99 First Dates

Copyright© 2009 by Stultus

Synopsis:  George is happily divorced and even more happily involved in his prospering business, but his friends think it is long past time for him to get back into the dating game once again.  Hilarity ensues.

Sex contents:  A bit of Sex

Genre: Romantic Humor

Codes: MF, FFM, Slow, Humor, Slight Misogyny, True?

Originally Posted at SOL: 2010-01-16

******

Thanks to my Editors, especially Dowd, Dragonsweb, Sue, Ulf25 and other assorted Advance Readers!

******

Author’s Forward:

Honestly, I'm not sure how to describe this story… if it even is a real story.   In this tale I’ve poked a lot of fun at various semi (or very) dysfunctional women I have met, known or heard vague rumors about, and I’m fairly sure a quite similar stories could be crafted concerning the horrible first dates that women have had with rather odd men.  So if this story offends anyone, I might as well start off by apologizing now… it is quite unintentional.

The theme of the story concerns a collection of horrific first dates all shoe horned into one tidy and very snarky story.  For a couple of years I’ve collected awful first date stories from friends and acquaintances on various message boards were I lurk or actively participate, or from near total strangers during on-line game chat.  On the other hand I’m also a writer and reserve the right to utterly make up wild-ass shit when real life wasn’t quite humorous enough.  The ‘True’ story code may also apply to some/most/nearly this entire story.

Your mileage may vary.

Note: the story has been recently updated (gently) just to correct a few lingering typos.

***********

Some of you might not see the benefit of shitty first dates; or the point of trying to endure almost one hundred of them.  But I do.

Isn't dating essentially a trial period to discover what makes each other tick… and if you can stand even being around each other without a boxing referee to forcibly separate you both?  Would you rather discover in the very early going the little quirks and oddities that she has rather than have her try and cover up her dysfunctions in order to ‘reel you in’, only to later reveal her frigidity, weirdness, excessive religious devotion, ownership of twenty cats or eight kids by eight different guys?   In my opinion it is far better that you find out from the get-go what a loser she is, rather than waste any more time trying to see how she is ‘deep down inside’. 

For a lot of women (I'd venture to guess that it is a majority), there isn’t actually all that much really hidden deep down inside.   Most men think that women are an unfathomable mystery of complicated urges and emotions, often contradictory ones, but in my opinion they do put all their shit out there for everybody to see.  Usually because they don't think there's anything at all wrong with them… and it's your fault if you refuse to observe this.

I was now a good fifteen years out of the dating game and wasn’t even close to fifty percent sure that I was ready to start the strange and mysterious rituals of romance once again.  I’d married (unwisely) at the age of twenty-two and was ecstatically delighted to be a divorced and single man once again by the age of twenty-five.  My ex-wife possessed nearly every single negative personality quality that I could think of, but like a fool I rushed into the relationship for trivial reasons - mostly involving that all of my blood had flowed out of my brain and into my cock, and we were married long before the blinders came off of my eyes.

During those three years of married life she ran up nearly $22,000 dollars of credit card debt that I was stuck with, complained about every single action (or in-action) that I ever made, and had affairs with my two best friends… and the husband of her own female best friend.  She didn’t even care when she was caught and didn’t show the slightest bit of remorse.

Our divorce triggered off a domino effect of three additional divorces for the other equally outraged spouses and the dust didn’t really settle for several years after that.  Good riddance.  Her next husband, a man of far less patience than myself, physically attempted to murder her and she fled for the wilds of Oregon and is now happily married to a small town doctor somewhere surrounded by a lot of trees.  She says she has got her shit together now and ‘wants to be friends’ but I couldn’t give the slightest shit.  I’ve just barely gotten my own shit back together again!

I, in turn, spent much of the next decade paying off her debts and trying to build up a small but marginally successful antiques and collectables business.  I managed to achieve this minimal fringe edge of financial solvency largely because I routinely worked one hundred hour work weeks busting my ass off running to endless estate sales, junk shops, and lower market end dealers where I could buy cheap and sell for slightly less cheap, and occasional sell something dearly for way more than I’d paid for it.  

I don’t regret an hour of it.  Still, working or travelling non-stop looking for an item or two that I could sell for a significant markup didn’t leave much time or opportunity for dalliance with young ladies, or now mature women.

With the bell of time now chiming that I had just turned forty, my friends all pretty much decided that it was past time that I once again took the plunge into the deep and turbulent waters of the dating pool.  The big problem was that even a casual glance at the single women of near my age range displayed several significant problems.  The primary problem being that now, at this stage in their life, I was almost certainly going to be inheriting someone else’s problems.  Namely, children.  

Nearly all of the divorced women that comprised most of the dating pool even close to my age, had preexisting children by other fathers.  Sometimes multiple fathers.  Many, if not most of these single parents were first and foremost looking for a father figure that her kids could call ‘Daddy’.  

While this wasn’t a complete and utter deal-killer, this was a significant obligation that I wasn’t at all certain that I was suited for, let alone eager to assume.

On the other hand, the remaining women who had never married by their late-thirties all seemed to have ‘issues’, and often lots of them.  Either they were still partying like it was 1999 or else they had severe behavioral defects that frustrated all of their previous attempts to snare a mate.  

Conversely, another significant sub-set of this unmarried pool consisted of career oriented women who had placed career advancement above home and family… but now their biological clocks were starting to tick ever closer to midnight.  Most didn’t care by this point about finding Mr. Right… any sort of Mr. Right Now would do!  The leopard hadn’t really changed any of her spots… they were mostly all really just looking for a sperm donor and not an equal companion and partner for life.

No one wants to die alone, and the older you get the more willing to settle for less than 100% perfection you become.  A twenty-year-old woman wants a man who's handsome, intelligent and very rich (at minimum).  A thirty-year-old-woman wants a man who's just sort of handsome and slightly intelligent and rich.  A forty-year-old woman will settle for a man who is just sort-of rich... and fertile.   A fifty-year-old woman just wants a man.  

This forty-year-old man just wanted a nice woman who wouldn’t try to make his life a complete living hell… but an occasional (or even frequent) blowjob would be really nice too.

I spent about a hundred hours looking over dating web sites and message boards for singles on the Internet and what I saw disturbed me.  Then I took a look at the ads on Craigslist that this scared me off the idea of dating entirely for nearly another six months.  

Eventually I decided that I needed to do something… but something else grabbed all of my time for a big chunk of the next year instead.  It was definitely career improvement for me in a great many ways, but it wasn’t contributing in the slightest to getting me laid more than just occasionally.

***********

My small antique shop was on a decent main street in our large city right in the heart of the ‘alternative lifestyles’ part of town.  Artists, bikers, counter-culture folks, punks, musicians, new agers, eccentrics, gays and lesbians and Methodists all more or less happily nested together.  There were lots of other antique, junk and vintage clothes shops right nearby and this created a sort of ‘antiquing’ vortex that attracted customers into the area, both young and hip and also the seriously old money.  My landlord recognized this potential disgustingly early and after a couple of years he now owned about half of the commercial real estate within five city blocks of the heart of this Mecca and he was always prospecting to buy out more.  

He was a screwy but likeable elderly man of Middle Eastern descent who had arrived in this country with only a few dollars in his pocket just before the Iranian Revolution of the late 1970’s, but he proceeded to work hard and make a small fortune.  Maybe even a medium sized fortune.  In addition to collecting rent from over two hundred properties, just for fun he ran a junk shop right next door to me filled with absolute rubbish and crap that sold just about as fast as he could bring it in by the truckload.  It was junk that was little better than scrap metal, but the guy sure knew how to wheel and deal!  

We talked shop a lot together as we both shared the love of old things from elder days and we actually got to be reasonably close friends.  I’ll call him Ankar, but that’s not really his name.  

That one spring day just after my fortieth birthday, Ankar suddenly made me the proverbial offer I couldn’t refuse.

**************

“George, your problem with life is that you think too small – you need to expand… spend some money to make some more money, you should!  You are a smart and hard working businessman and my only tenant that pays his rent on the first day that it is due – you need to be more successful in life, and then find a woman to fuss over you with large breasts and give you many fine children!”

“That’s nice in theory, Ankar, except for fact that I really can’t afford to move into a bigger space and take on any more rent.  I have these awful food addictions and need to be able to afford to buy groceries occasionally.  If I have to eat Kraft Mac & Cheese or Ramen noodles for dinner more than twice a week I start having dreadful cannibalistic thoughts.”

“Perhaps if I were to have an alternative for you?  We could then help each other, we could!”  Yes, I kid you not… he really did speak pretty much just like Yoda from Star Wars.

“Ok… maybe.  Such as what?” 

“You know I’m building that new strip shopping center three blocks up the street?  What if I could offer you part of that space right at the corner for your new shop… but at your current rent?  What a deal that could be!”

“My current total rent price, or at the same rate per square foot?  Nice but the NNN would kill me.”  NNN is the extra ‘common area maintenance fees’, an extra significant surcharge added to your base rental lease of usually about an extra $10 per sqf, which in my case could nearly double what I paid now, even if the rental cost were to be the same.

“That entire space, 3800 square feet for only your current total rent cost.  All of it, for exactly only what you pay me now for your 1200 square foot lease.  A bargain it would be at twice that, and for you my friend… no triple net, except for electricity.”

He wasn’t just whistling Dixie.  I was paying $25 per sqf now for half of a dumpy old refurbished former house that had been turned into a retail duplex.  That was $2500 rent each month… but now for just over three times as much retail space, or the ridiculous rate of $7.9 dollars per sqf!

I began to smell a rat.  This was way too good to be true, or rather I was sure that there was going to be some sort of minor condition attached for this serious ‘favor’.  It had to involve something that would really help him out of some major jam.  Ankar was a decent honest man, but he was also shrewd, wily and pinched every dime until it squeaked.  He never gave away money either.  He liked me… but not nearly enough to hand me money from out of his pocket.  When I found out what his side of bargain entailed I really had some second and third thoughts.

Ankar had a niece named Farahnaz (she shortened it to just Farah) who was married to an old family friend from the old country.  It was one of those traditional family arranged marriages where the husband and wife had never even laid eyes on each other until the wedding ceremony, and saying ‘No’ wasn’t an acceptable excuse to get out of it.  Tribal politics and old family connections (and money) had priority over domestic happiness.  

She was a baker and a good one.  She had studied at a top Parisian baking school before her marriage and was quite ‘western’ in her dress, attitude and behavior and she spoke flawless English.  Her husband Hooshmand was frankly an insufferable weight around her neck and an albatross that tainted every business they had tried to run so far.  In theory, his name meant ‘wise’, but he was loud-mouthed, arrogant and ignorant, and would have been much happier living back home in the Middle Ages rather than in a modern western city in the twenty-first century.  He only bothered to learn about twenty words of English, most of those were really not entirely suited to dealing with customers… politely anyway.

