The Rambling RedHead

The Worst Blind Date... Ever..

As my dating world has leveled out in the last few months and the parade of complete lunatics and utter freaks has been limited to the nutjobs that send me obscene My Space messages (and the guy I’m dating, of course), I have started going back to some archives I had from a previous blog to share some fun dating stories I accumulated prior to entering the actual dating pool. This little tale of high adventure and mad romance occurred back in either late 2002 or early 2003 when I was still married and spent most of my time watching the relationship train-wrecks of my beloved friends.. Let me assure you, as I became more and more aware of the likelihood of my joining the ranks of the single women in their 30’s in the dating community, my friend’s experiences did little to give me hope that I would be better off single.

We begin our story, as so many do, with one night at the pub....

One of the original Vixen’s, Michelle, was fixed up on a blind date by another one of her very good friends (altho, I am certain that this matchmaking attempt put a strain on the relationship afterwards). The date started well enough, and while he wasn't particularly thrilling to look at, sort of clean cut and cute-ish in an older guy kind of way, she was keeping an open mind..

Any woman who’s been on more the 2 dates in her life knows that it's just good sense to stay somewhere familiar and keep an escape hatch handy when embarking on an evening out with someone new. I was on stand-by playing the role of the escape hatch.. After attending a cook-out together, she brought him downtown, to the pub (you don’t get much more familiar than that).. By this time she knew this was no Love Connection, however, she was still proceeding with the date and waiting to see if at least a friendship could be created.. Hell, my 2 best guy friends in the world are guys I dated where we just decided to be just friends, Big Brother (circa 1987) and Kansas (circa fall 2004).

And then he broke just about every rule in dating and common sense.. It still boggles the mind to this day.. Technically, he didn’t actually break a rule as his behavior was just so preposterous that it defied any defined rules in the dating sense of the word..

As we're standing around chatting, her date, who we’ll call Escobar Gallardo, excuses himself to talk to someone he knows.. A few minutes later, Michelle and I took realized Escobar may not be as clean cut as she thought.. The gentleman he was conversing with was well known in downtown bar circles as being involved in the use and possible distribution of several illicit substances, not the least of which was cocaine. We didn't know him personally (no good can ever come of putting anything other than your finger in your nose and even that has significant limitations) however, his reputation as a coke head was well established. And even if it wasn’t, his constant red-rimmed eyes, profuse case of the sniffles and excessive abuse of hair gel were generally a dead giveaway. As if having her date talking to a drug dealer wasn't disconcerting enough, the jackass had the utter nerve to come back and ask if he could borrow $20 from one of us.. Michelle, ever the lady, inquired politely as to the purpose.. He said he owed a friend some money..

An immediate meeting was convened in the ladies room and I informed her that he had broken all rules of Dating Etiquette.. Not only did he seek to borrow money from her on a first date (tacky in the extreme, what kind of loser borrows money on a first date?? I mean, unless he’s just been mugged??), he was using it to buy drugs without first determining her position on the matter (flat out unacceptable).. Now, granted, there are women out there that might not have minded his little substance abuse problem. Heck, there are ladies whose idea of the perfect date includes a couple of pick-me-upper lines and a few Jaeger Bombs.. Unfortunately for him, Michelle was not one of these ladies.. OK, she would probably have done a Jaeger Bomb, but that’s about it..

Her main concern was how polite it was to end the date immediately, which I assured her was the least of his problems.. And amazingly, her date was quite annoyed that she was trying to dump him and was not at all open to our strong suggestion that he vacate the premises immediately as we weren’t going anywhere and didn’t want him to ruin our good night.. I suggested that if he had any problems with her abruptly ending the date, perhaps we should just walk over to the other side of the bar and introduce him to one of our dear friends, Officer Greg from the Drug/Gang unit of the Raleigh PD who just happened to be off duty enjoying a refreshing beverage.. I told him I suspected Greg would not mind going on the clock for a few minutes to arrest him for possession. Interestingly enough, that seemed to hasten his exit from the bar..

Needless to say, she never saw him again.. and I think it was several months before she was willing to date anyone without a full criminal and chem panel work-up on.. Is it any wonder why The Vixens are so jaded and suspicious when we meet a “decent” guy??

posted by Monet @ 12:26 AM