting a little annoyed. Why ask that question on a first date? It’s like asking someone to be someone else, you know? And then, once again, he went on and on and on about Copperfield. It got kind of boring, so I asked him if maybe he could do some tricks for me, but all he did was sweep his hands in the air a lot, like a bad Criss Angel impersonation. I guess the only trick he really did was convincing me he was a cool guy at first.

I never saw him again, in person or on TV. So remember that someone you liked in high school might not be a that fun an idea a few years later.

 

Dating Journal
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Oh No, He Doesn’t Do No!

May 25, 2007

Okay I am still stewing because I am not being left alone by a guy even though we only had one first date about a month ago. It turns out that he was a guy that “doesn’t do no.” You know what I am talking about – the guy whose Daddy told him never to take NO for answer or he is an inferior male or the Guy who spent hours studying the Secret (boy that book sucks) and now thinks that when people say no to him that it is somehow the failure of soul.

I went out on just one little old date with this one guy and it you would think that I have ruined his entire life or something. It was only one single dinner, (if that is what you call Pizza Palace) and afterwards I emailed him and said I just wasn’t interested and thanks I had a nice time. I handled it this way to be polite as a mutual friend set us up and I was trying to nip in the bud before I had a drama on my hands.

Of course the minute Mr. Never Say No got my email he got affronted and shot back an email asking me why. Never one to mince words I sent him back a more detailed accounting of my reasons including the phrase “I am not attracted and I don’t think we are compatible.” I only did this to be honest as we met through a matchmaking friend and I really think it was a fair to say we didn’t click. Isn’t rejection part of dating sometimes?

Well he has been acting the obsessed clown in that Seinfeld episode where Elaine gets stalked ever since. He keeps emailing me and phoning and leaving messages about knowing why and where he went wrong. He’s talking like we have been married for fifty years and like I suddenly decided to blindside him with a divorce.

Well, it has been over a months and the mutual is still approaching me and saying things like, “Do know what you did to Sean? He is really hurt.” I really don’t understand. I am also starting to feel a lot like a product that was sold to someone and then didn’t live up to its guarantee of having sex with him or something.

The really ironic thing is that he is also accusing me, of all things – LYING to him. It’s not like I told him I loved him on the first date or anything. If anything he is lying to himself by making so much of so little.

Isn’t the first thing you kind of learn in kindergarten that when someone says, “No, I don’t want to play with you.” – that you respect it. You don’t make the person play with you! However that is exactly what these two are doing – trying to make me play when I don’t want to! EW!

I am really wondering when all of this is finally going to end. I guess that

some people just can’t take no for an answer.

 

Dating Journal
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Thanks for the Time of My Life!

May 15, 2007

By now I should have learned not to trust my gut instincts when it comes to “love at first sight”. However I will never learn as obviously my judgment is way completely distorted by hormones. Oops, I did it again– I chose absolutely the wrong guy to become smitten with–

Our story starts about a month ago when I met this guy in a coffee shop. He was really, and seemed smart as a whip. After a few weeks we sort of fell into a routine where I would stop by at a certain time, to see if he was there …and he always would be. He would be sitting there, giving me the sweetest looks as he looked up from his notebook where he was always furiously writing. “Ah” I thought, “He’s deep! He’s another writer!”

After several more “accidental on purpose” meetings in the coffee shop he finally asked me out on what I thought was going to be a date. He told me he was going to take me some place really really special and that it was going to blow my mind. He guaranteed me that my life would be completely changed after this date.

He also told me how special I was because he found it hard to “trust” and that he was going to take me to a place where he had never taken a girl before.

So I got all dressed up, thinking we were going to some special romantic spot where he would confess his devotion to me somehow or at least say, “Hey do you want to go steady.”

He picks me up and the next thing I know we are driving into the parking lot a church and I’m thinking “well, maybe he’s really into architecture.” Next thing after that I know we are in a room filled with chairs and my date is sitting in a circle with the rest of them with a big smile on his face saying, “My name is Steven and I am an alcoholic.”

When it came my turn to speak, and I dared to say that I wasn’t an alcoholic, they all frowned and looked at me strangely. One of them even asked me if I was in denial.

During the meeting I at the very least got to find out what Steven was writing in that little book all those days in the coffee shop and it turned out to be a long “Fifth Step” where the alcoholic is supposed to take a personal inventory. In there was a litany of crimes that he voiced out loud including not paying his child support (surprise!) to his wife (surprise!), doing crack cocaine (surprise!) and driving drunk and hitting an old man (surprise!). So it seems that glow I saw on his face and then kind of fell in love with was not the glow of writer inspiration but rather some kind of sweaty guilt.

After the A.A. meeting, Steven invited me along with the rest to that same old coffee shop. I told him to “get with the program” and walked home alone.

 

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