::Shebytches::

Here’s a perfect example of why setting people up to go out is evil and the practice should be outlawed.

My friend set me up to go out with a friend one of her boyfriend’s friends. Never ever do that to someone you consider to be important to you. When I met this guy he seemed pretty nice. Good-looking in an odd sort of way, nice dresser. I introduce myself and in retrospect I don’t believe that meeting someone for the first time in a bar is a good idea. Note to self: bars bad. So, we begin to chat. About lots of things. I am beginning to warm up to him even though he is about a foot shorter than I’d like. As the old saying goes however, it is better to have loved and lost a short man, than to have never loved a tall.

So we’re talking about fairly mundane things like family background, schooling all that rot. There is a slight pause in the conversation and he gestures to my arm and asks what the deal is with the tattoos. I look down at my arm and tell him I like tattoos. He half smiles and asks if I’m a freak. Pardon? What does that mean? He slides his eyes over me and asks me again if I’m a freak. I smile at him, wanting to smash his face in and say sweetly that I’m not for sale and that Michael Jackson has dibs on my bones.

Then it got ugly. We were standing at the bar and there were all these little tea lights in small glass holders all over the bar. I noticed one of the candles licking dangerously high up the side of the holder. I wondered in my head how long it was going to take before it exploded and whether or not I could time it so that I was in the washroom when it happened.

I return to the conversation just in time to hear him spouting off about non-fiction. I ask him what else he reads and he said nothing. I was a little taken aback. Someone who only reads non-fiction? What kind of a freak would only read that tripe? I read about someone like that. They were a character in a Stephen King novel. Anyhow, I guess my reaction didn’t please him because he asked what I am reading and I told him. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. His answer? ‘Whoever that is.’

At this point the date is over for me. I am about to make my exit, when the candle holder shatters, hot wax leaps onto his soft stock broker hands, excruciatingly hot glass lands in his drink, hissing like a pissed off rattler and his sleeve catches on fire. It was glorious. The bartender leaps into action, spraying him with his soda mixture sprayer thing. I looked at him, he looks back at me with this mixed look of horror and fear, and I said I’ll see you later.

And I left him there, clutching his hand, drink hissing and stunned.

I will never date again.