Online Dating

He’d been waiting. I was there a bit early, but he’d already decided what to order and drank half a glass of water by the time I got there. Hesitating at the door, I told the staff I was meeting someone, but I didn’t know what they looked like. Then I saw him across the room, waving me over. It had begun.

The photo on his online profile made him look like a learned man, a professor of sorts, in a camel-colored jacket with a well-trimmed beard. Nice smile. His emails were well-written and articulate, and in my head, I had created a personality to match. He would laugh a lot, we would share ironic observations of the world, talk about farmers’ markets and museums, share stories of our lives, and lose track of time. I would be late home because we’d decided to go for a drink and the afternoon got away from us. Later, he’d teach me to two-step, and I’d show him around the WWI museum in Kansas City. I imagined he had many online girlfriends, and I was being scheduled into a free spot on a Saturday.

As I sat down, I saw a man much older than me with a grizzled face (was he trying to grow a beard, or did he just decide I wasn’t worth the effort of shaving?) and a sweatshirt hoodie. He launched right into a barrage of questions, not mentioning he’d already decided on his lunch until the waitress came back a second time for mine. He suggested going across the street to a bar he liked after lunch, and I agreed, but mentally I was already counting the minutes until I could escape. This wasn’t going to work, and I knew it immediately. I struggled to find conversation topics, but he was opinionated and even when he asked me what movies I would like to see, he deflected my choices to a Clint Eastwood movie he was interested in, but I could care less about. I told him of my hearing disability and that I don’t really go to movies that much because they were difficult for me. He laughed at this and asked if I’d spent too much time on a tractor- when he laughed her revealed bad teeth, and I had to look away.

At long last, we finished lunch and I suggested we go for that drink (the sooner we did this the sooner I could leave), and we set off across the street in the cold winter wind. I have a long stride, yet I struggled to keep up and not trip on the brick pavers, him oblivious to the situation. I became angry at that. What man on a first date doesn’t match his stride or at least make sure he wasn’t leaving a woman behind to be smacked by a car? Even my old boyfriend (much taller than me) would slow down and take my arm. Wasn’t that in the Gentleman’s Handbook somewhere? At least he held the door for me-sort of- and we entered a gloomy bar, populated with a smattering of daytime drinkers and a vague smell of smoke and stale beer. The bartender greeted us and told us to just tell him what we wanted. I began to look at the beer menu (wasn’t that what we were here for?) but my companion threw me a curve by ordering hot chocolate. He didn’t ask me what I wanted but shouted at the bartender his order. I quickly got up and went over to the bar. “A whole milk latte, please,” I told the bartender, and returned to my seat. More awkward conversation: A thinly veiled disparaging questions about what my daughter thought of GMOs; a no- so-disguised hostility at the high-end grocery store where I worked; and questions about our farm and why it was so small. I burnt my tongue drinking my coffee before it was cool, so badly did I want this date to come to an end.

At last we were done, and we walked (me trotting to keep up) back to the parking lot. Surely, he could see that this wasn’t working. He’d asked me my afternoon plans and I’d smoothly responded that I was going to see my baby granddaughter; surely, he realized we hadn’t clicked? I thanked him for lunch and the coffee, and I was flabbergasted when he asked me to go out for dinner and a movie. “Maybe,” I heard myself say, even as my mind screamed NO! “We can talk about it.” The world’s most awkward hug and it was over.

Driving home, Dave Matthews Band blaring on my stereo, I asked myself if this was something I was willing to do again. Not with him, but with anyone I was matching up with online. I knew, statistically speaking, I had to go through numerous first dates before I might land with someone I really liked, and who liked me back. But did I even want to exert the effort? Did I even care that much? I knew the answer before the song ended. No. No, I did not.