Together, well mostly due to Hooshmand, their two previous bakeries had failed badly and they were currently significantly in debt.  Since they were ‘family’, he was willing to spot them for one final third time – but this time with a boatload of conditions.

Ankar’s cunning plan was to create a large antique & collectables mini-mall with a built in café and bakery at the end-cap of his newly constructed corner stripmall.  I could have nearly three-quarters of this new space to expand my own stock to my hearts content, but my main #1 job would be to keep rein over Hooshmand.  I would be the manager of the combined operation.  He could still serve customers… but from now on he would be banned from handling the financial accounts or the money.  Especially the money… that would be my job now.  

Since they would now have essentially free rent, the forlorn couple could concentrate solely upon their cafe, and I had the full and unlimited authority from Ankar to crack whatever sort of whip I needed to keep the operation going.

Hmmmm.  

This was much more responsibility than I really wanted, but in the end I said yes and accepted the deal.  It was just too good of a financial deal for me to pass up.  We shook hands on the deal (no written contract) and over the next six months Ankar put the finishing touches on the Antique shop/bakery/café (hereafter shortened to just the café) and I cleared out my shop, my garage and a house jammed full of lovely old crap into the new digs.  Even after I was completely done moving in, I still had about half of my space under-utilized and ripe for future expansion.

Ankar was right, if I could keep Hooshmand under control, I had the possibility of finally turning a decent profit and growing my business up nicely!

*************

Naturally, I did have endless trouble with Hooshmand right from the very start but his wife Farah was a joy to work with and the two of us saw eye-to-eye about nearly everything about how the new business would be run. 

In less than a week after we were open, I caught her troublesome husband’s hands in the central cash register for the third and final time and that was the last straw.  We had one very final disagreement and parting of ways:

He threw a snit…
I showed him the door (politely).
 He called me a lot of very bad names in Farsi at the top of his lungs.
I showed him a clinched fist and the will to use it…
then the bastard pulled a knife on me!  

Ankar had politely warned me that this day might come, and told me just what to do!

I first twisted and broke Hoosh’s wrist and then shattered his nose when I smashed his face into the floor six or ten times.  I was having so much fun that I sort of lost count.  Then I grabbed the rat faced bastard by his pants and literally kicked his ass outside onto the curb and told him to get lost and stay lost.  Then I phoned Ankar to give him the happy news.

Hooshmand returned an hour later with some angry looking friends for moral support and they all started to pull out knives the moment they walked in the door, until I drew my .45 Colt automatic which I always kept under the cash register, and that stopped them dead in their tracks.  I pointed the weapon right at Hoosh’s shattered nose and told the thieving asshole to sit down and shut up.  Two minutes later Ankar arrived with a few friends of his own.  Bigger, meaner and nastier friends… and they all had guns too!

Big Rule in Life #1 – Never bring a knife to a gunfight.  Rule #2 would have to be - Never piss off the Persian Mafia… Ankar didn’t even need to hear my side of the story in person, and he was more than ready to deal with his idiot nephew-in-law, once and for all after a brief conversation with Farah.
Ankar and Hooshmand had a long loud and very angry talk in Farsi but I think some sort of settlement was eventually reached.  Hooshmand left and none of us ever saw him, or his angry looking friends again.  Farah wouldn’t ever discuss any of those personal ‘family’ arrangements, but it did seem to involve her obtaining a divorce and her ex had returned home to Iran with a little pocket money… and to stay.

Don’t get me wrong.  I liked Farah very much and she was an ideal business partner, but the two of us never struck any romantic sparks.  She remarried a few months later to a much nicer husband that was entirely of her own choosing and he worked at least as hard as she did to make the bakery-café side of the operation a resounding success.  He was quite well educated and also spoke excellent English and unlike his predecessor, he actually enjoyed greeting and chatting with the customers and soon became extremely popular with everyone.

No one missed the departed and unlamented Hooshmand.

***********

With the family drama over and done with, we all settled down to making money. 

With some of the empty display space left-over I put in some big tall glass display cases and started to take in consignments.  I sub-leased out a large section along one window to a big antique glass and china dealer who was willing to also work the cash register on weekends so that I could get out and do some antique stock shopping of my own.  His sub-lease rental to me also fully paid for all of my overhead costs so that all of my sales became nearly pure profit!

The bakery could soon easily afford to handle half of the utility bills, and when we added in tables, chairs and a few comfortable big padded armchairs, our customer base just about doubled overnight, and tended to now stay much longer… and spend money.

Within six months we were the ‘hot’ trendy destination place in our very artsy community.  We’d bring in the folks on the way to work in the morning for a cup of early morning coffee, then the housewives came for breakfast, then the local business workers came for lunch, the interior decorators and artsy crowd came for high tea, and the students then came and spent half the night studying and drinking free coffee.  On weekends we were packed.  

For fun, we added a kiosk of six computer desks to make a sort of Internet cyber-café for catering to customers wanting to get some work done.  Instead, the on-line gamers usually had all the PC’s in constant use every evening and all weekend long.  We rearranged things around a little and added another four computer desks and soon every night we had groups scheduling ten-man ‘Raids’ for their favorite online game and staying until long after midnight.  And drinking bottles of Mountain Dew or Jolt Cola like water.  With later business hours, if anything, this just lead to us becoming the fun place to visit after clubbing late at night, or even very early in the morning on weekends.  Soon, we didn’t even bother closing between Friday morning to Monday morning!  

We hired a night crew and Farah and I tried to get out the place at a civilized hour.  At first for awhile anyway… until I started to learn first hand much more about World of Warcraft and elves and orcs… and Raiding than I ever really wanted to know from our all night weekend customers. 

Did I mention that for the first time in my life money was flowing in faster than I could spend it?  Different… and rather nice!

*****************

Financially secure now for the first time in my entire life, and just shy of my forty-first birthday, the great challenge of finding a woman that I could enjoy spending the rest of my life with began.  One friend bet that I’d find Ms. Right in less than ten dates, but the wiser and more cynical Farah thought it would take me at least thirty.  It ended up taking exactly ninety-nine first dates!

****************

Before I can even to describe this adventure I first need to clarify my original ground rules just a bit.  My sources for dateable women were mostly via three separate on-line dating services, a professional ‘Introduction’ service, and identical ads in the Men-Seeking-Women section of our local alternative newspaper and on Craigslist.  In every case I described myself and my interests and wants accurately and provided a recent photograph.  The ad read like this:

“40+ WM seeking 30+ F.  Disappointed in love long ago and unlikely to be a fast horse out of the starting gate, but patience might be rewarded by a speedy finisher.  I am a busy small business owner and a bit old fashioned in too many and numerous ways to count.  Financially solvent but not looking to become a sugar daddy.  I like books, cats, cheap Italian red wine and anything old and dusty.  Hate slimy vegetables, ‘Type ‘A’ over-achievers and anything resembling emotional drama.  Am honest, sincere, emotionally stable, non-smoking and happy with where I am in life, and I am (reasonably) height/weight proportional – I expect the same from you!  Uncomfortable with children but might try, for a truly exceptional woman.  Sorry, no long walks on the beach – I sunburn easily.”

Once contact was established by either phone or email, I would first suggest (strongly) a casual get-together on the evening of her choice for ‘just coffee’.  If she then offered dissatisfaction with this plan, I would then instead offer a ‘casual dinner’ for a weekend evening.  In mostly most instances, unless geography was an issue, the coffee date was held at our antique shop/bakery/café.  I wanted a bit of home field advantage, plus Farah and our other staff wanted to make their own first impressions of my date.  We rarely ever disagreed. 

For a coffee date I’d dress in casual Dockers slacks, polo shirt and sneakers.  For a restaurant date I’d wear a white shirt and decent dress slacks and shoes.  No suit or tie under any circumstances!  When I said casual I meant it.  I would of course judge her own attire by these same looser standards in all fairness.

Concerning how I graded my date, I created a post-date checklist of items.  Did she demand the full dinner treatment rather than just a first casual meeting?  Did she sneer at my middle-class restaurant choice (usually my favorite local Italian place)?  Did she abuse the serving staff?  Did she even pretend to act interested in me?  Did she pretend too much?  Did she fuss that I wasn’t wearing a suit and tie?  Did she talk non-stop about vapid topics?  Did she discuss her work problems/money problems/ex problems/children problems excessively or even nonstop?  Was she stark raving loony?  And so forth.

These dates are listed more or less in chronological order, and identified by the single most blatant aspect of her personality.  Some traits were shared by many of these women, but in every instance something particularly grabbed my attention about her… usually in a bad way.

Now, let the chronicle of pain and misery begin!

******************

1.  Ms Eager Beaver - She was way too eager.  So eager that she had the aura of desperation about her that she plainly wore like a coat for everyone to see.  She agreed to my casual ‘coffee date’, and within the first five minutes had made instant plans for the next month of our relationship.  Scary.  I broke off the date the moment it was decent to do so and ignored her repeated pleading phone calls for me to call her back, anytime at all - day or night!

This was just supposed to be a casual meeting with no talking about problems or how compatible we are with each other.  This is just a first date… it's supposed to be light-hearted and relatively carefree.  

*********

2. Ms. Fattyass - I’m not usually ever rude about other peoples personal appearances, but she wasn’t even remotely height/weight semi-proportional.   She had sent me a photo of herself that was about a decade old (and over a hundred and fifty pounds lighter than she was today).  This massive 300+ pound blob of femininity had demanded the full dinner treatment for our date, but I nipped her feasting plans right in the bud.  I was firm but unapologetic; she had patently tried to deceive me by lying (badly) about her appearance, so that she could exploit that old chestnut about her ‘beautiful inner self’.  Nice try.  If she had been honest, I’d have at least fed her.  She threw a loud fit and I walked out of the restaurant on her.

I wasn’t expecting a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but I also don't want a wife or girlfriend that is clinically and morbidly obese… and lies about it.

********

3.  Ms. Cheapskate – Another gal who demanded the full wining and dining treatment.  She was good looking, pretty smart, and very flirty and an otherwise rather suitable young woman, so we went out a few times over about two weeks.  From appearances she likely earned at least three times what I did, and she was apparently used to nothing but the best, and on someone else’s wallet.  I paid the $150+ dinner checks and then our tabs at the night club next door.  Never once did she ever offer to even pay the tip or even once hint about picking up a single round of drinks.  I was slightly bemused by her but I got the true message fast when I got the unsubtle hint that she wanted an expensive present for her upcoming birthday.  

