Happy Holidays: This is Why I'm Still Single

Happy, merry, and all things bright to you and yours, whatever your holiday! The holidays mean so many things to me and one is my guilty pleasure: Hallmark Christmas Movies. I have seen just about every one and I DVR the new ones each year #noshame. Each movie involves a relationship of some sorts, usually romantic, though there are some that focus on family members being reunited. While I am away with my family for the holidays, I thought, in the spirit of romance stories, I would treat you to a different spin on relationships, namely my top 5 app dates (online dates? What do we call these now?) from hell. Originally written as a series for Out of Office NY, I will gift you number one below and then the rest over the next four days. I hope my cringes bring you smiles and can diffuse the situation when X relative asks why you're still single a la, "It's brutal out there, listen to this story..." 

Porn Guy

            Porn Guy, let’s call him “PG” (ironic I know), and I started messaging over the app from which we’d met. He was a few years older than I was and there were no red flags in his bio or pictures. When he suggested we go for a drink one Friday night, I agreed. Rather than getting a table in the back, of which there were many, he chose to sit at the bar. Odd move but maybe he knew something I didn’t, after all he was the one who had chosen the bar.

            After ordering, he started in with some basic, first date questions. We were making easy conversation and seeming to get along really well until it came up that I frequent a particular boutique fitness studio. He didn’t care that I was a sweat enthusiast or that I went to the particular studio, instead he turned it into something totally unexpected, proclaiming that my love of fitness meant I “have a high libido” and asked what I do to relieve the tension. “What are your porn watching habits?” Come again (pun intended). How to even respond? Luckily I didn’t really need to because from there he just kept talking and went down the rabbit hole of comments and questions increasingly aimed at getting salacious details. He told me about another girl he was seeing who was big on sex parties, explaining that adding me to the mix would bring a good sense of balance and later asked me, “What’s the best date you’ve ever been on?” How wrong I was to think meant the non-bedroom side of things.

            As soon as I finished my wine I was out of there. Walking the few blocks back to my apartment I called my dad. The first words out of my mouth were, “What is wrong with your species?” Cut to Monday at my desk. I get a text from a random number, though I had a feeling it was PG, which read something along the lines of “How are you?” In a move of passive-aggressive I’m not interested, I wrote back, “Sorry, don’t have this number, who is this?” “PG, from Friday. Was I really that bad?” How do I put this gently? I called my Dad to laugh and ask how I should respond. Dad: “Write ‘worse.’” LOL. I love my dad. I opted for the less mature, delete the text and never respond. Blessedly, PG never contacted me again. 

[Author’s note: The place we went is now one of my favorite wine bars so in the end, points to PG, or something.]