Confessions of a Dating Fool Read online

CHAPTER 3

  An Online Date in Scottsdale

  Her name was Carol.

  I am an attractive, affectionate, fit and athletic, fun-loving woman who is looking for someone special. I am currently separated, with my divorce finalizing soon. I'm basically a sunny, happy, successful person who looks at life with an optimistic viewpoint. In general, I am a calm and balanced person, but when I have fun, I go all out!

  That’s how she described herself in her online dating profile. She said a lot more about herself, of course, but the above was her opening gambit, the part that caught my attention. Fit and athletic are particularly important to me because I’m fit and athletic. I like fun-loving too. Success is good, and so is balance. Might be something here!

  In online dating, someone’s description and picture are very important. It’s all you have to go on for that decision to proceed or not. And yet, in my experience, almost everyone lies to get that first meeting. Then what? Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t; but when it doesn’t, expectations are unfilled and that, my friend, is the definition of anger, which is not a good emotion to create when meeting someone!

  Carol’s photo got me interested enough to open the profile and find out more about her. There was only one photo, which is tricky because one photo can leave a lot of room for misrepresentation, intentional or not. I like to see several, especially ones that show full body shots, preferably in a context of activity, along with the usual close-up of the face. More photos mean more honesty and more information, making the decision to contact or not a lot easier.

  Carol had only one photo. Ordinarily, that would be a red flag, but that one photo was tantalizing, even if she was a little too obscure for me to really see what she looked like or get a sense of her. She wasn’t doing anything in the photo, just sitting at the end of a table with her elbow propping up her chin, trying to look sexy no doubt, but achieving only wistfulness and borderline boredom, at least that’s what I read into it. Ordinarily, that would be a red flag, but like I said, the photo was tantalizing. She had nice hair, flowing and shaped, with some wave that was a bit out there, almost breezy, but not too out there. It was nice. She had a look about her that I liked, a look that’s hard to describe, like someone who knew about the sweetness of a nice life but was seasoned by independence and rich experiences. Wow, isn’t it amazing what we think we see in a photo! I guess that’s why they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

  Another thing I liked about her photo was that she looked reasonably stylish, if stylish could be inferred from a black v-neck sweater, which was the only clothing item I could see. Ordinarily, limited input like that would be a red flag, but that one photo was—yep—tantalizing, even if black killed all the shadows that could reveal something about her figure.

  I reread her profile again, a little more carefully this time, trying to ferret out some extra insights. There was a lot to like about it, although the fact that she wasn’t actually divorced yet was a bit of a concern. Ordinarily, that would have been a red flag too, but the photo grabbed me, even though she might still be emotionally unsettled from the break up of her marriage.

  There were a lot of possible red flags, but like I said, the photo was tantalizing. It was a tough call, but I decided to pursue contact, so I sent her an invitation online to meet me in person over an adult beverage. I didn’t want to spend time exchanging endless emails and phone calls before meeting her. I’d done enough online dating to know that the frequency and amount of contact before meeting someone had little to do with an ultimate attraction. If there isn’t chemistry in the first five seconds of meeting, whatever went on in all that foreplay of emails and phone calls won’t matter.

  Yep, chemistry is king, and both parties have to feel it at first sight or the goal shifts to ending the meeting as quickly as possible. Of course, having chemistry doesn’t necessarily mean that two people are meant for each other; it just provides the necessary green light to proceed in exploring the potential. Granted, sometimes, though rarely, a relationship can blossom without chemistry up front, but it doesn’t work that way with me ever—unless you count Celeste, that goofy plain Jane of a girl in my high school who, three years later, turned out to be the hottest cheerleader at the University of Wisconsin. But that’s an ugly duckling story, and they’re endemic to our childhoods.

  Carol’s simple single photo worked for me. Did I say it was tantalizing? Oh, a million times already. Anyway, she agreed to meet me. We set a time and day: Thursday at six o’clock at Houston’s restaurant, at the bar. It was the Houston’s in Scottsdale on Scottsdale Road, a very popular watering hole for Scottsdale’s chic over-thirty crowd. The lights were always low, the kind of low that made you pause six feet inside the door so that your eyes could adjust. It was so dark that visibility didn’t improve much even after they adjusted. This meant that everyone started looking better the instant they walked in.

