Wednesday I had my fourth date with The Gigantor Accountant. Our third date went really well so I was really looking forward to it all week. All of our dates have been good, not amazing, but building potential for sure. However, I now realize what all those dates had in common; drinking- lots of drinking.
Our first interview (what I prefer to call the first time you’re meeting someone, especially from off-line) we met at a restaurant that brews its own beers, and had lots of beer (I actually prefer drinking on a first meeting- save the coffee, give me something to take the edge off). Second date we went to a bar and drank of course. Third date- last weekend- we went to a nice restaurant, shared a bottle of wine, and then went to a bar and drank a lot. But this date, on a work night, we didn’t drink- at all. He came to my house and picked me up and we left for dinner. He was quiet- and I thought back to all of our other dates, and remembered they were all very slow in the start.
“Man I’m glad we are hanging out tonight,” I said “I had a really rough day at work today.”
“Ooookaaaaay” he responded. No joke- really slow and drawn out, question mark hanging on the end of it. How do I respond to this? Was he annoyed at me? Did he just not know how to answer me? Didn’t want to go there? Surely this was a joke. You could hear crickets in the car; I didn’t know how to go on.
“I’m really excited about going for Italian, I want eggplant parmesan- it’s my favorite dish.”
“Ooookaaaaay.” Seriously, did he just do that again? Surely he was jesting. But no, he didn’t even crack a smile, didn’t segue into a different topic. I was flabbergasted, and for a rare couple minutes, had nothing to say.
We went to an Italian restaurant, where we were sitting painfully close to another couple, and trying to pull out conversation was excruciatingly hard. I didn’t want to be that awkward couple at a restaurant with nothing to say, not on date four. Maybe he’s had a rough day I thought, so I asked him, and got a two word answer in response. Okay- different strategy; I asked him more about his work, the thrilling world of accounting. And he talked about it for a while, but then once he was done talking about himself, the crickets returned. Did The Gigantor Accountant not know how to hold a conversation? He didn’t ask me a single question, and clearly when I tried to talk about myself I got the ‘okay’ answer- which I was just loving (sarcasm).
Luckily after a few minutes the food came, so it was okay that we had awkward (or no) conversation, we were busy stuffing our faces. But I did find it weird that I was enjoying eavesdropping on the conversations of the tables around us, at least they were enjoying their time together.
So, after dinner and driving home, I told The G.A. that I had found Muppet Family Christmas at the library and we were going to watch it together; I mean, we had talked about how much we loved that movie as kids, so it would be great to watch it together- right? And back at my house, I offered him wine or beer, I thought maybe alcohol was in order, maybe that was the way to liven him up, but he wasn’t a taker. And then he complained about the movie “I forgot how cheesy this was- I hate the singing”. What?? He told me he loved this movie! It was one of the things that first made us bond together. Meanwhile, my dog was loving The G.A. – well, that made one of us; while Oliver wanted a cuddle with him, I was pretty content with staying far on my side of the couch.
It’s a short movie, so after it was over, more awkward silence. Nothing I said seemed to make him want to talk to me, but he sure did want to kiss. But I wasn’t feeling it at all.
“You know, I want to make sure we do it right and take it slow” I said, after I was sure he was trying to do the old-fashioned unhook the bra move.
“Oooookaaaaaay”. Again? Seriously??
“I’ve been with 19 girls you know, you could be the special number 20” he told me. Excuse me? Did I ask you how many people you’ve been with? And now I’m surprised that there were that many girls out there willing to have sex with him. And could he not tell at all that I wasn’t feeling it? Couldn’t he tell how awkward our lack of conversations felt? How had I not noticed this earlier?
So I started thinking about all of our other dates, and I remembered that our dates always started off real awkward. Last weekend, over dinner, I was thinking there wasn’t anything there between him and me, and it would perhaps be our last date; but after a few awhile (and a few drinks) I thought I was maybe I was interested him, and I was just distracted by the Josh situation. And we talked a lot on our other dates, right? Although come to think of it, he and I had a thrill of playing trivia together, throwing out questions (especially about history) and trying to stump the other person. I recall thinking that strangers at the bars we were at probably thought we hated to talk to each other then too, we were always looking at our phones to prove our answers were right. Had we ever had a real, easy conversation?
So at that point on Wednesday I realized it wasn’t going to happen with The Gigantor Accountant. I started faking yawns even; I didn’t want him to think I wanted him to stay over. Not after last weekend. I may have left out those details, so allow me to backtrack. Last Friday, after dinner and too many drinks, we had to leave quickly when The G.A. realized how late it was and he had to work the next morning (the life of an accountant during busy season). But when we were driving back to his place, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to drive all the way to the other side of town without going to the backroom. So I went up to his place to go to the bathroom, but when I walked out he grabbed me and started kissing me. It was hot- I liked it. So a couple hours later, I was exhausted, and in no mood to drive home, so I stayed over, making him promise we would just sleep. It was then that he told me he had a sleeping problem and snored a bit, so he slept with a mouth guard. No problem, it’s just sleep. Except it wasn’t, it was no sleep at all. He didn’t snore a bit, he snored a lot. And he was so tall and fit, I wouldn’t have expected it. And the snoring was the biggest problem, he also had moments where it sounded like he was choking on his mouth guard- all slobbery and grunting. And then back to the loud snoring.
When the clock hit 7am I couldn’t wait to get out of there and go home to sleep. He tried to pull me back in for a cuddle, offered me breakfast, but a sleepy Katie is a grumpy Katie. I told him how badly I slept, and he promised me the snoring was so bad because he was drunk, but I just wanted to get home and go back to bed. “I hope you’ll see me again” he had said before I left, but at that point, I thought I did want to see him again. But the thought of the snoring, the “okay”, the lack of conversation, and the fact that alcohol seemed to be needed to make him have a personality, made me realize that this was the end of The Gigantor Accountant. Back to the starting line of finding someone who will be Catching Katie.