I’m old fashioned and used to paying for the date, but it’s nice when the woman at least offers to pay once in awhile.  No, I don't expect you to actually pay on the first date, but after that you should at least reach for your purse occasionally to make the offer, or maybe even cover the tip to the waiter while I cover the cost of the meals, drinks, and whatnot.  In Europe while on various antique buying trips, most girls I dated would insist on sharing the bill.  It had something to do with personal pride.  I guess that's what real emancipation makes out of a woman: They want to show they can pay for their own meals and don't need a spineless sugar daddy that has to pay for female attention.

*********

4. Ms. Strip-Mall Guidoland Nails – Farah told me later after this coffee date that she always preferred the term ‘ghetto talons’ for the insanely long claws that this women possessed.  Even a wolverine would have been proud of those claws!  She acted fairly hot-to-trot and hinted that we could have another cup of coffee at her place, but I declined.  

I didn’t want those fake nails anywhere near me, let alone raking my back during sex.  She had French tips longer than actual carpentry nails!  This screamed ‘high maintenance’ and I decided to avoid a round two with her.

***********

5.  Ms. Child Drama – Many of my dates exhibited a good bit of concern about my possible acceptance of their children, but this date sprang this delicate topic by surprise right in the middle of dinner!  The ‘I have kids’ bombshell.   Odd, there were none listed in her online dating profile.  In her case, with the worry that she was exhibiting about them, there obviously must have been some serious drama going on backstage there, possibly with an ex-husband or baby-daddy who was getting out of prison soon. 

After hearing what my brother has gone through with several psycho bitches who had kids by equally unstable other men, I wouldn't ever go down that road except for the lady of my dreams... and this one wasn’t it.

*********

6.  Ms. Faux Posh Bit - She dressed up for our casual dinner date like she was a lady of high society.  She was appalled at my appearance and gave me a sharp dressing down for my sloppy attire.  Then she became unhappy with the normal restaurant menu choices, and she requested the presence of the head chef and special requested that he make her a parmesan-crusted duck breast with balsamic reduction.  Then she ordered the most expensive wine on the menu without consulting me.  Apparently for her, only the very best of anything would do.

I knew that she was a poseur when she mispronounced half of the words on the French wine bottle and after I had engaged her in a probing discussion about other good wines.  She then failed nearly every question I posed to her about places in Europe; I’d been there a few times and knew a few odd things, but she just tried to continue to bullshit that her family had estates in both England, France and Tuscany… but she couldn’t name a single airport or town nearby any of them.  If I had gotten her faux designer gown onto my bedroom floor, I would have been certain that it was also a fake knockoff.

I also don't like any sorts of breasts with any kind of reduction.  I refrained from laughing in her face and tried to enjoy the evening of low comedy, and I lost her phone number afterwards at my earliest convenience.

**********

7.  Ms. Just Low and Outside for a Ball - I have had a few unbelievably awkward dates -- dates that I couldn't wait to get away from, they were such disasters... only to get calls/emails from the ladies asking ‘what's next?’  This was one of the worst of these.  I thought our chemistry during our coffee date was poor and that we really didn’t click together as a pair.  She thought otherwise.  I shrugged and gave her a second try over dinner but it really wasn’t any better.

There were other situations where there was really absolutely nothing wrong with the date -- we just had nothing in common and we weren't a good match.  I'm sure this goes equal for the women who didn’t catch onto my act the first time around either. 

***********

8. Lydia the Tattooed Lady -  She was young, wild, uninhibited and actually a decent bit of fun at our coffee date.  She was really too young and wild for me but she was such a fun gal that I took her out to dinner the next night.  After which we did a few clubs that had live music and we ended up later at my place.  She had so many tattoos all over her body that all I got to see was a poorly drawn comic book instead of the naked woman I was looking forward to fucking.  

Tats aren’t usually a major turnoff for me, but when 95% of your skin is covered in ink I have to wonder exactly what you’re rebelling against.  I think a few tasteful or pretty tattoos are a perfectly fine way to rebel, I have a very small one myself, but many ladies get extremely defensive when they hear that a lot of guys think they're just over done and gross.  When a girl is covered all over with loud and very obvious tats, it sadly says to me that she’s probably either a used-up tramp, or a nice girl who has a used-up tramp history.  Why permanently mark yourself down a few points with nearly everyone you’d meet?  So you can rebel against daddy or feel a little more punk?  Sorry, just my opinion.  A few would have been fine, but not nearly her whole body.

Ok, the wild monkey sex was really, really good!   She loved it in every hole and in every position… and often.

The tats weren’t the final deal-breaker – she was just too young and way too wild for me, and she did have a lot of drama going on in her life with lots of ex-boyfriends waiting for the call to be back on her A-list once again.  She had wanted one ‘normal’ boyfriend not in any alternative punk rock or biker lifestyle and the novelty of my more mundane life wore off fairly fast.  We parted friends and she stops by the store occasionally to say ‘hi’ and refers the odd customer to us, but she’s still playing the party road hard and fast and sometimes I feel sorry for her.

**************

9.  Just Plain Fucking Nuts - She was a screeching, mad as a hatter, howling at the moon BPD case that could embarrass hillbillies at a trailer park meth cookout.   Oh my God, but she had the crazy!  She probably had full-blown Borderline Personality Disorder and I considered myself lucky to escape her after only half an hour with her.  

She called the next day to threaten suicide if I didn’t take her back again.  In her deranged mind I was calling her up non-stop wanted to be with her, but the voice in her head was saying that I needed to prove my love to her by cutting her name into my arm, and to do it right now!

She tried to call me for weeks until I managed to get AT&T to block her phone number from calling mine.  Thank God she never learned where I work!

 **********

10.  Ms. I have to take this very important call for just a moment - I hate cell phone shenanigans.  That has got to be the biggest put-off on a date.  If we're having a good conversation and your phone rings and you instantly take the call without even acknowledging the interruption, it says to me that I’m not interesting enough for you to even focus on me for minute or I’m just not worth it for you to even pretend to be considerate.  The first time she did it, it was just annoying.  By the fourth time I decided that I’d much rather be somewhere else too.

Most women will almost never receive a text/phone call in their entire lives that has to be answered immediately, certainly not the inane ‘lol r u 4 ser-e-us?’ nonsense that her friends seemed to babble at her all day and all night.  It's self-absorbed, egotistical behavior - no excuses about it.  She can receive all the calls she wants as long as I'm not sitting there in silence like Joe Jerkoff waiting for her to finish discussing what the high class whores on Sex and the City did on last night's episode with one of her friends.  

After this happened the fifth time with the constant phone interruptions, I finally gave up, got up and excused myself to use the bathroom, and when I came back she was still blabbering on the phone.  I then just quietly found the waiter and paid our check and told him that anything else she ordered was on her own tab.  Then I fucking left – it was a matter of courtesy. 

I set my phone to silent when I’m out on a date and I’d really appreciate the same consideration.  Don’t talk on your cell phone during a date unless it's a genuine emergency (and the color of someone's nails does not qualify as an emergency).  Blood or fire!   Your ‘oh so very important call’ had better involve either the police, EMS or the fire department!

***********

11.  Child Drama Lady #2 – This mother of the year candidate was so paranoid about my immediate acceptance of her crotch spawn that she brought both of her vile little darlings along with her on our first date at the restaurant so that I could meet them right away.  They were a nasty and rather surly pair of brats that obviously already didn’t like what they saw in their ‘future father’ and they were determined to wreck the marriage long before it had the faintest hope of happening.

I faked an emergency at work, paid the restaurant tab and ran, not walked, out of there as fast as my feet would carry me.

**********

12.  Super Cling-Wrap Lady - She was either the most super affectionate huggy-touchy sort of woman that I’ve ever met or else she was really freaking desperate!  She seemed scared that I was going to leave her after just the first date.  Kissing on a first date?  Heck, she snogged me in the first five minutes!   I could hardly keep her in her own chair and out of my lap!  

She called me about twenty times during the next three days until I convinced her that I was going to have to suddenly move out of town to take care of my poor ailing mother who lived in the wilds of Nova Scotia. 

I just wanted to deal with women that were already more or less already happy with themselves.  I'm not going to enjoy time with you if you don't enjoy your own life.  Like Bugs Bunny meeting the Abominable Snow Monster, she just wanted to hug me and hold me and pet me and stroke my hair and call me George.  Ack!

*******

13.  Ms. God is my Co-Pilot, or Religious Zealot #1 - I never discuss religion on the first date, or usually even the fiftieth.  In fact, I don’t really have any thoughts about any religion at all.  The coffee date started off alright and I was asking her about her weekend plans so that I could fish for some interesting second date ideas.  She proceeded to tell me all about her bible school and the next exciting sermon that she just couldn’t wait to hear next Sunday.  She then revealed her true fundamentalist colors by asking me about abortion and monstrously wicked theory of evolution.   Finally she asked me to join her fundamentalist church and by then I had had more than quite enough.  

No religion/political/vegan/whatever discussions.  Period.  Again, this is the first date… I have to like you first before we dive into disagreements.  If you start right off with disagreements, I'll likely find you disagreeable.

As Robert Heinlein once wisely said, “Avoid zealots, for they are generally humorless.”  So very fucking true!

**************

14. Ms. Bundle of Insecurity - Another coffee date that went horribly off course right from the very start.  She was one of those folks who hide her inner insecurity by talking about themselves nearly non-stop.  You know the kind; the one's that yap about how great they are, how beautiful they are, or else they’ll argue over silly little trivial unimportant things that they should just drop and let go.   The crowning touch was when she told me outright that something I had just said was ‘stupid’. 
Not exactly the way to impress me.  That’s alright; I didn’t impress her either apparently.

*************

15.  Ms. Bowser – Ok, that was rude, but her on-line picture didn’t remotely match the face and body that showed up for our date.  Not even vaguely.  She’d borrowed a photo of a model from off of the web somewhere to portray the beautiful swan that she saw herself as.  Unfortunately, I in turn only saw a rather unattractive woman that displayed many years of hard driving over rather bad roads, with little or no maintenance… and a willingness to deceive.

I didn’t even stay to greet her.  When I heard her ask at the café cash register for my name I just sidled right out the other door and stayed gone for a few hours.  We had a brief email exchange later where I chastised her for her rather blatant lie and she forgave me for ditching her.  She did have a very nice personality and she even forgave me enough to later on buy a few Christmas presents from the antique shop.  If she had been honest with me from the start we could have had a rather interesting date.

**********

16.  Ms. Shameless Liar - Even more than the dog above, this gal tried to pull the full scam over me.  Her profile photo was of a rather famous supermodel and actress, and her actual likes and dislikes and her actions in reality didn’t remotely match what she had listed on-line.  The last straw was when she had earlier said in an email that she didn't smoke or drink, but yet she did both incessantly during our coffee date.