  I got to Houston’s ten minutes early, which is typical timing for me on dates. Of course, the suspense was building, like it always does when meeting someone for the first time, someone you want to like, especially when meeting someone who gave you only one photo to work with, tantalizing as it was. That’s the operative word in this story: tantalizing. I love that word. According to the dictionary, it means to excite by exposing something desirable while keeping it out of reach.

  Anyway, six o’clock came and went, and she was now ten minutes late, still out of reach. In another five minutes she would no longer be fashionably late but chalked up as a no show. That’s never a good start for a relationship, but it happens. It didn’t happen this time, however, as a lone woman walked in and paused about six feet inside the door. My radar instantly identified her as the Carol I knew from the flip of her hair in the photo.

  My radar is great for identification, but it also works for assessment, and my first impression was not a good one: Tantalizing didn’t come through the door with Carol. There was nothing tantalizing about her figure, even in the low lighting. She was a lot closer to fat than fit. This wasn’t a good start.

  She walked right up to me, being easily identifiable at six foot three inches tall and bald, and smiled with a queried look, head slightly tilted down and eyebrows up, as if to say, “Is that you?” I put the greeting out first.

  “Carol,” I said with total confidence, “how nice to meet you. I’m Tom.” And in a microsecond, I thought, “Now I’d like to go home,” but the minimum commitment was for a drink that I’d pay for, like most guys do on a first-time online date. Who knows—maybe her personality would shine, and its light would blind my superficial reaction to her? I decided to give her the benefit of a doubt.

  “Hi,” she said. “Nice to meet you too.”

  She had a mushy three finger handshake, something that men generally don’t like because they’re so into firm handshakes as a factor in character assessment. And, she said nothing about being late. Ten minutes late was borderline okay, but an apology would have set her up as Miss Polite and respectful of my time, which would have been two good points on the scorecard. First impressions aside, my polite nature was determined to seek the good in her to make this meeting worthwhile, however unlikely it was that there’d be a second one. I was committed to a pleasant exchange, which is a good thing in a world that’s often short on civility.

  We seated ourselves at the bar for what could be called the obligatory drinks. After placing an order for a couple of glasses of an inexpensive Chardonnay that was agreeable to both of us, we jumped into a conversation that went in and out with snippets something like this:

  “So,” I opened, “isn’t this online dating a trip? What an adventure it is.”

  “Yeah,” she smiled in apparent agreement. I was looking for more from her, but not getting it didn’t disappoint me. Our meeting was looking like a dead end, so I’d take what I could get and not worry about working the conversation.

  “Have you had much luck in meeting guys you like?” I asked.
/>   “No, not really,” she sighed, making me wonder if I was included in that judgment. “Have you met anyone you liked?”

  “Actually, I did,” I said. “Last year. We dated for almost a year and broke up a month ago.” Carol didn’t interrupt, expecting more apparently. I decided to give her a little more: “She had a lot of nice qualities, but it wasn’t meant to be.” Now Carol perked up on that. I figure girls always want to know what went wrong with your last relationship so that they can discover if it’s something that won’t work for them. I had her attention.

  “Why’d you break up?” she asked, clearly curious.

  “We had a lot of fun together, but we also had some big differences.”

  “Like what?” Her curiosity was growing. It was a question that left me with a lot of latitude in answering. I could make a general statement, like we had different goals in life or not enough in common. Or I could throw out a racy fib, like she decided she was a lesbian, but I opted for something closer to the truth: “She was very religious, and I’m not,” I stated in a matter-of-fact tone, but that didn’t even get a lift of her eyebrow.

  “Oh,” she said, “does that mean the sex was bad?”

  I thought that was a curious comeback and wondered what the segue was. Online dating left the door open for all kinds of questions that would never be asked in the normal decorum of a date.

  “No,” I said, and made that a one word answer to her question and quickly moved to new territory—her territory. “You said in your profile that you were looking to start a new business. Like what?”

  “Matchmaking.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’m good at fixing my friends up.”

  “Any of them get married?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know you’re good at it? Isn’t matchmaking about marriage?”

  “Not necessarily. It could just be about having fun. Maybe it leads to marriage. Maybe it doesn’t.”

  “Okay. Maybe. Maybe you could make a business of it,” I said, agreeably.

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said, clearly unsure of herself. “I mean, maybe I could help people find their soul mate.”

