One night, I went to the bar with my friends and I saw a guy there that I had been having an Instagram crush on for a few months. In the name of confidentiality, we will call this person Hamburger. We had exchanged a few messages over Instagram DM while be were both away in Europe and planned to meet up. It didn’t happen.
The next night, I went out for drinks with Hamburger to a spot in town that my mother identifies as the cougar bar, a place where middle aged women allegedly tend to hang out and pick up younger guys. This was Hamburger’s suggestion.
This was my first experience going on a first date with someone I hadn’t already slept with. Any of the dates I had been on in the past were either with boys I was already dating or someone that I had first slept with and then decided we should likely do something more wholesome together in order to confirm whether our relationship was lust or love.
I was super nervous for this date. I asked my friend to drop me off 5 minutes after the time we agreed on meeting, seeing as I could not be there first and an Uber driver would not be sufficient company leading up to my first first date. I had a large glass of Pinot Grigio before to take the edge off.
Unfortunately for Hamburger, I instantly noticed that the tone of his voice was similar to one of a weasel. I’m not sure what it was about the way he spoke but there was this undertone of ‘private school spelling bee champion’ that I could not seem to shake out of my mind. No shade to the nerds! I figured I was being quite superficial and tried to carry on. Ultimately, I had 4 glasses of wine.
We went to a second location where I then had 3 vodka pineapples and suddenly felt attracted to Hamburger. His mannerisms became hot and I realized he had a gorgeous head of hair and a lovely tall frame. I decided he was worthy of another date and I gave the experience a good review to my friends.
A couple days later he invited me to his house where he would make me dinner and ask me to watch the new Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell rom-com. I drove myself this time and had a glass of wine with dinner. I was sober. During this time, I realized the following:
- I do not like rom-coms.
- His dogs were terrifying. They ate raw steak and sniffed my crotch.
- He was not very funny.
- His job was to sell transport trucks and unfortunately I am particularly afraid of 18 wheelers and would not be able to empathize with the trials and tribulations of being a salesman for them.
- His voice would be the deal breaker.
In an effort to pursue his career in transport truck sales, Hamburger was moving to Ottawa a few days after our second date. He asked me if I would come and visit him. I said no. He asked me if I would go on a night out with him and his friends. I said no. We have not spoken since. Months later, he posted a photo in a MAGA hat and I felt both validated in my decision not to pursue a relationship with him and mortified that I had been fooled by a Canadian Trump supporter.
I learned a lot from this experience. The most important lessons include the following:
- I will not own greyhound dogs.
- A man’s voice does in fact matter to me, no matter how superficial that might be.
- 3 drinks is likely a good place to stop when on a first date. Anything after 4 and the person in front of you will start to morph into the love of your life.