Too Much Information

When it comes to dating and men, my friends like to call me paranoid. My mother calls me smart (moms are awesome in that regard, aren’t they?).  I prefer the word cautious.  Many men in the online dating world come out of the gate in their introductory email with “here is my phone number, call or text me”. That opening line typically makes me want to back slowly away from the computer and run in the opposite direction.  Perhaps it’s my knowledge of most things technological (reverse phone number look-up is my friend) or it’s Mama Bear Syndrome trying to protect my cub. Either way, I will not call or text a complete stranger; thus giving them my phone number for future potential stalking.  Fine, I’m paranoid.  There.  I said it.

Needless to say, this “personality quirk” often prevents me from stepping over that line from emailing a man back and forth to actual human contact.  I have to know that I am very interested in a man before I will give out those precious digits and pressuring me too early will only make me stop all communication.  Hence the reason why, after a few months on the dating site, I had yet to go on an actual date.

One day I logged onto the site to check my email, and there was an email from an old acquaintance of mine that I hadn’t spoken to in years.  He stated in his email that he didn’t know that I was on the site too and ended it with “Hey, I’ll take you out for a drink”.  The tone of that statement seemed a little “and cure your lonely existence”, but I thought maybe this would be a good non-threatening way to jump into the dating scene (with one foot planted firmly on the ground). I replied and a date was made to meet for a few drinks at a local establishment (sounds classier than bar, doesn’t it?).
This is where the “too much information” part comes in. 

During those few hours, I was told that he no longer has any contact with his daughter because his horrible ex convinced the kid to say that Daddy did inappropriate things to her and while it wasn’t true, he stopped all contact.  As a woman with a daughter: RED FLAG! RED FLAG!

I was informed that he had a gastric issue so that he could either eat or drink -but not both- as he would get terrible gas. Since he was drinking and quite thin, I am guessing that he was pretty much on a liquid diet. Not to mention that the word “gastric” was brought up on a first date. 

He is currently broke-as-a-joke due to his horrible ex-wife taking him for all his is worth and continuing the cruel treatment to this day.

He had recently been to jail for getting into a bloody, drunken fight while at a sporting event.

And the pièce de résistance: when he drinks and then has sex, women love it because he can (and I quote) “pound away all night” since he can’t get to the end result anyway.

As you probably suspected, I am going to stop here and analyze that last quote.

First of all: OUCH. Contrary to popular male belief, most women do not enjoy their nether-region being jack-hammered for hours at a time. Much like men cringe and grab their crotches while watching funny videos of other men being hit in the nuts by a child’s errant baseball; most women cringe when told that they will be “pounded away” at all night.  Even when I was younger and I had nothing better to do than have sex all day, my partner and I would take many breaks from the fun and eat, get a drink, smoke a cigarette, share a few laughs then go back at it.  It was not a constant pounding for hours on end.  That just doesn’t sound nice. 

Second: while I do remember the days of my carefree youth when I had literally three bills to pay in a month (rent, cable, phone), and I had no responsibilities other than to remember which “Ladies Night” was at which bar on any given day; this is no longer the case.  I now require sleep and lots of it.  

Lastly, might I recommend buying stock in lubricating jelly? You might as well make a buck on all that you will end up purchasing.

My first actual date: epic fail.