My first date problem
F me sideways with a grandfather clock
Here is a question I've gotten far too often: Hey Phoenix, why are you still single...? From the first inquiry to the latest, my knee jerk reaction, invariably, is to respond by calmly placing my palm over my face, followed by softly shaking my head, mumbling cuss words whilst rolling my eyes underneath a death scowl punctuated by a furrowed brow.
Well, I mean this would be my preferred response. But, we live in a society that is allergic to the raw abrasive nature of many truths, now don't we. So, rather, I simply instruct those inquiring to posit this question to those ladies who I've engaged with after they've come across my romance radar in the past. Only because I have no idea why I'm still single. Well I kind of do, but once again I don't want to bruise my readers with the truth. The alternative rolls off the tongue in such a way that is sure not to disrupt the rose-tinted world we all live in. You know, so as to not inconvenience anyone with the negativity regarding some aspects of human nature of course.
However, just the other day I saw a few pictures of myself from several weddings I went to in my early twenties. And to be honest, it breathed new life into this age-old question I get. Because what I saw was a dashing, young, sharp dressed man. And we all know ladies cannot resist that now don’t we. Or can they? Or is it just me? Hmmm...
To further illustrate my levels of frustration, let me paint a picture for you based on my most recent date which happened only a few months ago as of writing this.
For a little context, I'll offer a little bit of a description of what I knew going into this encounter. The girl is close to my age with a tween daughter. Given that we are both middle aged, par for the course. In the days leading up to the date, I asked her what happened between her and the child's father. She bluntly stated that it just didn't work out. Come to find they were never married, but together for ten years. Fair enough as I was a new person to her. Yet I was still genuinely intrigued considering she was a potential romantic partner.
On our date, she showed up in a huge white German luxury car befitting some corporate CEO. This made things slightly more perplexing due to the fact that she has a middle class job. Anyway, first thing that happens when we get seated is her telling me that I was very handsome. Pas mal as the French would say. But then apparently leaving me on that high was not within her spirit because she spent the rest of the date cutting me down with tacit insults. Among other strange things.
For instance, upon letting her know that I was still surprised she showed up, her response was, 'why wouldn't I if I told you I was going to show.' At this point I had to explain to her the plethora of times I've been told that and THEN stood up, or canceled on at the last second. To this her comeback was, 'well who is the common denominator?' Only to further indicate that she was miffed that I didn't pick her up from her place. Oh my the times I tried such levels of chivalry in the past only to be barked at and shot down by a lady.
Then came the bit about my confusion towards the nature of our date. I thought we were just going to meet for drinks only and ate beforehand. She didn't and was hungry, indicating she was going to eat. At this point I had to let her know that I only budgeted for a few rounds of drinks for the both of us, but not food. Yes there was a budget and there always will be. Her response was that she did believe in gender roles, but had no real issue paying for her meal. A few moments later the waiter came and she proceeded to order the most expensive meal on the menu.
Some more tidbits are as follows:
→ At some point she felt the need to remind me of how I'm poor 'cause I write, which isn't untrue, however, not that accurate either.
→ When we got to talking about our pasts a little, after mentioning that I studied physics in college she straight up called me a nerd. That was a first for me and I indeed took it as an insult.
→ Oh, she also felt the need to inform me that I'm the shortest guy she's ever dated. She's 5'4”, I'm 5'10”.
But here lies my favorite part of the evening...
She point blank told me this, 'I need to CHECK YOUR SIZE 'cause if it isn't right then it'll never work out.' For those that have no idea what that means, she was essential referring to the need to measure my male appendage. And me being me, I informed her that this indeed works both ways. It took her several minutes to catch on to that one. (For the reader, pause here and have a think if you're still confused by my retort. It'll come to you.) But hey, if you're gonna bring it to me like that I'm gonna bring it right back to ya.
First off, I don’t easily intimidate, and this was just my way of letting her know this. Secondly, I find it interesting how so many women tend to put 100% of the blame on a poor sexual encounter onto the men. As if they weren't involved at all. But I digress...