I evened the odds later by getting an IT geek friend of mine to send her a fake email that pretended to be a message from Brad Pitt, stating that he was going to fly here right away in his private jet to whisk her off, hand-in-hand.  She then immediately called afterwards to rather rudely dump me, and I could hardly keep from laughing myself silly.

**********

17.  The Human Chimney - I had to admit that she had a rather hot body, but she chain smoked absolutely non-stop during our brief coffee date.  I left her to get a breath of fresh air and then just decided to stay gone.  I’m not at all sure that she even noticed.  She was too busy with her life-long three packs a day affair with Joe Camel.

************

CHAPTER TWO

The litany of romantic horror continues…

18. Ms. Stuck-Up Bitch - I've had first dates where the woman was rude or snide or otherwise disagreeable, but never to the extent that this woman demonstrated.  If she had anything nice or pleasant to say during our brief coffee date than I must have blinked and missed hearing it.   She made especially rude comments about Farah and loudly wondered why ‘those sort of people’ were being allowed in this country.  I wondered if this is how she always acted on a first date when the rest of the world tries to put their best foot forward?  Or maybe this was her best behavior?  

Yikes.  Either way, no second date. 

Later, she griped to all of her friends about what an awful date I was, like I was some sort of player or sleezebag because I didn't call her back, and via a friend of a friend, the word of her displeasure came to be known to me.  I'm a bit of an odd sort of fellow and many of my friends are even stranger and odder still.   A good wife would need to be able to treat them well, because I'm not certainly going to have you around for a moment if you’re going to habitually hurt my friends' feelings.

*************

19.  Ms. No Goals - She was pretty enough and she had a bit of intelligence, but otherwise she displayed a complete and utter lack of any meaningful ambition in life.   She didn’t have a single life-goal past getting married.   What a waste.  She didn’t even seem particularly concerned that I wouldn’t be asking her out again.

All that sort of behavior and attitude tells me is that you can't wait until you can sit at home all day watching soap operas and reality TV, getting fat and leeching off of my income.

***********

20.  The Martha Stewart wanna-be - The coffee date went so well that I tagged her for dinner the next night.  That went alright too and then she invited me to her house for dinner the following night.  Everything in her house was picture perfect… and god help the man who put anything out of place!  She could cook like a dream but I could already watch her knuckles turning white whenever I moved or touched anything or didn’t keep things exactly as she wanted them.  She wanted a curator for her domestic museum, not a helpmate and partner in life.

I had seconds on dessert and started to think of suitable ways to break our association.  The quick and simple method was to let her see the pig sty that was my apartment on our next date.  Ok, I deliberately didn’t do dishes or laundry for a few days and tossed a few things around (I’m not a complete domestic disaster) and let her panic.  She nearly immediately created the few small suitable lies that ended our relationship on a mutually satisfactory note.

***********

21.  Ms Perfection - A smug condescending woman who let me know in the first minute of our conversation that I wasn’t at all up to her normal standards, but that she’d try and stoop down a bit closer to my level and give me a try.  She was nearly forty years old herself, never married, but believed that she was the finest piece of ripe fruit still hanging on the tree.  

Hey ladies, if you're going to have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, most guys (like me) are going to choose option B. 

I predict that she will still be unmarried in another ten or twenty years, but that her standards wouldn’t have declined in the slightest.  It would never be her fault that no man was capable of being worthy of her.  

**********

22.  Ms. Bored - This woman confused me to no ends.  She acted bored out of her skull with a ‘why am I here?’ look on her face and yawned all night long when she was with me… then complained bitterly to me when she called me a week later to gripe that I hadn’t called her back to ask her out for another date!

I chalked it all up to her living in a slightly different reality than mine and I gave her a gentle letdown.

*************

23.  The Ms. was a Mrs. - Being already married is a serious deal-breaker for me, but from the way she was playing footsie with me under the table, I guessed that finding out later on after we had had sex would be an even worse way to find this fact out.  I don’t do adultery, so yeah, I guess in that way I respected her candor by admitting the truth upfront.  I think she would have been fun in bed, but I didn’t want any sort of scene with an outraged husband, or his firearm collection.

***********

24. A Dinner for Three - It was supposed to be a quiet intimate dinner for two, but all night long there was another man at the dinner table.  Figuratively speaking anyway.  She was tall, bright and beautiful, but all dinner long she kept mentioning her ex who now lived in Colorado and how she was looking forward to seeing him again when he returned home here in a few weeks to visit his parents.

No bets but what she wouldn’t run back into his bed the moment he crooked his little finger at her.  This also smacked of drama, and I didn’t need any in my life.

*********

25. Ms. Secretive – She was almost the perfect woman; bright, intelligent and hot looking with gorgeous hair, perky breasts I wanted to inspect at close hand, and her smoking little black dress showed off a lot of nice soft and creamy thigh.  I also never learned one single thing that was true about her - and her phone number and address were both false.  Was she CIA, MI:5, or some other spook?  Or just another crazy gal playing mind games?  She then disappeared without a trace, with all of her on-line information now gone.

I waited by the phone for her to call me back for several weeks but she never did.

***********

26.  The Flirt - I like a perky woman and don’t mind it a bit when they get a bit assertive or aggressive, but not with other men while on a date with me.  She flirted non-stop with every waiter/busboy/or other male that passed within ten feet of her.  I really didn’t like the wink she was giving to another male restaurant patron who was trying to ignore her and pay attention to his own date.  It didn’t work.  Outraged, his date upended a mostly full plate of pasta over his head and stomped out.  The Flirt just winked at him harder and gave him one hell of a ‘come hither’ look.

I walked out too and told my old friend the waiter that my date was on her own and I left.  Obviously she never noticed my absence and she just cast her net for other fish.  Clearly she was not the sort of girl to remain faithful to just one guy at a time.

*************

27.  The Commander – Her Imperial Ladyship tried to give out the orders from the moment we met at the restaurant.  She took full charge and ordered everything, even my dinner… quite against my wishes, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.  She drove our waiter half-crazy, running him back and forth non-stop for the entire meal and treated the menials with the scorn that she obviously thought they deserved.

By the time the check comes, I already know if I'm going to ask a woman out again.  One of the most important things I look for is how she treats the wait staff.  I think that this is a very fair test.  I've even given the waiter/waitress a bigger tip if my date was being a bitch to them.  I have no time for inconsiderate people.  It's more about rudeness, really.  It is the same as with the cell phone behavior, an ‘I don't think you're important enough to pay you the same consideration you're paying me’ kind of thing.  Luckily, these types of people are easy to discover as they’re also usually the same kind of folks that think it's ok to treat their servers like boot scum.  So they're not exactly hard to recognize.

I had to make a fast break from this man-eater the moment dinner was over.  Given time, this Hunting Girl would have had me licking her boots with my tongue and polishing her saddle leather while she gleefully sodomized my virgin ass with her riding crop.  Kinky, but not the sort of refined acts that get my juicer harder than nun’s buns.  I did give a rather odd sort of wimpy friend of mine her phone number and they’ve been an item ever since.  The world is full of all sorts of different types of peope.

*************

28.  The Mushroom – She was pretty in a mousy sort of way, but she was even less motivated than Ms. No-Goals.  She had no interest in the outdoors or really ever leaving her house to do much of anything.  She didn’t even like shopping.  Fortunately she had a computer programming job where she could work from home most days and never leave the house until she ran out of Haagen-Dazs or Dove bars, and mostly she didn’t.  I gave her a couple of tries but she never wanted to do much of anything, and we’d always end up watching a Netflix movie at her home.  I’m pretty sure she was borderline agoraphobic but she said she was happy with being a homebody.  

She also had a sex drive of almost zero and pulled back hard anytime I tried to go past first base.  We sort of stayed friends, but without ‘benefits’.

**********

29.  Miss ‘Thang’ – I didn’t believe it was possible but I met a woman even more self-absorbed than Ms. Perfect above!  She had the attitude of ‘my shit don’t stink’ permanently carved on her face.  It was ME ME ME ME ME ME all night long.  Utterly and completely self-absorbed.  She also probably never even noticed during our coffee date when I said goodnight and left her blabbing on.  

It's great if you talk about yourself on the first date, cause we're getting to know each other and all that, but if I'm sitting there wondering when you're going to shut up the fuck up, and you're ten minutes in to your diatribe about how much you love watching Desperate Housewives, then the relationship isn’t going to go anywhere.

**********

30. BPD #2 – This one nearly traumatized my entire attitude towards meeting any more strange unfamiliar women.  She threw her cup of coffee at me just because I mentioned that I occasionally liked to hang out with a few of my buddies once in a while.   She then threw a chair at me when I mentioned that I didn’t think we ought to see each other and the police had to be called.  She had a long police history of exhibiting bizarre behavior and apparently she had gone off of her medications.  They packed her off to a county mental hospital where they kept her in a padded room for about five months.   She turned up at the café again right after her release, once again off her meds and began raving about all of the letters I had sent her, begging for us to get back together again.  We called the police again and she’s back in the farm once more.  She just refuses to take her meds.   Absolute insanity!

************

At this point, with the thirty date bet mark met and about to be surpassed, our café staff started into some really serious wagering.  The betting now ranged out to at least fifty dates as the new average estimation for how long it would take me to find an actual serviceable girlfriend, and they started to prominently keep track of my failures on the staff bulletin board.

***********

31.  Another Religious Nut -  She turned out to be a Christian Taliban zealot who was too tightly wrapped up in her very personal relationship with God (capital G) to spare room in her life for any mere mortals.  Some of her viewpoints about enacting religious laws as the future legal law of the land were frankly scary.  She literally wanted to bring back stoning to death sinners who blasphemed against God… or any of his thousands of other Laws.  We politely agreed to disagree and had an interesting discussion about the Old Testament Book of Ruth, and she peaceably parted with me unconverted from my evil heathen ways.

Okay, I didn't expect to end up in bed on the first date, but when you start trying to convert me to your religion, because your religion is the most important thing in your universe, that pretty much eliminates any possibility of a second date.

**********

32. Ms. Oblivious – I actually liked her quite a lot.  She seemed smart, fun loving and had a good job that she enjoyed, but somehow the two of us were always a bit out of synch.  She would always pull-back if I leaned too close and she didn’t seem to like to be physically touched at all, even when I offered to help her with her coat.  After three dates without even a single kiss goodnight I called it quits.  She then called me a few weeks later to sincerely ask why I never made any sort of move on her? 

It wasn’t due to any lack of trying!

