Friday, July 17, 2009

What I Look For In A Man?

I had a bad date. It wasn't horrendous. I wasn't tortured or afraid for my life. He just was not my type.


On my way home, I called a few friends to vent and tell them all about it. This spurred a conversation about what I do find attractive. What I discovered is that truly defining what it is I like is nearly impossible without describing its contrast.


In many ways, I'm just your average girl wanting the Marlboro man. Sure I like a nice looking rugged man, but I also like the smart professors. I like my men manly. I like deeper voices, chest hair (not carpet, but hair), 5 o'clock shadows, some muscle (can be fat or thin, not morbidly obese though). I prefer dark hair and blue eyes, but its not a big deal. I like them to have decent hygiene and decent/average to above average fashion sense (if he thinks wearing sweat pants on a date is ok, he's out). Actually the fashion sense may be negotiable if they'd allow me to pick out their clothes and dress them.


I like intelligence most of all. Geeky is an aphrodisiac (nerdy and dorky is not). I'm a little bit of a foodie, and care about what goes into my body. He must accept this, and either embrace it himself, or be able to celebrate our differences.


My date was very little of these things.


On first walking into the restaurant, I see a man wearing a blue shirt (what he said he'd be wearing) standing near the entrance among a crowd and I pray to God that he's not my date. I could tell he attempted to look nice, clean dress shirt and slacks, but the man oozed dorky. He moved his head as someone who'd just had a cranium transplant and was just starting to get the hang of it. He saw me, smiled, and walked over. Oh God this is my date.


He introduced himself, and my eyes went to his teeth which were horridly stained dirty. I didn't look long enough to tell for sure if it was a permanent stain or just food left over from lunch. My stomach recoiled in disgust, and I had to advert my eyes. It was then that I noticed the lisp. He had a lisp coupled with a higher octave voice that can only be accurately described as "Flaming".


I tried to remind myself to keep and open mind, and maybe he'd make a good friend. "Stop being so judgmental" I reminded myself.


So we started chatting, or I should say, he started chatting. I tried to listen to his mundane and inane stories about how his friend was moving again after only living somewhere for 3 months and how he had to help him move, but I kept spacing out. After that story was finished, we discussed the menu.


We were at an Italian place in Austin, TX. Since I spent a lot of time in Chicago, where Italian, or at least American Italian is done well, I had yet to find a decent Italian restaurant in Austin. Most Italian restaurants in Austin are "Texified" meaning that they add Tex-Mex spices to the items to adjust for the local palate. I'm more of a purist, and the closest that Italian should come to Tex-Mex is a hot arrabiata sauce. On the phone in previous conversations, he'd agreed on the difficulty but swore that this place was phenomenal. So as we were discussing the menu, he would point out dishes that he'd had that were great.


As he was pointing on the menu, I noticed his hands. They were fine boned, long, with longer nails than mine. He really could do some damage with those, and I had already decided his mouth was not coming anywhere near mine, and now decided that his hands were never coming anywhere near my privates. With this, I officially closed the book on any kind of sexual thing between us... closed, locked, padlocked.


He then asked about my job. On the site where we'd met, I clearly listed that I was unemployed. So then he asked about my job search. I told him the truth that I only half-assed am looking for work at this time. I really don't want a job, and since I can currently afford not to work, I'd rather focus on finding a job that I really want to do and not just apply for whatever comes up.


In return, I asked about his job search as he'd told me the previous evening that he'd been laid off. Layoffs had come around Austin, so holding that against him seemed overly critical. He told me flat out that he hadn't been looking at all. He was just taking some time off, and enjoying his severance package. Normally I could totally understand this, but he'd been laid off for 5 months with a 6 month severance and still wasn't looking at all?


It was then the word "Loser" came to my mind. I really should have set up a "safe call" to get me out of this.


This last bit was immediately before we ordered/paid for the food. He was quick to pull out payment, where I normally would have offered to split the bill (to be nice) I did not, and just let him pay without a word.


Our food arrived, and he talked even more. He started to tell me about how his queso recipe was far superior to anything in a restaurant. We'd had several conversations previously that he was very picky about food, and almost considered himself a foodie. So I was curious about this queso. I wondered what cheeses he must use, or did he cut up his own fresh tomatoes and chillies?


So I asked him to tell me what was in it. He replied with a lispy high pitched and drawn out, "Weeeelll" as he raised his hand, flicked his wrist, and touched his finger tips to my arm. (The combination of these mannerisms was so gay-tipical, that if he wasn't confused about his orientation, I sure as hell was.) I listened anyway, trying to block out picturing him in drag and trying not to wonder how convincing of a woman he might be.


Since I rarely use a recipe, if he vaguely told me what was in it, I could probably do a decent duplication at home myself. He started in on preparing the meat, some kind of ground meat. Ok, that might be ok, I'm more of a vegetarian queso fan, but meat in it might be ok. Next he mentioned using a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of Rotel... I had to stop him there.


"Wait, cream of mushroom soup?"

"Yeah, like the condensed one from Campbell's"

"Eww. Ok, what kind of cheese do you use?"

"Oh, velveeta of course."

"Yum, sludge." I said jokingly serious.


At this point, I was extremely disgusted, and really did not care if I offended him. He was NOT a foodie, and to anyone who is a foodie, what he just described was chemical sludge with a bit of meat in it. Its ok to not be a foodie, but its not ok to lie.


He laughed at my comment, and continued to say how wonderful it was, and went so far as to say it was better than real queso (melted mexican cheeses with fresh diced chilies). I was done.


We decided to call it a night.


To give him his due, he was gentlemanly and kind to me. Even refilled my drink for me, and was courteous the entire evening. So much annoyingly so, that he insisted on walking me back to my car. He also insisted on a hug, which I tried to do one armed, but he insisted on two armed full body contact. I'd tried all night with conversation to make myself as unattractive as possible, and I could very well see that none of it had worked as effectively as I hoped.


He wanted to get together this weekend, and said, "Call me"


I hope he doesn't hold his breath.

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