Hi, I’m Sarah, and I’m a serial first dater.
“Hi, Sarah.”
I’ve been clean from first dates since 2010 when I took my last hit off the first date pipe with my now-husband. I hope to never have a first date again, at least until I get to the 10 year mark. I want my 10 year sober coin.
My history of first dates has been long and embarrassing. Each time I had a first date that went horribly wrong, which was more often than not, I’d swear off dating all together, but the potential for romance, flowers, and lobster tails got the best of me and before I knew it, I’d fall off the wagon.
My addiction to first dates started after college, and I found myself sinking into the dating game by subscribing to free dating websites. The candidates, since free, where the cheap shit. Half the time, I’d be on a first date only to find out the guy was cut with debt, baggage, or some weird habit. But I kept going, I was too deep. The array of weird first dates I endured only catapulted me deeper into my addiction.
When I first decided to go out a date with a geologist, I thought it would be really cool to meet someone who studied the earth. Wrong. Having conversations about dirt is, well, as boring as that sounds. I can’t believe I had to pay for my $2 coffee to sit with him for an hour to chat about sand. The weird twist was that he didn’t live on land. He lived on a boat. A yacht, you ask? Silly reader. Nope, he lived on a small sailboat moored out in the bay. To get to it, you’d have to take a paddle boat there. I’m. Not. Kidding.
Our first date started by meeting at his house. He opened the door and I’m instantly greeted by a man shorter than myself, coming in at a whopping 5’3. I didn’t mind it until it became apparent that everything in his life was about compensating for his height. He was renovating his home all by himself. There were ladders and ropes strung all through the living room and I just imagined him looking like a little spider monkey holding a hammer, climbing the walls. Renovating his banana hammock.
We get into his Hummer and I was surprised he didn’t need a ladder to hoist himself into the car or a pillow so he could see over the steering wheel. This trip is starting to turn bad, and it officially turns into a disaster when we arrive at a bar for dollar burger night. As I munch on a $1.50 burger (cheese and pickles were extra), he tells me how he is a used car sales manager and he motivates his employees by threatened to fire them if they don’t sell a car every day. Whoa. Don’t think I’ll be going on a second date, and certainly won’t be going to that dealership anytime soon.
Georgetown graduate. Good profile picture. Couple years older than me. Check, check, and check! I recommend we meet for drinks. Let’s get a little liquored up and see if there’s chemistry. I arrive to the bar first. When he arrives a couple minutes later, the first run-on sentence went a little something like this, ‘Hi, I’m Adam. I’m originally from Vermont and I went to Georgetown and not long ago my Aunt got sick and it made my parents sad and it made me sad too so I moved back in with my parents who now live in Rhode Island and you have pretty hair.’ PERIOD. End of sentence. My jaw hits the floor and as I try to figure out how to respond to him, a slow string of snot trickles down his nose which he swiftly wipes away with the back of his hand before it hits his lips. He was sick!
How do I get out of this? How!?!? I’m asking you, because we as a society need to come up with a plan to exit out of this situation to help anyone in the future who has to deal with this.
I sat there for an hour having drinks with this man, navigating through a conversation that felt like a scratched CD. The cherry on top of this night was when he tried to kiss me, boogers and all, at the end of the night. I went home and took a dose of Airborne before bed.
We actually went on a couple dates, on account he had a super cute and fuzzy cat, but at the end of the day, he was an aspiring magician. Need I say more? Sure, okay. I was living in Las Vegas at the time which is a crazy place to navigate a single lifestyle. Everyone is an aspiring talent or full-time gambler. So maybe I was desperate for the date. Maybe I was on extreme detox and would have done anything to get my first date fix.
I find myself sitting in some casino restaurant with the aspiring magician. He tells me he wants to show my something, and he places his hand in the middle of the table, slowly rubbing his hand back and forth, until a quarter appears out of nowhere. I wanted to yell, ‘Stop doing magic! We’re in public, someone might see!’ But instead I chuckled noncommittally and agreed to a couple more dates until the cute fuzzy kitten wasn’t enough to keep me coming back.
That first date was actually my second to last. The next was with my now husband, and even that had some weird antidotes I’ll write about another time. I’ll call it – An Honest Love Story.