Two days later, whatever shred of optimism I had about my date tonight with ManOfYourDreams89 – or Barry, as I learned his name is – has fled entirely.
To make matters worse, I slept wrong last night and woke up with pain shooting down the side of my neck. It hasn’t helped that I spent the day hunched over my computer, first to work on my research proposal, then to look up anger interventions for Ash.
I turn to unbuckle myself in the car and immediately regret the motion as my neck and shoulder twinge painfully. I rub the area, but that hasn’t helped all day, and it doesn’t do anything now either.
I get out of my car and head into the restaurant.
I still feel like I should’ve called the date off when Barry tried to insist on picking me up, but part of me is still hoping things might work out with him so that I don’t shamelessly drool over Ash later tonight. I convinced myself Barry genuinely thought he was being nice by offering to pick me up and that he wasn’t actually an axe murderer who wanted to know where I lived so he could hack me to death in my sleep.
Some men don’t understand the things women need to consider when online dating. For instance, one of my male friends complained that women he met online never wanted to do anything fun on a first date. It was always dinner or coffee. He was an athletic and outdoorsy guy, tall and husky, but an absolute teddy bear, and he asked me in frustration once why women would never agree to go on a hike with him on a first date.
I told him it was because no woman in her right mind would ever walk into the woods alone with a man she just met. That stopped him short, and all he could say was, “Oh. Right.”
I walk into the lobby of the restaurant, and a man stands to greet me.
My heart drops. He’s easily ten years older than his profile picture suggests, and while I don’t mind an older man, his boy-next-door quality has suddenly turned to ‘I still live in my parents’ basement’ vibes.
“Barry?” I ask tentatively, holding one last thread of hope I’m mistaken about this being my date.
The man smiles widely. “Gray. It’s wonderful to meet you.”
I hold out my hand to shake his, but he takes it and kisses it. I force myself not to yank it back out of surprise. Sweet lord, this is going to be a long date.
We check in with the hostess, and she shows us to a table. Thankfully it’s a booth, because I’m pretty sure this guy would try to pull out my chair for me if it was a table.
Okay, maybe I’m being a bitch about this. There are still certain niceties I appreciate from a man, like holding a door open for me. Pulling out a chair wouldn’t be so bad, but this guy’s insistence on trying to pick me up tainted his behavior for me, and I can’t help seeing him as too old fashioned now.
I look at the menu the hostess leaves. The wine list is at the front, and they have one of my go-tos.
“So you’re a teacher?” Barry asks. “What grade?”
I look up and see he’s got his menu closed and is looking raptly at me.
“College actually,” I say. “Technically I’m a professor.”
His face falls, which I’m used to by now, but it still makes me angry.
“Sorry, I guess we were both a little inaccurate in our profiles,” I say.
He cocks his head in confusion. “What do you mean? Where was I inaccurate?”
I blink at him. “I…It just looks like the profile photo you used might be a few years old,” I say, although ‘a few years’ is generous.
He shrugs. “Yeah, a few, I guess. But I look pretty much the same, don’t I?”
I sigh inwardly. “More or less.”
He brightens. “So a professor then. What do you teach?”
“Communication,” I say. He still hasn’t opened his menu, and I point to it. “Do you already know what you want?”
“I usually just order what my date is having,” he says.
I stare at him for several seconds before angling my head in question. Then I wince and grab my neck as it twinges. Barry doesn’t seem to notice.
“Can I ask why?”
“To be polite,” he says.