***********

33.  Ms. 16 Tons of Emotional Baggage - Thank goodness for it only being a coffee date.  She poured out her soul to me as if I were her paid psychologist.  Nothing apparently had ever gone right in her entire life and even her issues seemed to have issues all of their own… mostly concerning her bad relationship with both of her parents.

Oops, sorry… I have to run to an urgent appointment at my dentist.  Elective root canal surgery that suddenly now can’t wait.  I’m too old to deal with ‘daddy’ issues… but the very next new date had her issues in spades!

*************  

34.  Ms. Serious Daddy Issues – A scary, scary woman.  She was really a little too young for me but she was decent fun at dinner, even if she did talk about how important her father was in every other sentence.  She wanted to see my place afterwards and her tiny thin dress hit the bedroom floor two minutes later.  She wanted me to call her ‘my little girl’ or ‘Angel’ while fucking her… while she called me ‘Daddy’.  Freaky!

The moment that we were done screwing, she then grabbed her cell phone to call her darling Daddy to tell him that she’d be late getting home, and then proceeded for the next twenty minutes to tell him all about her day.  The really creepy part is that she wanted me to fuck her ass right then and there, while she talked on the phone with her father!  Ok, she did like it up her butt, but that scene was seriously weird!

I didn’t call her for a second date and she apparently found some other more willing daddy surrogate.

************

35.  Ms. Impatient – During our casual coffee date she talked endlessly about marriage and having babies as soon as possible.  She then complained why none of the previous men she had dated lately had ever called her back for a second date.  I don’t think she quite realized that this sort of talk (especially on a first date) tends to run men off pretty quick.  Myself included.

*************

36.  Ms. Complainer – One of the worst dinner dates of my entire life.  She complained about my appearance, didn’t like the first two tables we were offered to be seated at, demanded that her fork be replaced, and then later her knife.  When the dinner came sent her steak back to the kitchen twice, complained about the tomatoes in the salad, and just about everything else as well for no particular reason.  I swear she had more gripes than the battleship Arizona!   For dessert she whined and complained about the weather.  

I have my own problems… I don't want to hear about yours on a first date.

************

37.  On the Rebound – I rather liked her, but she was just straight from a bad breakup/divorce and she was still in that ‘hurt/mistrusting/angry’ phase.  I’ve been there myself.  In another six months to a year, she’d probably be a bright happy and cheerful woman once again… but not today.

**************** 

38.  The Drama Queen – From the first five minutes of our coffee date, I could feel the emotions rising.  Virtually everything in her life was a disaster; in fact she was the living embodiment of ‘management by crisis’.  Apparently everyone at her work was an idiot so she had to do the work of five different people single-handedly, and her life at home wasn’t any easier.  Something was always needing her constant attention or one of her friends absolutely must have her advice or help with a project, since they couldn’t do it themselves properly and only she – Wonder Woman, could do it right.  And so forth.  The icing was when she openly discussed her prozac and valium dependency.

Fortunately, a friend desperately needed her shopping advice and she had to rush off to once again save the day!  I was about ready for a valium myself by that point and I needed about three glasses of red wine afterwards before I could chill out.

************

39.  The Pathological Liar – I’d never heard so much bullshit before in a single hour.  Her father was a famous professional baseball player (who didn’t appear for some reason in my current edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia); She also claimed to be a cancer survivor of a rare near incurable variety; had been raped repeatedly back in college but the cops laughed at her because the man who did it was someone famous.  She has restraining orders against three different men that have been stalking her for years; and of course her family was wealthy and has houses all over the world.  You get the idea.

Complete and total bull shit!

For paybacks, I told her that I was an escapee from a Mississippi chain gang and that I was hunting for my missing partner in crime who had legged off with seven million dollars in uncut diamonds from our last heist.  She sounded intrigued, but I told her I had to hoof it off to Mexico pronto… after fitting my ex-partner into a shallow grave.

***************

40.  The Empty Dress – In my lengthy dating experience, I met several rather hot looking women who had, literally, nothing going on in their lives.   They had cruised through life entirely on their looks.  They don't read books or a newspaper (except to see if Macy’s is having a sale).  They don't understand ANY references to current events, politics or even history or literature.  Their total sum knowledge of the world is whatever was happening within their circle of friends, going back about six months, and the latest reality TV celebrities.

She was pretty… and willing, so we banged each other anyway for a few weeks, and then it fizzled-out when we settled into a routine and I realized we had NOTHING whatsoever to talk about once we were out of bed.  I've had a fair share of empty hotties over the decades, and to be honest, I'm over it now.  

If we go out and there's no substance there -- see ya later.  Be interesting... please.  No, I really don't give a crap about the latest hijinks that the latest movie star-du-jour is pulling off, nor do I care about the vast majority of crap that usually qualifies for news in People Magazine.  Talk about your hobbies, fun things you've done recently, something... anything.  Otherwise you're a vacuous whore, and I'd rather not waste my time.

I took her into work with me a few times to try and get her interested in something that I did, but nothing seemed to interest her.  She found an equally mentally empty stud muffin in a suit a month or two after we split and they’re quite deliriously happy together now, but I feel sorry for their future children.

************

41.  The Mouth of the South – She never once shut up and as far as I could tell she didn’t even need to stop for air.  EVER.  I went to use the bathroom and when I came back out she was still telling her incomprehensible story, without a break, to the pained couple that was sitting at the table next to her.

I told her that I had to run to a doctor’s appointment, something to do with my growing deafness.  She got the hint.

***************

42.  One Brown Mouse – She showed up for coffee dressed up all frumpy and she kept her eyes down and her mouth shut most of the evening.  She was vaguely cute and with a bit of effort she could possibly be cleaned up and converted into a sexy librarian sort of gal.  

I was willing to give it a try… the quiet ones are always crazy-hot once you get them into bed, but she didn’t return any of my three post-date phone calls.

*************

43. The Swinger – This wild gal in her early thirties alternately fascinated and repulsed me.  She was pretty good looking but was showing her mileage a bit.  She was an unashamed ‘swinger’ and admitted that she and her last ex used to go to swapping parties every weekend.  He got tired of that scene – she didn’t, so they split.  Her favorite way to spend a weekend would be to have ten plus guys all pulling a train on her.

Ok, I’m a pig and I must have had temporary insanity.  I gave her the second dinner date and we bumped uglies all that Friday night.  She was good enough in bed that we stayed there most of Saturday as well.  Since all of my blood had flowed out of my brain and into my cock once again, I let her talk me into taking me to a private swinger party being held at a friend of hers that night - but I didn’t stay too long.  

She wanted to fuck other people, namely everyone else who was there, both male and female, and I soon found it annoying to watch.  Oh, I got my rocks off with a couple of willing swinging wives, while their hubbies happily boned other equally willing swinging wives, but I personally couldn’t handle the jealousy.  I’m not really cut out to be a happy swinger.

After getting my rocks off a few times and watching my date get three-hole penetrated repeatedly until she saw heaven, I became bored, so I put on my clothes and went home.  She didn’t call me back and I had my family doctor give me a full sexually transmitted disease workup and I fretted for over a week until he said I was clean.

Never again!

**********

44.  Ms. Yankee Independence – I met her entirely by happenstance.  Some friends of mine were having a big Friday after work get-together and everyone invited their friends and co-workers.  We ended up with a crowd of over twenty people at one long table and six of them were visiting school teachers who had just moved down together from Massachusetts to work contract for our local school system.  In the next three fun filled hours they proceeded to drink us guys nearly under the table.  

Figuring we had been hoodwinked, the men were trying to count our money under the table to make sure we could cover the astronomical liquor bill.  When the check came one of the women instantly grabbed it and with her calculator, quickly did the math to split the bill equally among everyone, and called out a number… and all the visiting teachers started laying money on the table!  

I asked the guy next to me, ”What the heck are they doing?” 

He said, "I think they're paying for their own drinks!" 

"No Way!  I've never seen that happen." 

"Me neither!" Said my friend in total awe and amazement.  We thought those northern guys must have had it made!

I had a second and third date with one of these teachers but it didn’t really work out.  Too much culture difference and she knew that she wasn’t going to stay down here for good, so she didn’t want to get too serious into any relationship and then leave.  We became friends with benefits for the next six months until she returned home and she didn’t mind that I was continuing my disastrous trend of first dates with other women, and found my updates hilarious.

***********

45.  The Professional Dater - She had dated over twenty different men in the past six months, but she ‘just couldn't find what she was looking for’.  She told me this on the first date.  Obviously, much like Ms. Perfect, she was never going to find what she was really looking for… the quote ‘Perfect Man’, nor was she willing at the moment to settle for something less.

I wished her good luck with her virtually hopeless Diogenian search.  As far as I know that old Greek is still looking for an honest man too.

***********

46.  The Werewolf – Honestly, she had more facial hair than I did!

************

47.  Hotty McHot-Rod – She pulled up in front of the café driving a fire engine red Porsche Turbo Targa convertible and wore a screaming red leather mini-dress with designer brand sunglasses.  She drank her latte and pointedly asked me what kind of car I drove!  Since I buy/sell antiques and haul things about for a living, I proudly showed her my eight year old beat-up pickup truck and she soon left to burn rubber somewhere else.  What an insufferable egomaniac!

In my opinion, and I admit that it’s a minority one, cars are for transportation and functional utility, rather than status symbols.  Sure beemers and BMW’s are nice, but for me they’re not functional… and I don’t want the sort of wife that needs an expensive car as a necessary fashion accessory.

**************

48.  Ms. Fitness Zealot – Ok, her profile said she was athletic and very physically active, but I was a bit surprised when she ran the six miles to meet me for our coffee date.  She sneered at my very slight paunch and couldn’t drink her energy drink fast enough before she left to finish her ‘normal daily ten mile run’.  Good riddance.

I have nothing against skinny girls who can fit into a size 4 dress, or even a size 0 dress, but honestly this overly thin gal looked like a bag of antlers.  I’ve seen men and boys with more breasts than she had and her hip bones that were well displayed above her running shorts looked dangerously sharp.  She looked much too fragile to indulge in sex, besides; she’d probably always be too tired from her other workouts anyway.

***************

49.  A Rebel without a Clue – There are always some people that just have to do things their own way.  She didn’t just march to a different drummer… she had her old own alternative band playing inside her head.  She arrived on roller skates… and I got the impression she lived in them pretty much all of the time.  She admitted she wore them most of the hours of the day that she was vertical and she didn’t seem to have a ‘real job’.  Not as many tats as Lydia, and she really wasn’t as interesting as a person either.  

She was angry and mad at the world and probably had been since she turned fifteen.  She’d still probably be angry after she turned fifty.  She drank her tea and we both mumbled apologies.  No harm – no foul.