  “Yeah, but you think you can do it for a living?” I hate the word soul mate, which may have tainted my tone. It’s such a chick word, but I get it. I’d just never use the word myself.

  “What—you don’t think I can?” She must have read a little skepticism into my comment.

  Our meeting could have turned south here because, of course, I didn’t think she could be a matchmaker—she couldn’t even “match” herself—but I was determined to keep it nice. “Look, I don’t know you and, you know…” I scratched my eyebrow and looked around the room, hoping for some enlightenment or relief. I continued, a little more upbeat, “Well, who knows, maybe you’d be great at it.” This was the best I could do while continuing to sound interested.

  Getting through a drink was quickly becoming a big challenge. I wasn’t sure I could do it. We hadn’t had any awkward silences in our conversation up to this point, but they would be making an appearance soon, I was sure. There was absolutely no chemistry, and I was sure she sensed it too.

  We had only been together ten minutes when I noticed her wine glass was empty. I decided to let it stay that way, from the point of view of my wallet. My glass is half full, but I’m feeling it should be empty, that I should down it, grab the check, and dash for the door. But I trudged on with our vapid conversation. My growing disinterest must have been evident, so I smiled a lot. Smiling is a great mask. I read some study that pointed out how an insult could be delivered without repercussions as long as it was said with a smile. People, it concluded, were more prone to react to what they saw than to what they heard. My smiling helped both of us.

  Short of insulting her, I actually thought about challenging her on the “fit and athletic” claim in her profile. I get a little testy with online dates when their profiles stray dramatically from the truth. I was a sip away from challenging her. I held off, but only for a few seconds.

  “Carol, writing a profile for this online stuff can be challenging.” I began that sentence not intending to actually confront her, but I was suddenly possessed by a devilish combination of curiosity and the pursuit of truth, and continued: “And,” I paused, “in your profile, you claimed…” I looked inward and asked myself how I could put this nicely. I leaned back a bit to finish the sentence, maybe to physically distance myself from her, paused, and started over: “Well, you claimed you’re fit and athletic, and I don’t really see that,” I said, swallowing tenuously, ready to get my head taken off. “Maybe I misread your profile?” There I put it out there, asking for her wrath, surely, or some riposte of an insult directed at me.

  “No, you read that right. I am fit and athletic. I play tennis once a week.” No offense was taken. It was her truth, apparently.

  “Oh, yeah, great,” I replied, nodding in agreement and smiling, as if a moment ago I was just confused. “Yeah, you must be fit and athletic…definitely…tennis is demanding.” I backed off and immediately understood that she saw herself that way and that I’d been a cad to go there. Even so, I still didn’t think her description was honest, but like I said, it was her truth. I saw a different truth. For some reason, I think fit and athletic skews closer to aerobic instructors, but that’s me and my own weirdness.

  “What else do you do, Carol? Got other plans for a business?” She didn’t seem to mind that abrupt switch to another topic, particularly since I sounded so interested. I was smiling.

  “I don’t tell people this, at least not when I first meet them, but…you wanna hear?”

  I knew she was going to tell me, no matter what I said, but I was still being civil, so I lied and said, “Yeah, of course, tell me.”

  “I can tell people’s past lives just by looking at them.” She paused for a reaction from me. Clearly, this was a hit or miss statement for her with guys, so she paused and looked at me, wondering how I’d take this news. I took it, determined not to openly flinch or roll my eyes, and I took another sip of wine to get me closer to the end of this date. I should have just gulped the rest down, tossed a twenty on the bar, and walked out right then.

  “Really,” I replied, “You can tell me about my past lives just by looking at me? Right here? Right now?” My civil tone was still operative because I didn’t even remotely believe in past lives and declined to tell her what a bunch of nonsense all that was to me. I’m now convinced that we are so not for each other. I smiled some more, waiting for her next statement, willing to ride this one a little longer, but eyeing the bartender, hoping he’d see that I was ready to give him my credit card. He didn’t.

  Carol then reached over her empty wine glass to get to mine, picked it up, put it to her lips, and just before taking a sip, looked at me and said, “Do you mind?” seeking permission to have some of my wine. I didn’t mind at all. It might get us to the end of the date sooner.