At the end of our date the bill came out to the exact amount of cash she knew I had on me. More than enough for several rounds of drinks between the two of us. We each had one glass of wine only, but her most expensive meal took up the rest. After seeing this she exclaimed, 'look at that...!' Only to follow by saying, 'gimme gimme,' while opening and closing her right hand at a high frequency for my cash. I reluctantly handed it over to which she stated, 'if you didn't pay, there was going to be no second date.' So this girl was testing me. How mature.
We walked to our cars, which were parked near one another. Although the night was young, I was willing to try and salvage this thing against my better judgment and asked if she wanted to walk around some. She didn't. After her mentioning there would be no kiss on the first date she got one on the cheek which was met with at least some sense of pleasure. We then hugged and went our separate ways.
After I got home, she called and still wanted to talk. I obliged. The next evening, a Sunday evening mind you, I noticed that she had called and texted. Why? Well, she had her place to herself since her daughter went to stay with her father. And because of this, she said she wanted me to come over so she could, um, you guessed it, check my size. After I told her it was too late and that I was busy all day and that she should have given me a heads up, her basic response was, 'too bad, your loss.'
We scheduled to meet again two weeks from the first date since that's when her daughter would be with her father once more. My motivation was to get some of my investment back in the form of perhaps a nicer evening. Like a more pleasant experience. And, I distinctly wanted to tell her I'd now like to check her (female anatomic) size since she kept bangin' on about mine... To flip it around on her a little haha. But, the conversation went dry and she didn't seem committed to meet again so I lost interest. She texted me not too long ago. I still wanted a return on investment. She ghosted. I'm done.
These were just the highlights of the date itself with a bit of how the entire interaction ended. There existed many times where the words that were coming out of her mouth formed a so impossibly blunt and rude statement that I instinctively found myself doing THE universal human response of disbelief. This includes raising of the eyebrows, cocking of the head to one side while setting it back into your shoulders, mouth open. Basically aghast if you will. Like think of how you would respond when someone tells you something point blank to your face that is so impossible absurd and uncouth you're in shock. Yeah, that one. I had several of those over the course of a few hours.
And here is where women have the advantage over a dude like me. Since I'm so lonely (harsh truth), coupled with the fact that I was physically attracted just enough to her, on top of wanting a return on my investment, a second date did not seem like that much of an inconvenience at one point in time. However after a while enough became enough, and I had to bow out. In the end, one and done for me.
Sound like a good time? Want to kick it like that for a few hours with someone? Try experiencing this on and off with a smattering of different love interests for 25 years...! How does that sit for ya now?
A few years ago now I can remember telling a friend after yet another failed attempt at trying to connect with a female romantically that I've always had trouble dating. Like my whole adult life. As he was older than me and didn't know my history too well, his response was something to the effect of, 'Now now, not to worry. We all have our time...' And to be honest, considering the little he did know about my said dating history, or lack thereof, especially given my age, this statement came off as a bit tone deaf to me. My response however didn't reflect this deep down notion I had. Rather, I said something like, 'No, I don't believe it's that simple...' In saying this, I do believe I'm on to something. No matter, what I will do at this point is give you a more general rundown of what dating is like for me. Particularly around the first date time frame. Then you can tell me your thoughts in the comments. Not that anyone comments on my posts ever but a guy can dream.
Of all the women I've encountered romantically, as in having established a romantic/randy rapport with, most will exit the scenario just prior to establishing a first date. Like just as the conversation in our short time of knowing one another gets really good. You know, when the next natural course would be to actually meet on a Friday or Saturday evening which is THE time for an initial romantic encounter. This is when the majority tend to go ghost. As in they fall off my radar and never reach out to me again.
Of those that don't, and we actually get to the planning phase, most don’t follow through and show up. This lot choose to cancel the day before or day of. Oh, and this is usually for a weekday date, which they insist upon and is NOT the time for an initial romantic encounter. So I have to clear my schedule to accommodate them but then they cancel right before. How considerate. When the rescheduled date comes along, which invariably is another weekday, they cancel yet again. It's really funny, but not, cause these ladies keep canceling on me, yet still like to keep in touch. After a second or third cancellation, I'm out of their worlds. This means they no longer have access to my attention, for, that is all they were after in the first place. I’m not an attention whore, and don’t really respect those that are. I’m always after something far more substantial.