***********

50.  The Valley Girl – Ok, she wasn’t quite that vapid, but the way she spoke at dinner constantly put my teeth on edge.  She was a stereotypical blond ditz and she constantly said 'like', yet not once ever in the correct context.  You can tolerate teens that talk like that but by the time you’re forty it just makes you sound retarded or drug addled.  I’m not a grammar Nazi, but long ago some school English teacher should have tried to shake some sense into her.  Fer sure!

***********

My staff was having much too much fun with my dating disasters by now.  They now posted the wagering board openly in the café so that even our customers could enter into the bidding.  The winning jackpot for picking the winning date number was currently at over a thousand dollars!

***********

51.  Ye Olde Towne Bicycle – This amazing woman was a walking and talking advertisement for eugenics or forced sterilization.  She had, I kid you not, thirteen kids by nine different daddies… several of the fathers were of course ‘unknown’.  She couldn’t even keep track of all of the guys who had nailed her in just the last two weeks!  Apparently every guy in town had already screwed her except for me!  Talk about taking someone else’s sloppy seconds!  She even joked about wanting to push out a few more crotch-fruit.  Not with my dick!

I don’t know why she was even selected as an option for a first date.  I checked her profile later, and she had no kids listed.  Why do they always pull that shit?  Do they think that men are that stupid that they can just flash some tits and our brains go to mush?  Well, sometimes… but not this time.

************

52.  The Sociological Experiment – In an odd sort of way I was kind of amused with what she did.  She set about to intentionally try to find and then push any or all of my emotional buttons, just to see how I ticked and what it took to piss me off.  It was all a grand experiment on her part to see how much she could push me around and still get away with it.

Two can play that game and she left in tears less than forty-five seconds later.  I only commented to her that she looked a lot like her sister, with whom I had been having an affair with for nearly ten years and I now wanted to ‘complete my collection’, preferably with them both chained up in my secure and soundproof cellar dungeon.

************

53.  My Plastic, Non-Fantastic Lover – This date can be summed up by just two words - Fake titties.  Somewhere along the line she had installed some monstrous implants into her chest.  She now constantly wore low cut blouses so she could made sure that everyone could admire her new augmented tits properly.  She also complained about new lines appearing in her face and she asked me if she should also get butt implants?  I sarcastically told her she should wait until after I’d fucked her current ass first to see if it needed more cushioning.  

Amazingly, she took that as a compliment and handed me her house keys so I could immediately give it a proper deep probing inspection.  I did, and it really wasn’t worth what I’d anticipated.

I’d never fucked a woman before with huge breast implants and I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to broaden my education.  It was so not worth it.  She was like a limp dead body in bed and I had to do 99% of the work.  Fake tits aren’t nearly as delightful to feel, nuzzle, lick, kiss, bite and caress as real (natural smaller) ones are.  Live and learn.

To end the affair, I mentioned that she’d soon need another facelift and she screamed bloody murder and booked the next flight out to Beverly Hills, California.

**********

54.  Ms. Un-Domestic – There is a little bit of Elvis in every man (except for Michael J. Fox who is the Anti-Elvis, but that’s someone else’s long story) so accordingly, there ought to be a little bit of Julia Child in nearly every woman, except for this one.  I soon found out that she could just barely boil water let alone actually cook anything.  She seemed to live on Raisin Bran cereal for meals in which she didn’t eat out or nuke a frozen dinner in the microwave.  I swear, I’ve seem seen more actually food in a male college dorm room refrigerator than what she had in hers.  Oh, and she didn’t clean house either.

Ok, I’m a decent cook and I didn’t actually require a gourmet chef for a wife, but she had enough other minor faults and eccentricities that when they all added up all together they spelled long term trouble.  Her finances were also a complete mess and most of her credit cards were close to maxed out.  

I’d been in that sort of mess once before, no thanks.

**********

55.  The Vegan Zealot – Just the memory of her brings a shudder.  She was way beyond being just a vegetarian and she turned it into a complete lifestyle.   She wanted the dinner option, but it was a crime against nature with what the head chef had to do to prepare her a meal that would meet her insanely strict standards.  Living that way just makes finding restaurants we could both enjoy way too hard, and agreeing on anything that we could share together became practically impossible.  

I dropped her off at her home after our very awkward dinner, but first along the way I stopped at a Wendy’s to buy myself a double-Baconator cheeseburger.  She was suitably horrified, much to my obviously transparent malicious delight.

It's weird how many vegetarians hate salads, btw.

*********

56. The Crazy Cat Lady – Ok, she thought we’d be good together because we both loved cats.  I have one, an addled and not very bright but loveable longhair.  We went after coffee to go see her cats and I was astonished to find that she currently kept about thirty cats inside her house… peeew!  The cat box odor was nearly overpowering and I coughed nonstop the entire five minutes I was there.

I then falsely admitted that I also kept a pair of large voracious Rottweiler dogs and her ardor for me cooled markedly.

************

57.  The Animal Hater – She was pretty, witty and had a wonderful sense of humor… but she didn't like animals at all, either cats or dogs... or fish, birds or turtles.  My cat is really my very best friend. If you can't be around him without flinching or cringing, it'll never work.  
She made an ultimatum after the second date, either the cat or me goes… guess which went?

**********

58.  Ms. Workaholic - She postponed our first coffee date on two prior occasions due to having to stay late at work.  I understood that – stuff happens.  The day that she finally showed up she brought along her work laptop and tried to multi-task her current marketing sales plan while we talked.

Too bad.  She was not bad looking but it was quite obvious where her priorities in life were.  I was always going to come at least a very distant second place in her thoughts, let alone her heart.

**********

59.  Ms. Priss – She demanded the dinner date, arrived there nearly forty minutes late, and then decided that my favorite local Italian joint wasn’t nearly good enough for her.  We compromised on a local up-market bistro where I overpaid for a pair of dinners that each barely looked adequate for being labeled as an appetizer.  Then she picked at her food for over an hour.  She looked and acted high maintenance - very high maintenance.  

Some guys look for that sort of woman. They are looking for a trophy to be seen with rather than a real relationship, but I don’t have the temperament or the patience for that sort of thing.  

*************

60.  The Former Stripper – Ordinarily a former stripper would be just a great one date dame, but she was so much fun to be around that I asked for seconds.  I took her out for a nice dinner and later that night she took me for a trip around the world in bed.

She had just enough issues and drama surrounding her that I (reluctantly) decided that she wasn’t a good long-term fit… so she then hooked me up with her roommate!

************

61.  The Roommate – Her roommate was still a stripper… and was another great gal when out on a date.  I picked her up from her nightclub at 2:30 a.m. and then we chatted like old friends at a local coffee shop until dawn.  Then we went back to my place where she also took me all the way around the world in bed… twice.

She loved her job (stripping) and intended to do it until her tits fell off, or she’d made enough money to retire in comfort for the rest of her life.  She wasn’t looking for any full time boyfriends and I didn’t want everyone looking at my girlfriend’s bare tits and smoothly shaved cunt.  We decided to stay friends with benefits.

When I took her home the next afternoon, she, her roommate and I somehow all ended up back in bed together.

*************

62.  The Stripper + Her Roommate Together – Does this count as a second first date????

I made a note to myself afterwards that having a very bisexual girlfriend or wife would definitely keep things from ever being dull in the bedroom!

The Stripper soon got a better job offer at a bigger club in another city and both gals then moved out of town, but the going away party (with a few more of their female friends) ending up being legendary.  I was exhausted, but I had a stupid happy smile stuck on my face for most of the next week.

**********

CHAPTER THREE

I was getting annoyed and discouraged enough now to want to give up.  Farah told me to shut up the whining and grow a pair.  On the positive side, I was at least getting laid a whole lot more regularly than I had been.  The café betting pot was now over $5000.

********

63.  Mademoiselle LePew - This woman who I briefly entertained for a coffee date wore so much heavy perfume that I nearly had to run for the bathroom to vomit.  She was also quite a bit overweight so I suspect that she was trying to cover over some body odor problem.  Frankly I had too much of a headache from the overpowering scent that I didn’t much care what she was hiding.

****************

64.  Ms. Constant Texter (or more Cell Phone Shenanigans #2) – Oddly, I found this even more annoying than constant chatting on the phone.  My coffee date spent the entire hour with her fingers under the table tapping away text messages and Tweeting to her friends.  Why she thought I’d never notice this I’m just not sure.

I was annoyed enough about this to actually complain to her that this was extremely disrespectful to me.  She suggested that I mind my own business.  I then suggested that she ‘lol’ and ‘C U L8R’ to her twit Twitter friends elsewhere.

When she drove away a few minutes later she was still texting away on her phone while driving!

***************

65.  Ms. Retread -  During the course of dinner with this ravishing redhead, she freely admitted that she hung out mostly with guys and that she probably had about two hundred guy ‘friends’.   Some were ex’s, some were gay, some were guys who probably wanted to date her but became a friend while waiting their turn... but most seemed to be just plain ‘friends with benefits’.  She was getting even more action without a #1 boyfriend than I was hanging out with the stripper gals!

Whatever, no thanks.

************

66.  Das Chancellor – Right from the start of our dinner date, ‘The Rule Maker’ began to review my life and, for my own good, began to set up some ground rules for me.  By the time the dessert had arrived I wasn’t even sure if I would be permitted to go to work all alone by myself or take a shit without her express permission.  Like The Commander above, if I give this woman an inch then she would take a mile, or roll her panzers right over the Polish border.  She didn’t like men that drank, so I made sure I kept the beers flowing.

I paid the check and told her to concentrate on raising cute little teacup poodles and clean up after their shit instead.

*********

67.  Ms. Smug Bitch – She complained nonstop, and with an insufferable smug look that I just would have loved to have slapped off of her face.  She knew that she was bitchy… and she was proud of it.   She mentioned ‘supply and demand’ at least three times during dinner.   She was certain that there weren’t enough good looking non-bitchy girls to go around, so she had ‘take me as I am’ written all over her smug intolerable face… but nearly everything about me needed to change.

No matter how beautiful a woman is, there is always at least one man that won’t put up with her shit.  If you look at listings of the fifty or one hundred most beautiful actresses and supermodels in the world, a pretty big chunk of them have been divorced already at least once... or even multiple times.  Someday even Sandra Bullock might be on the dating block once again and then she’ll be all mine!

As for this particular bitch - Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!

*************

68.  The Criminal Mastermind – I wondered why she wanted my home address before she agreed to meet me for a coffee date.  This was so her boyfriend could try and rob my house while she knew it would be empty.  He couldn’t force my expensive door locks and the windows all had iron burglar bars that deterred him until my chronically nosy next door neighbor saw him called the police. 

