Monday, April 24, 2006

Bad internet dating experience 1

The Bill.

I went out with him five times. When I first met him I was startled because online he said he was six feet tall and I, with my average woman’s height, towered over him. But, we shared several very thoughtful emails and I decided to see if he was as interesting in person as he was online. He wasn’t. He made a point of lamenting my salary as a humanities professor. He was a computer scientist and with the same level of education was making four times as much money. Needless to say, when I suggested dates they were for things like a walk and then ice cream, when he suggested dates they were for things like theater and expensive dinners.

I really did give it the college try, because smart men who aren’t freaked out by a woman with a doctorate are few and far between. But, finally I told him that even though he was a charming person, I didn’t think that we were a compatible match.

Four days later I got a letter in the mail at my office. In this letter he told me that not only did he not find me physically attractive but he thought that I had a bad character as well. He could overlook my nasty appearance, after all eliminating a mate on the basis of looks was tantamount to racism in his books, but he just couldn’t overlook my character flaws. Now, I know that I am not gorgeous and I also know that I am a very nice person, so this was nothing but goofy. The best thing about this letter was that the man had kept track of the cost of all of our outings and had calculated the difference between what I spent and what he spent. Then, get this, he included a bill for the difference.

I wanted to tell him that if I were in the business of paying for companionship, I would have made some difference choices about who I dated. I wanted to tell him that he was so dull that he should actually be paying me. I wanted to tell him a whole lot of things. But, I told him nothing. I paid the bill and asked for a receipt, which he sent me. I put the receipt in my scrapbook as a token of perhaps the oddest man that I have ever dated.