OK, Bad Date Story #2 goes a little something like this.
Yet ANOTHER blind date. I was set up by a girl at work (back then I was 22, newly divorced, and working at an HMO), named Michelle. Michelle was 4'9", 300 pounds, and eventually got pregnant by a guy she met on the internet, went to see, lost her 30+ year old virginity too, and we found out later the man had a closed head injury that meant he had to wear a helmet all the time. The baby was all jacked up when it was born and she ended up working at home from the "spare room" in her parents single-wide trailer. Anyway, that's all extraneous.
Michelle had a night-job (saving up for a faster internet connection no doubt), and wanted to set me up with the manager of the store she worked at, some kind of audio/video superstore if I remember right. As I was newly divorced, and desperately in need of a rebound fling, I decided to (a) find out more about him, and (b) if he sounded OK, to go out with him.
Because of Michelle's lilliputian stature, I made EXTRA sure to ask how tall he was. I am 5'9", and not fragile looking at all...just a normal looking girl, but tall. I also have a this weird thing about hands. I HATE small hands on men. Not small in proportion to the size of the rest of them, but extra-small, child-sized hands on a grown man. It's even worse if the nails are buffed. Gack, I can't even imagine letting hands like that touch me. Anyway, where were we?
So, I ask Michelle for this guy's vitals, and she SWEARS he is AT LEAST 5'9"...I even give her a chance to check it out that night at work and get back to me, and she says "yes, he is definitely over 5'9"." She also tells me he has a college degree, is the manager of their store, and is very nice and polite and cute. So she gave him my phone number and we talked twice on the phone before we went out.
First strike against him (let's call him Mike b/c it's easy and I can't remember his name), is that he is taking me on the first date to Chili's*. I effing HATE that. God, anywhere but friggin Chili's, PLEASE! Put some thought into it guys! Mike says he'll be wearing a gray sweater and he has brown eyes and blond hair and is thin. I tell him what I look like, and we agree to meet there Friday night.
I show up at Chili's (blech) and look around. I don't see anyone matching his description, so, in a harbringer of who I would become, I headed to the bar for a drink. Halfway into my second gin and tonic I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around on my stool. No one is there. And then....I look down. Oh.
Mike is indeed wearing a gray sweater...the style is a-la 1985 and it has leather epaulets on each shoulder. Further, it is a child's size extra-small. Mike is, perhaps, on a good day, in elevator shoes, 5'2"**. His feet are each the size of a miniature Baby Ruth. His hands look like tiny little kitten paws, they are roughly the size of a half-dollar.
I tried throughout dinner not to laugh. His voice was so high-pitched. I mean, he was a nice guy, but I TOWERED over him, I felt like the Jolly Green Giant stomping through a forest made entirely of miniature broccoli trees. At one point during dinner he held his glass with BOTH HANDS, like a child.
Oh, but it gets worse. He had bought tickets to a hockey game. And he was so excited, and I just couldn't bring myself to head to the bathroom and never come back (I was a lot nicer and less of a lush back then) so I huddled in a cold-ass arena for two hours through the world's longest hockey game making small talk about green clovers and purple diamonds. At the end of the hockey game, he drove us back to the Chili's parking lot, where my car was parked, and I was just anxiety ridden that he would try to put the moves on me. To his credit, he gave me a hug (who wouldn't when your head ends up right between a girl's boobs every time?), and then shook my hand (nice doing business with you Ma'am) and he actually did call me several times until my polite refusals eventually made it through his tiny little skull.
Next time we'll be learning a little thing about dating I like to call the "Go Ahead E. Spat, Have Another Zima Because This Guy Is A PSYCHO Doctrine."
*Do NOT leave a comment about how Chili's is a good date place because they have lots of different kinds of food and you don't want to spend too much at first until you know you like someone. That is lame.
**This story is not a disparagement of short men by any stretch of the imagination, it's just a story about what happens when a tall girl gets set up on a date with a leprechaun and ends up spending the whole date feeling like Alice in Wonderland after she took the pill to make her bigger.
***This title is taken from an actual incident of a short guy, with an attitude, attempting to pick one of my friends up at a bar.