They caught him and since he had a long criminal record he in turn ratted out his girlfriend in exchange for a reduced sentence.  Apparently the two of them had been running this scam for a long time.

**************

69.  The Stalking Crazy Ex – She was a frantic bundle of nerves during our dinner date, until I figured out that her crazy ex-husband was stalking her and he had even followed us here to the restaurant that night to spy on our date.  I told the fucker to get lost and stay lost.  He went semi-nuts and started ranting about how they were ‘meant to be together’ and that I was the troublemaker in their way.  

My friends at the Italian restaurant had seen enough craziness and two large Mexican cooks appeared from the kitchen and they escorted the fellow out the back door and into a nice dark alley where they took out some of their own frustrations upon his soon helpless personage.

It’s nice to have friends in high and low places.

Needless to say, the gal and I didn’t hit it off.  She apparently liked the stalking drama and the two of them soon reunited for the seventh or eighth time.

**********

70.  The Legal Eagle – This coffee date was with an attorney that had her own very successful practice.  She was quite a nice and pretty lady but during the course of dinner, I discovered that her electricity had been cut off twice this year.  Not because she couldn't afford it but because she always forgot to pay it.  She was a smart girl, but she lived her life with blinders on focused only on big-picture items and never any of life’s small details.  Apparently she had a staff that handled that sort of mundane stuff for her.

That level of absent-mindedness does not make for a good life partner.

************

71.  Church Lady #2 – This harridan was seriously hardcore Christian Taliban from a cult that disapproved of nearly technological or social advancement of the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first.  She wore a granny style dress that buttoned up tight to her neck and didn’t expose an inch of wickedly sinful skin below her face.  She also apparently went to church at least three times a week and disapproved of nearly everything, such as electricity, mechanical works, science or even medicine as all being absolutely the work of Satan.

I then suggested to her that my Norse God Thor was far mightier than her wimpy Mediterranean middle-eastern God.  My God had a hammer… and hers got nailed onto a cross.  I laughed evilly while she tried to bludgeon the devil out of me with her ever-present bible.

***********

72.  The High School Counselor – It was clearly obvious that she hated her job, if not her entire life so far to date.  When I asked her where she hoped to be in a year, she was pretty specific.  In a year she hoped to be married and raising kids at home (which implied that if she wasn't pregnant already, she fully expected to become so rather soon). 

Check, please!

***********

73.  The Doormat – Every single little thing about her screamed ‘Danger Will Robinson!’  She had the crazy… but she was smart and good enough at conversation to keep most of it hidden, until for some reason the conversation turned to sex.  She was then quite brutally frank and honest – she liked it very hard and rough.  So did I sometimes, but not as hard and rough as she apparently did.  I think she was looking for a brutal Master to completely submit herself to.  

Interesting, but not quite my cup of tea.  While I enjoy a woman who can be a bit submissive in bed, I’m not looking for a human punching bag who fondly dreams about violent rape fantasies.

She was quite willing to submit herself to me as my abjectly obedient whimpering slave until I started mentioning my love for knives and blood, and how her black dress would look really nice on my bedroom floor, covered in blood, and marked Prosecution Exhibit #A.  
Apparently she did have a few remaining limitations.

**********

74.  Ms. Entrepreneur – Save yourself some time and expense and don’t try to date any woman who runs her own mid to large sized business, because that’s all she cares about or has time for.  If you do get involved, it becomes just like being another employee, except without the paycheck, benefits and fixed hours.

We talked a lot of shop over coffee, but neither of us was going to close our own business to help with our spouses, if we married.  Her work hours actually exceeded mine!  She took no vacations, and only rarely took any days or evenings off.  She often worked on the books most nights until midnight.  What was the point of dating?  She didn’t have any room left in her life for a husband.

I told her that was ok; I had my Internet porn and World of Warcraft addictions to keep me busy.  I’m not sure she realized that this wasn’t quite a joke.

***********

75.  The Skank – Like the slut I dated earlier who was the town bike, this particular skank was a girl who had slept with at least three of or more different guys in just the last week alone without any protection.  Recently she thought she was pregnant and didn't know or have a clue who the father might be.  Then after later realizing she wasn't pregnant, she still continued being a whore and sleep slept with another five different guys the following week.  Really, she thought this story was funny!  She also seemed to have the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic on speed dial for handling her regular succession of ‘unexpected incidents’.

She didn’t really date much, but she had her own stool at the bar of the local Holiday Inn where she spent almost every evening cruising for strangers for yet another one night stand.  She didn’t really want a husband, she just seemed to want a different nameless stranger to use her nearly every night to give her pathetic life some validation.

Ewwwww!

***********

By now the local café betting was at a complete frenzy.  The jackpot was alleged up to over ten grand now.  Farah went and bought a ‘Now Serving # xx’ electronic sign so that my unbelievable string of dating failures could be clearly noted, even to cars passing by.

I was occasionally getting laid, but never with a woman that I would want to spend the rest of my life with… perfecting the experience.  I was becoming jumpier than a jackrabbit and getting increasingly quick to pull the trigger early to quit on bad dates, which kept coming in droves.

***********

76.  The Skunk – When she kissed me goodnight her breath stunk worse than a feral mutt.  The rest of her hygiene didn’t seem quite top notch either.  No, she wasn’t particularly height/weight proportional.

**********

77.  The Nympho Slut – While on the second date that I had with a lady not much younger than I was, she took me home to show me some home movies.  These ‘movies’ were ones that she had made in the bedroom with her various guy and girl friends.  This was a bit disturbing for an early date, but it was definitely hot!  

While showing off her homemade amateur porn collection we ended up screwing on the sofa.  Of course she taped us, as I realized later.  I found out later she had hundreds of different recordings, most now on DVD but many older ones were still on VHS.  Apparently normal sex wasn’t real and exciting enough for her unless she could record it and then later masturbate while watching it over, again and again.  

She wanted to fuck every single day, at a minimum, and admitted that she also masturbated up to dozen times a day in addition.  I got the idea that she had a rotating stable of men that attempted to attend to her near endless sexual needs.  I never saw any of them, but her bed sheets stayed pretty warm and the men came and went in some sort of carefully choreographed stage production so that our paths didn’t cross.

Like the Swinger gal, this babe of a lady wasn’t quite ready to settle down into mundane married life just yet.  That didn’t stop me from banging her like a cheap drum for the next month until I found a tactful way to end the relationship.  She then promised me a threesome with an old college roommate, but I’d had enough of that from the Stripper ladies.

*********

78.  Ms. Bullshitter – She tried hard to pretend that she was smart… but she wasn’t.  Her only real knowledge of world affairs came from the National Enquirer.

While I really did want a smart woman to be my wife, I could have possibly tolerated her room temperature IQ.  I just didn’t like her well ingrained habit of making shit up right and left.

**********

79.  The Goddess – She was gorgeous and WAY out of my league – she came across as being intelligent, articulate, well-educated, and down to Earth.  She was a natural beauty and smoking hot looking with a luxurious, flowing red mane and flawless pale alabaster skin.  She was a senior marketing executive from a top name brand corporation and she probably earned more in a week than I did in a year.

I wanted and absolutely lusted after her in every possible way.  I invited her right away to a second dinner date but she smiled and sadly shook her head no before kissing me on the cheek goodbye.  I didn’t wash that side of my face for a week.

*********

80.  Ms. Calculating Drunk – This one was a circus from the very start.  She very most definitely wanted the dinner date, but she had arrived at the restaurant nearly a full hour early and made a good head start at the bar.  Her bar tab, which was already impressive, somehow now magically appeared onto my dinner check.  I paid it, very grudgingly.  

She then suggested that we move back to the bar for a few more drinks; I agreed, but I clearly used the phrase ‘separate tabs’ to the bartender.  My cunning and conniving alcoholic partner didn’t seem to notice so I reminded the bartender (with a loud stage whisper) a few drinks later.  She still didn’t notice.  I nursed three glasses of red wine while she took an extravagant tour of the world’s top shelf liquors.  

I paid off the bartender with a pair of twenties for my own fifteen dollar tab and whispered that he might have a problem collecting the payment for my former dinner partner’s bar tab.  Then I took a good long healthy break in the restroom that took at least half an hour.  Once I heard the loud yelling and screaming reach a fever pitch, I snuck a peak around the corner to watch the fun.  As I figured, she couldn’t pay her tab.  Her three credit cards were all rejected in turn, and one was so overdue for late payment that the credit card machine signaled the bartender to seize and keep that card.

Eventually the police were called and Ms. Calculating Drunk was hauled off to jail for theft, the non-payment of a nearly five hundred dollar bar bill.

Being a softy, I did reluctantly pay her tab after she had been hauled off to jail, but told my friend Antonio the restaurant owner to keep this payment on the down-low and take her to court if necessary for her payment.  I wanted to teach her a good lesson.  She did eventually pay, about nine months later.  Did she learn anything from the experience?  Who knows… I certainly didn’t care.

***********

81.  Drunky McSmokestack – Two wild uncontrollable drunks in a row?  Yep, it happened.  One of my cousins called me and said he set me up with an older friend of the young woman he was dating.  They had decided on a nice steak house and we all agreed that we would all ‘go dutch’, everyone on their own tabs.

They all arrived at the restaurant and my first impression was, ‘She could be hot, if she didn’t look like she came from a trailer park’.  In an insane fit of gentlemanly behavior, I offered to cover her food and just like that we were off to the races.  She ordered three appetizers, all for herself, and one of the bigger steak meals and about five mixed drinks throughout the meal.  There was never a moment when she wasn’t smoking.

After the meal she wanted to go to the bar and started ordering more drinks; she was already pretty drunk by this point.  She then started loudly telling the strangers at the bar how she was would going to suck my balls right through my cock that night and mentioned, multiple times, how I wouldn’t be able to walk the next day.  

The woman sitting at the table next to me said that it sounded like I was in for an ‘awesome night’ and laughed.  She was alone, prettier and sober.

“Not a chance in seven hells.  She might mistake my balls for martini olives and try to eat them… and not in a fun, pleasant or delightful way!” I said.  I then paid ‘my’ tab and told the bartender that my chain-smoking friend was on her own, and then I left to go dancing with my new found friend. 

My cousin and his date got Drunky back home more or less in one piece.  He tried about a week later to set me up with her again and I laughed.

“Not only no, but Hell No!  She smokes non-stop, drinks like a fish, and has the uncouth mouth of a whore on nickel night”.  

I honestly didn’t know that she was right there in the next room listening!  Nor did I care! 

***********

82.  Yet More Talking about Ex-boyfriends – Unfortunately, my sudden dancing date from the steakhouse didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.  She was still hung up on her ex and I had to hear all about it for the next four hours.

