#datefromhell

Hey friends!  I Hope you’re still surviving COVID.  Oh and if you’re class of 2020 congrats to you!  I know that shits hard.  I’m doing good, still WFH or whateva, I just got off a call.  My state is slowly reopening but nothings open, if that makes any sense.  I’m sitting here weak over this date I’m about to tell y’all about.  In hindsight that shits actually funny af.  Oh, also I might get a pet.  I just don’t know what I would even want atm.  Just a thought I’ve been having lately.   Side note y’all, I had a dream Plies was my new neighbor lmao.  Okay, so anyways shall we talk about this date from hell? You already know from my last blog that I met him from bumble.  I think I like bumble the most.  There’s something about being in control of who I want to communicate with that sits well with me.  Plus, lets be real, just because you match with someone doesn’t always mean you care to talk to them. So anyways, I messaged him and we exchanged numbers and FT’d almost instantly.  If you can’t tell by now I love FT.  I’m definitely that person that will FT you and not even be looking at the FT but enjoying your presence lol.  Plus, if we’re getting to know each other I like to jump right in.  Okay, what should we call this guy? Idk, we’ll give him a basic name like Chris since he turned out to be pretty fucking basic, sorry if your name is Chris…So we were on FT for about an hour…that should’ve been my first sign.  If it’s our first time talking we should be on FT for at least 3 hours just getting to know each other.  There’s so much to talk about.  But he really just didn’t seem to care.  Looking back on it, I led the entire conversation.  I just saw that as a sign that he was a good listener.  So I was pretty surprised when he said he wanted to hang out. I also was a little thrown off since everything is closed rn but he said he wanted to just take a walk and have a picnic on the water.  Now I thought that was hella cute so I was with the shits.  Fast forward to the date.  It was on a Wednesday.  Weird day, I know, but 1) we’re both wfh 2) no one has shit to do 3) who tf knows what day it is anyways?  Exactly. So I live really close to where we were going to picnic, so he drove to my house and he biked to the picnic spot while I roller-skated.  It was actually really cute.  He even had a picnic basket that he put on the back of his bike.  So anyways, everything pretty much went “right” up until a certain point.  Lets just fast forward to where shit got weird.  

Setting: A Malaysian food place where you pick all your ingredients and they cook it in front of you like it’s quite a spectacle. (No, not all my dates are at restaurants or cafes etc- in fact as a bigger girl I tend to shy away from those sorts of places for a date if possible!)

Who: Rick. Late 20’s. A cliched fitness freak- gym, snowboarding, surfing, skiing (both summer and winter types), wakeboarding, footy and cricket. So you can imagine the body and muscles….

How I met him: A blind date. Set up by my friends. I made sure they told him I was a bigger girl when I heard how much into health and fitness he was but he claimed it didn’t matter and the date went ahead anyways.

What happened: From the first moment I met him I knew this was not going to go down in the annals as a great romance. And in truth I almost ask him a few times what prompted him to come.

When the waitress brings us the menus and asks if we want a drink I order a beer. Rick raises an eyebrow and asks for “still water”.

At the waitresses quizzical look he says, slowly, enunciating every syllable “you know, spring water or bottled water or tap water. Just not fizzy.”

She smiles politely and says, “I understood you the first time, sir, I just haven’t heard it referred to that way.”

She walks away and I squirm in my seat.

“To be fair these people often can’t speak English.” Rick tells me.

Oh joy, a racist gym freak.

He gets his water, I get my beer which I take a big sip of.

“I like beer, just low-carb beer though. They don’t call them beer bellies for nothing do they?” Rick asks me.

I shrug, not sure if it was a rhetorical question or one requiring an answer, and grapple for a safer topic. “So X tells me that you studied law.”

“Yeah, I qualified and practiced for a few years but I wasn’t passionate about it, you know, and at the end of the day you’ve gotta like what you do and follow your passions.” He says.

(I discover that he talks much like an athlete being interviewed post match- using a series of sporting cliches, copious “likes” and “you knows” dotting his conversation.)

“Very true,” I agree, telling him how my last job wasn’t my favourite.

“So,” he continues as though I’d not even spoken, “I decided to get off my arse and like do something I’m passionate about.”

“Which is?” I ask.

“PT. I’m completing my qualifications. I want to help motivate people and get them fit like me. After all your body is the only one you get and heart disease is the leading killer amongst obese and overweight people. My body is like my temple. I tell people- even those who are very unfit and overweight- well at least they’re lapping people still sitting on their arse on the couch.” He says.

I fervently wish I was home sitting on MY couch. I mentally devise horrible tortures to visit upon X for this horror of a date.

“Very true.” I say again. “I walk every day.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah I try and do about 15 ks.” I say. This is true and I feel compelled to defend my physical activities.

He doesn’t seem impressed like people usually are when I tell them.

“You need to mix it up. Interval training, cardio, weights. Sure you will lose weight and tone up a bit walking but it won’t do the job quickly and won’t get you fit.” He says.

This is actually the opposite of what I’ve been told in the past and I have been living by the motto “walk yourself fit.”

“Well,” I say, “I have lost ten kilos.”

He looks at me, then looks down at my body and back up and I feel my face flaming. “Oh.”

The waitress comes back then and it’s time to order. Conscious of the fact that he clearly thinks I’m a fat pig I order steamed rice and a vegetarian dish. He orders a few. Then he smiles up at the waitress, “is it true that you all eat with chopsticks and that’s why you’re all so skinny?” He asks.

I almost choke on my beer. Wow.

“Well they don’t eat with chopsticks in France and they drink a lot of wine and eat a carb heavy diet yet are amongst the fittest in the world.” The waitress says.

I want to give her a high five.

“You know cutting out meat won’t necessarily help you lose weight.” He says when the waitress has gone.

I bite back the question of whether this is a date or a PT consultation. “I don’t do it for that reason.” I tell him. “It’s an ethics thing for me. I find the meat industry cruel.”

“They’re bred to be eaten.” He says.

“Doesn’t make it any less cruel.” I reply, through gritted teeth. Can I fake a bout of life threatening appendicitis? Sure I’ve had my appendix taken out before but maybe they can grow back? Or perhaps a heart attack? Though no doubt that would only illustrate his point about being overweight and heart disease….

“But you’re ok with say the dairy industry.” He says.

I open my mouth to reply with my stock standard response of no but I love chocolate too much to quit it yet but instead say, “I do plan on going vegan.”

“I’m of the all or nothing approach.” He says.

Shocker, I think.

As the date goes on things get worse. Such as the time Rick explains to me as we are finishing up our dinner that “scientifically” block people have smaller brains than quite people which is why there are many more black people jail than white.

I actually stare at him in shock when he tells me this. “Maybe science thought this in the Middle Ages….” I say.

“No, it was recent.” He says.

“I’m sure the nazis would agree.” I say dryly.

“It’s science.” He persisted.

“You’re ignoring socio-economic factors which have been proven to be more the reason for the over-representation of certain races in the prison system.” I argue.

He is not swayed.

Then there’s the time he tells me that men are superior to women. I actually have no words to this claim though driving home I come up with a litany of smart replies to his racist and mysogenistic claims. (And yet more tortures for X for bringing us together!)

And when I briefly consider desert he says “you do know how many calories would be in a banana fritta yeah?”

We split the bill- his claim that my beers balanced out his extra food is ridic but I’m so anxious to get out of there I would happily put the whole lot on my credit card to get out of there. And, to my shock, he tries to kiss me, saying “a blind date should get him at least to first base.”