Then this leaves those that I actually meet on a first date. Most often, it's usually on the weekend which is great. But don't get your hopes up.
Of those that meet with me, usually what happens is they spend the entirety of the date telling me how superior they are to me. How many guy friends they have on their roster. And how amazing their lives are with respect to mine. Translation: I am superior to you in every single way and have many suitors in my back pocket so you are easily replaceable. The guy friend thing alone tells me that I most likely will not get 100% of her attention. But, she will require 100% of mine. How exactly is that going to work?
On such a first date with a girl I'd met, we happened to eat at a decent restaurant. She ordered a small'ish Neapolitan style pizza fit for one person and was eating it! This marveled me because I was so used to girls just watching me eat on a first date after ordering nothing. Even when we agreed to meet at a restaurant for dinner. But I digress yet again. This one particular date took a strange turn when she began to mention that she has two other guys who both consider her their girlfriend. All while pushing her hair back away from her face with greasy pizza grubbing hands. This visual combined with her informing me of her stable of men was, ummm, different. Yeah. It would be interesting to go back in time, invisible third wheel style, and see the look on my face in that moment. Needless to say, I didn't bother to ask if they knew of one another for I was still beside myself on the fact that she was touching her hair with greasy pizza hands...!
Like, the whole thing, my mind was blown but I kept my cool. Poker face stoicism all the way baby.
But back to the grand picture which is ladies insisting on establishing how amazing and romantically in-demand they are juxtaposed to myself. This always left me with the following question... What are we doing here? Like, do you really think this will endear myself to you even more? I've always walked away from these dates not really understanding that strategy or why they chose to say those things. Nor did I give them this response for it was my own internal dialogue on the drive home. To some extent, I can understand nerves coming into play. Both of us are human and I have them too in those moments. However, the nature of some of these digs does cross a threshold of acceptability making things not worth further pursuit.
And yes, I take them as digs. Furthermore, what I look for is someone who is on the same, or at least similar, wavelength to myself. Telling a girl I'm pursuing about all the female attention I get is not part of my wavelength at all, if you will. In fact, it's something I rarely think about myself, or talk about to others for that matter. Rather, I focus on the moment at hand which includes what I'm doing and who I'm interacting with. I riff off of the situation and them with respect, jest, and a bit of a bite.
Interestingly enough, only one girl felt the same way as I and never did this with me. Naturally, I liked her the most. But in short order, she actually became the subject of this post. And if you don't wanna follow that link to read that post I'll give you a synopsis of what happened...she sabotaged our relationship. So maybe this is the same sorta thing that makes girls bomb our initial encounters, but with a bit more latency.
One may assume from all of this, as do I, that perhaps the je ne sais quoi of me tends to drive women insane because these same girls seem to not do these strange things with other dudes. I'm such a lucky boy...
So it's really great...NOT. As I write about health and fitness, I also practice what I preach. All the food and fitness strategies documented here on substack I've employed for many years now to keep myself tip top. But this often gets derailed when my mind and body inevitably has to process the stress from things like the dating troubles I've mentioned. It is a serious drag on my life for sure and was easier when I was younger because I had the future to look forward to. But the fact that it doesn't seem to be letting up is more than concerning. Moreover, it is an imbalance in my life that I've been dealing with for a long time and honestly weighs me down big time.
To end on a somewhat more comical note, if it were socially appropriate to bang my head against a table in response to some of the absolute dating duds (yeah I said it) I've experienced then I would have formed some very thick scar tissue on my forehead on top of a repeat occurrence of a skull fracture beneath said tissue. Such is my life. But hey, maybe this read was amusing to you. So then it isn't all for naught... Right?
Comment below...PLEEEEAAAAAAAASSSEE!
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