Christmas Lovin'

Today I had a date with a girl I met on Jdate. Two days before she'd IMed me out of the blue, while I was logged on to the site, and straight up said she thought I was cute, and I asked her out, and that was that. Could it really be this easy? Was this how normal people did it, without the week or two of back and forth emailing, phone calls, plotting, strategizing that I was used to? She looked cute, pretty even, although, and I hate to admit this, I was worried she wasn't smart enough. There were red flags. But who am I to be picky and judge someone by where they went to college, even if it's community college? I have my faults too. No one's perfect. She seemed to know what she wanted: me. And I like a girl who knows what she wants.

Dating on Christmas day is difficult. Most places are closed. At the last minute I found this out and told her to meet me at a Diner by my apartment. We arrived the same time, got out of our cars, and looked at each other. She blinked, looked at me again, almost like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. But not in a good way. Then again maybe she was looking at my car. I've been driving the same POS for the last seven years. It's my good luck charm.

We entered and sat at a table. She looked down, away from me. This girl was hot, and her diamond earrings and furred bitch coat meant she knew it, in addition to providing an unsettling counterpoint to the four TVs playing local news and tarnished milk dispenser at our table. She had those saucer eyes wannabe actresses have, that are a little too big, a little obscene, and leave normals amazed and disheartened at how incredibly good looking some people are.

There's a set level of attractiveness I require in a potential girlfriend. After that, it's just gratuitous. This girl was gratuitous, like an ice cream sundae topped with truffles, gold flakes, and bacon. We ordered our meal. She seemed withdrawn, slow. She'd never heard of "It's a Wonderful Life," had no idea who Jimmy Stewart was, and chewed with her mouth open. Conversation came from her reluctant lips in slow, quiet rivulets. She told me she worked with developmentally disabled eight year-olds. I worried this might be because she wanted to be around people she could relate to.

She ordered a breakfast plate of scrambled eggs and finished a third of it, then sat there, waiting to leave. $23 down the drain. I should've split the bill, but didn't have the balls. As we walked to our cars she forced a smile and said, "that was sort of fun". Then asked me what I was doing later. I said, "can I be honest with you? I can tell you're not into me, but thanks for coming out here anyway." She smiled weakly and nodded just enough for me to know she meant it. Then I said, "but you're super hot, so. . ." and I couldn't think of how to finish it. Or more accurately I really wanted to have sex with her but realized by the end of the sentence it was a lost cause and I was just embarassing myself. We writers think our words, if chosen carefully enough, can make magic happen. It comes from living in fiction, having the power to create our own reality, and sometimes it blinds us to how things really are.

Of course I wasn't the only blind one that day. My profile pictures are pretty accurate. I throw a few bad ones in there just to avoid situations like the one today. And yet, there I was, getting rejected by a girl that had thought I was "cute", before actually seeing me.