  “No, go ahead. Enjoy,” I said at the same time she drained my glass. I could have said, “There’s always more where that came from,” but I didn’t. I wondered if she thought that would trigger a request to the bartender for another round. Wonder or not, I didn’t see another round as a possibility. I don’t recall a date ever grabbing for my wine and polishing it off, but there’s a first time for everything, and online dating has surprised me and a lot of others with first times. Now, we both had an empty glass in front of us, which for me was the green light for my departure. I turned to her, contemplating the approach I should take for making our first meeting our last meeting.

  She was looking directly into my eyes, as if she was trying to see the bottom of a well, something beyond my aqueous humor, making a thorough but assuredly fruitless penetration of my pupils, the windows into my psyche, perhaps.

  “I can see only one past life in you,” she said. “Usually I see more, but with you, I see only one.”

  “I’m n
ew to this universe,” I said smugly. I stopped talking while Carol kept looking deeply into my eyes. The suspense was killing me. I broke the silence between us: “What is it? What do you see?” I asked.

  She peered into my eyes a few more seconds, no doubt truly striving to see into the very depths of my soul. I wondered if she could see anything at all, like my disinterest or the threshold for the end of this date. I admit, however, I was curious what past life she saw in me. I like baloney. It’s funny stuff, though not very nourishing.

  “What is it?” I repeated, as if my existence depended on knowing immediately. “What’s the past life you see?”

  She leaned back and slipped into a sobering tone, apparently not wanting to be taken lightly. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me,” I said fatalistically, with the introduction of a nuanced tone of skepticism. “Just don’t tell me I was Napoleon. Too many other people were Napoleon.”

  “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  I think she wanted me to beg at this point. I asked one more time, careful to sound like I was NOT begging. “What was my past life? You can tell me, and it won’t hurt my feelings. I swear.”

  I waited through more of her ripening silence before imploring her yet again, my impatience surely leaked, “What? Was I Jack the Ripper?” I said sardonically.

  “No,” she said and paused again, looking fearful of telling me.

  I refused to ask again and opted for waiting her out. Twenty seconds passed, which was all the time it would have taken to say, “I gotta go—bye!” Instead, I didn’t move. I waited, patiently, with a dumb smile of feigned interest and anticipation on my face.

  She leaned forward, looked to her right and then to her left and then into my eyes. “You were a Nazi,” she declared.

  “Really?” I said, feigning a gasp. “Now that’s some kind of nasty past life, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I was afraid to tell you.”

  “You really see that?”

  “Yeah. It’s in your aura.”

  On this news, I thought I should go to the Mayo Clinic for an aura check. Immediately. What a wacko! I wasn’t going to dignify her vision with a plea for more. All I could say was, “Interesting. Napoleon would have been better.” Her declaration was beyond my concept of civility. I thought to myself, “What a stupid thing to say upon meeting someone.” It was time for me to go.

  “Yeah,” she quickly added, “but now, in this lifetime, you are a very nice person. I can see that. You are a really, really nice person.”

  “Well, thank you, Carol.” That was better, but it wouldn’t slow my exit. I responded sincerely and, again, with a smile, “I’ve enjoyed talking to you, but we probably should part ways.”

  “No!” she suddenly exclaimed loud enough to turn a few heads, as if the idea was totally foreign to her, as if the strength of her exclamation could negate my impending departure. It had the same soulful, reverberating ring to it as the “No” that I’d gotten from my last girlfriend when I told her our relationship had unraveled.

  “Yeah,” I repeated, “I think it’s time to go.” That was the truth, and I added, “It was nice meeting you, though,” which wasn’t the truth.

  Then she looked at me again, as if searching for yet another past life in me, and then surprised the hell out of me by saying, “You want to come back to my place?”

  Her question could have only meant one thing. Wow. Talk about not being on the same wavelength! Dating is such an adventure. We stared into each other’s eyes. Mine were surely looking stunned, as if I’d just been Taser-ed, or maybe like a doe caught in the headlights on a Wisconsin highway at midnight. I imagined myself going with some deep-seated male instinct and saying, “Sure, let’s go to your place!” Guys could be such dogs.

  Instead, I said, “Thanks, really. I gotta go.” I pulled a twenty out of my wallet, slapped it on the bar, rose up from my bar stool, dodged her with a two-step move, and walked out of Houston’s with a squint from the bright light of the real world.

  ∞