Adventures in Online Dating III

At the risk of putting too much of my personal life out there, I decided a few years ago that I was going to start cataloging some of my worst online dating experiences.  Hence, Adventures in Online Dating was born.  Here's a gem from July of 2008.  Enjoy, squirm, laugh, point, what have you...

Posted Date: : Jul 12, 2008 10:17 AM

For the few who know, yes, I went on a date last night with a girl I had met on Plenty of Fish.  And for even fewer of you, you know just how BADLY that date went.  For everyone else, here's the recap.

Seriously, I should have known something was wrong with her.  She was far too eager to meet me as quickly and as often as possible.

She contacted me on Sunday off my Plenty of Fish profile, and that is something I'm already considering deleting again.  And from Sunday through yesterday, I must have exchanged over 150 text and emails with her.  That's right, less than a week.  She would call me late at night from 10:30 on and we'd talk for a minimum 45 minutes each time.  I was literally exhausted by the time we finally met up at Disneyland Friday afternoon for our date.  And I figured, she's a Disney Freak, how cool is that?  yeah...

Mind you, the entire week she was going on about how great she was at Buzz Lightyear's Astro-Blasters.  Literally explaining in great detail how she was going to kick my ass.  So right away, I see she's competitive just like me.  It was going to be so much fun beating her, I figured I'd keep it on the down low.  Let her talk her talk and when we'd finish the ride, I could gloat after I beat her...  If only things worked out like that.  If only she wasn't one of the worst losers I'd ever met.  And by loser, I mean poor sport...  O.k., loser in life too.  But I digress.

So I figured, as much as she was talking during the week about how excited she was to be seeing me, I thought some PDA would be ok and I reached out to her while we were in line at Buzz.  She snapped at me for invading her personal space.  Really?  For as much as she was talking on the phone, I thought some contact would have been appreciated.  At the very least, looking forward to it.  But alas, that wasn't the case.  Needless to say, it only got better from there.

She harangues over whether she wants to go solo on the ride or pair up.  I figured, since this was a challenge, we need to pair up so it would be a direct, head-to-head competition.  It was only fair, right?  Most people would have seen it that way.  So we board and the whole time as we're about to go into the shooting gallery, she's still going on and on about how she's just going to mop the floor with me.  Keep talking.

Finally, we make the turn and we're in the ride.  After a few seconds, I'm out of targets on my side of the ride and need to turn the car to face the other side and get some shots in.  As soon as I turn the handle, she FREAKS OUT!  Literally goes off about how I was messing up her shooting and how wrong it was of me to do that.  Seriously, the ride is SUPPOSED to turn.  Get the fuck over it and keep playing.  But of course, she doesn't.  Still going on about it, I literally stopped turning the car less than half-way into the ride. Whatever direction we were facing, that's where we're staying for the remainder of the ride.  I keep playing, hitting my targets and while her mouth is still going, I take a peek at the score.  I'm clearing over 300,000 and she's somewhere in the mid-100,000s.  It was so lopsided that by the time we get to the camera, I stop and pose for the picture and pretty much quit playing at that point.  I holster the blaster and sit back and just watch the rest of the ride while she's still struggling.  By the time we finally reach the end of the ride, it's pretty clear who won.  The margin of victory was over 125,000 points.  There's no way she could use the excuse of me turning the car made the difference.  But sure enough, she won't let it go.  That's why she always likes to ride alone so she can control the direction of the car.  Somehow, I'm supposed to believe that me turning the car a few times made her total be less than half of what she would normally do.  Right...

But of course, I soldier on, even though I was done.  Literally, in my mind, we were done.  Our date was over.  But being the gentleman I am, I was going to at least trudge it out for the remainder of the day.  I could see her simmering though as we cross the park and head off to Pirates.  She's not saying a word for most of the entire time we're walking over there and believe me, I'm not making any effort either.  So as we get to the front of the queue at Pirates, the wench (ride staff, not my date) asks how many in the party.  I look back at my date and ask her, 2?  As we're waiting to board, I asked her if she was sure she wanted to ride with me since she likes to ride alone.  Yeah, I was provoking her.  She asked if I wanted to ride alone and I said, it's up to you.

The remainder of the ride was contemptuous as well as the Haunted Mansion immediately afterwards.  Then finally, I was free of my burden as we're walking towards Big Thunder Mountain and she stops and says, "This is just too uncomfortable.  I think I'm just gonna go."  My first thought was, Thank God.  But I didn't say it and just replied with a simple, "Ok, bye."  And turned and walked the other way.

There's a REASON why she's 32 and still single.  And the reason I'm 36 and still single is BECAUSE of women like her.

 *** UPDATE***

Obviously my friends seem to be obsessed in finding fault with my selection of Disneyland as a first date destination.  Somehow you're missing the point that we only went on 3 rides and I was ready to call it quits after the 1st ride.  We met at the park at 6:30pm and we parted ways by 7:30.  How is that any different than a quick meeting at Starbucks?  More importantly, how much grief did I save myself by finding out her psychosis now rather than later?  What if we had met at Starbucks?  What if everything went swimmingly and we only end up at Disneyland after we would have officially started dating?

Sorry guys, I'm more of the mindset of: Fuck it.  Let's start off with something a little more intense.  If you can make it through that, then we might have something to build on.  Anyone can behave themselves at a coffeehouse for a few minutes.