Don’t bring up your ex on a first date, especially to tell us how you’re still excellent friends. We guys hear, ‘I’m still way into this dude, but yeah, you’re, uh, pretty OK.’  This is one of my #1 dating peeves!  When the girl says she’s still ‘really good friends’ with her ex, she might as well be announcing to everyone that she’d still fuck him… if she isn’t already.  And if she isn’t now, she will the first time you piss her off.  No second date.  

It’s just courtesy.  Don’t talk about your ex or your boy-toys and I won’t discuss my swinger date, or the amateur pornographer, or my parties with the pair of strippers.  Paybacks can be hell.

************

83.  The AA Zealot – Let me remind everyone that any and all zealots are bad news.  This particular woman had just recently quit drinking, good for her… but my glass of wine was now highly insulting to her and she harangued me about the evils of alcohol long after it became interesting or amusing.  I asked her if she was late to an AA meeting and suggested she go there and stay until one of her sponsors taught her something about moderating ones own lifestyle and not starting any crusades that they couldn’t win… or at least wait until they had their one year of sobriety anniversary coin.

***********

84.  Ms. Social Butterfly #1 – She was actually far too busy to waste much time drinking coffee with me.  She ran a complete nightly schedule of written appointments scheduled often weeks in advance.   Her Day-Timer calendar was her bible.  She volunteered for EVERYTHING at her church and her kid’s school and was the ‘go-to’ woman for dozens of community and civic projects.  

Good riddance, if she wants to be a Queen Bee she can buzz around someone else’s hive.

**************

85.  Sharpie McEyebrows – This coffee date was absolutely no fun at all.  She kept a constipated expression on her face the entire twenty minutes we met.  Her makeup was just well… disturbing.  I suggested that she quit being a killjoy and instead she should go pluck her eyebrows into even further oblivion.  

I then discovered to my horror that she had received ‘permanent makeup’.  In fact, her eyebrows had been permanently laser removed and replaced with a less than realistic tattoo.  Same also for her overly bright eyeliner, cheek blush and lipstick.

Shudder.

*************

86.  Ms. Social Butterfly #2 – I wondered if she had ever met the other Social Butterfly, if so they were undoubtedly hated rivals.  She also ran a complete nightly schedule of appointments scheduled often weeks in advance, but with future planned dates.  Apparently, she couldn’t ever tolerate being alone by herself for even a moment.

I quickly decided that the further away I kept myself from her, the better.  She was showing unhealthy interest in organizing my own schedule.  I told her that I was late for an amateur porno film shooting and went to go visit The Nympho Slut.

************

87.  Miss Princess – She wanted the dinner and the full roses and violin treatment.  She even expected me to pull out her chair for her.  Her tiny little evening sequined clutch handbag contained only some lipstick, a little compact of coverup and a handkerchief.   She acted like she was made out of porcelain, but she wasn’t nearly as entertaining as a good old piece of antique Dresden fine china.

My follow-up advice for ladies that constantly act helpless, just like an anti-bellum Southern Belle straight from a plantation, is that men will see you as somebody who expects to be constantly taken care of.  That may be a turn-on for some guys but it's a big turn-off for many others, like me.  If you want a guy to constantly take care of you, don't be surprised when he doesn't treat you as an equal in the relationship.

***********

88.  Ms. Social Butterfly #3 – Fuck!  How many of these sorts of women are out there?  This busy gal always spends most of her evenings out with her girlfriends.  A couple of drinks after work, bridge night, movie night, pottery class night, and art night at a gallery or museum, and of course long Friday nights at their favorite bar.  It came as no surprise at all however that my usual one night a week out with the guys was going to be a big no-no for her.  Go figure... what was good for goose was apparently not at all good for the gander.  

It was even less of a surprise to learn that all of her friends had multiple divorces between them.  Unspoken was the impression that her own previous three failed marriages had resulted because she spent more time and emotional energy on her friends than on her husband.  

Also, any group of women that hit the same bar every single Friday night are usually looking for more than some bar snacks and to pound down a few glasses of cheap Chardonnay.  They apparently wanted the right to have a little fling on occasion whenever the mood suited them.

Obviously this was trouble just waiting to happen.  I decided to go home and add to my collection of Internet porn and wrangled a last second date with Rosie Palm and her four sisters… The Nympho Slut and I were finally on the outs after I discovered she’d posted some of our sex videos on YouPorn.

***********

89.  Ms. Feminist Zealot – Have I mentioned how much I hate all zealots?  This one was a radical liberal who blamed me as a man and my lifestyle for destroying the entire planet… but for some reason she was convinced she could save me!  She also exhibited extreme hardcore-feminist leanings that were going to be awfully hard to live with.   She left the dinner table fast when I suggested the greatest punch ever thrown in professional boxing was when Mike Tyson beat-up his first wife.  That was really cruel, but she was prodding on my last nerve.

Equality in a relationship is fine.  One partner being just a little more equal than the other sucks, and I’m not dealing with that ever again.

**********

90.  Ms. Social Butterfly #4 – Where do all of these desperately and pathetically lonely women come from?  This one usually spend two to three nights a week out doing the elite social scene with the top movers and shakers of the city.  Boy was she ever disappointed that I wasn’t a millionaire and didn’t even have a boat, let alone a yacht.

The less I say about her cult worship of certain far, far right wing fringe politicians, the better.  Also her rabid gushing about her religious cult at the prestigious First Baptist Church nearly qualified her for the Zealot of the Year award… until I met a woman even crazier a few weeks later on.

***********

91.  The Freak – This poor gal actually made The Doormat look sane and well-adjusted.  Really! 

Trust me.  I don’t want to hear about your love for autoerotic sexual role-playing games, like being fake raped and nearly (but not quite) strangled to death with your own pantyhose.  The fact that you need sharp intense pain in order to achieve orgasm is not first date material, even for me!  

I decided to reuse the line about her bloody dress being marked Exhibit A on my bedroom floor, but it didn’t frighten her off in the least.  I then ran for Farah’s help in getting this poor woman out of our café and well out of my life.

Alarmingly, I had at least three friends push me rather hard for her name and phone number.  I didn’t give it to them… I really didn’t want to hear about any more details of her extreme sado-masochistic sex lifestyle.

**********

92.  The Professional Paranoid – She was suspicious of everything I offered her at our coffee date and had Farah replace her coffee often so that I couldn’t secretly drug her and then ‘date rape’ her.  What a total nutcase!

The ‘run screaming for the hills moment’ was when she commented that she knew a lot of people who were kiddy-diddlers.  In fact, every man she meet seemed to turn out to be one.   I didn’t like the way she then looked at me.  It had ‘YOU'RE NEXT’ written all over her.

I told her to go away, that she was much too old for me… but could I see some cute bathtub pictures of her grandchildren?

Yes, she called the police on me, but I let Farah straighten them out.  They already had her on their ‘rubber room’ list, as she phoned in several complaints about kiddy-diddlers running amok on the streets each and every day.  Not one of her complaints had ever been even remotely substantiated.

The cops loved our coffee and pastries and within a week the local district station officers were coming in every morning and often late at night for their caffeine and sugar fixes.  The safest business in the world is one that quickly gets the reputation of being a cop hangout, even when they’re out of uniform.  One idiot tried to stick up Farah’s new husband several months later late one night and three off duty cops quickly had him covered.  No one ever tried it again.

**********

93.  Ms. Oblivious #2 – Like the original Ms. Oblivious, this gal was darned near utterly clueless about anything around her... and nearly a hundred pounds overweight for good measure.  She imagined herself as some sort of fairy princess, and like the Princess, she wanted the full treatment with nothing but the very best and lots of attention.  But when she got up to powder her nose and knocked the chair over with her huge ass, she never noticed that I leaped and caught it… or pushed it back in later for her massive backside.  Nor did she notice when her fat rump bashed into a dozen other chairs both to and from the restroom.

If she noticed anything that occurred in life past her nose, I seriously doubted it.  She certainly didn’t notice the dinner check and pointedly looked away when I started to loudly and obviously calculate a tip to give our waiter, whom she’d abused the entire dinner.

*********

94.  The Compleat Zealot – Yes, the archaic spelling is intentional.  This zealot took the absolute top prize for being fifty pounds of crazy in just a ten-pound bag.  She was so horrifying that it was just like a snake mesmerizing a mouse, I just couldn’t look away.  She was also quite as cute as a button and had a pert ass that I was longing to sodomize.

Over dinner, drinks and two rounds of desserts, she tried to convert me at the first date to become a vegetarian, bicycle pedaling, democrat, and attend church with her on Saturday at her wacko new-age cult church where they talked to crystals.

She was such a magnificent train-wreck that it really hurt my conscience to inform her that I was a meat gobbling, truck polluting, dyed in the wool political moderate (everyone hates us).  When that didn’t faze her I then complained that the Catholic Church had really gone off the rails into heresy since the unfortunate reforms of Vatican II.

I hinted, loudly, that I’d be more than willing to take her back to my place to discuss peace, love, mutual understanding… and a lot more love.  Preferably physical.  She smiled but said no, and her pert ass wiggled off un-buggered.

**********

95.  Ms. Indian Brave on the Warpath – If just a little makeup really brings out the beauty of a woman, then a ton of makeup donned with a trowel must be even better, right?  Not hardly.  She wore so much makeup that I have no idea what she actually looked like underneath.  She proudly stated that it took her two hours to do her ‘normal’ everyday war paint and an hour every night to remove it.  

Way too high maintenance.

**********

96.  Ms. Toilet Mouth – Hey, I admit that I often swear like a sailor and don’t mind a lady with a bit of an earthy mouth who can talk dirty to me in the bedroom, but not every other word out of her mouth, and not on a first date… and not loudly in a family café.

Since she clearly knew what the word ‘fuck’ meant (she’d used it at least once a minute our entire date), I suggested to her that we quit the fucking pussyfooting and go back to my place to do some real fucking.  Not surprisingly, this offended her and she slapped my face and left.

Honestly I was a bit disappointed that she didn’t say ‘sure, let’s ball!’  She wasn’t that much of a looker and didn’t possess any long term qualities suitable to a relationship, I did had to admit that I was curious to find out how nasty I could get her talk in bed.

***********

97.  The Compulsive Hoarder – Ok, I’m pretty bad about buying and saving old junk.  My shop is full of it and my house used to be full of it.  Don’t even ask about my still over-stuffed garage.  But she was even worse than I was.  She kept all of her trash saved up in bags in the kitchen by the back door for weeks, if not months.  There were even more, older, full trash bags sitting against the house outside.  Just in case she decided she needed to retrieve something back from the rubbish.

It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least if there was a long dead relative still buried under heaps of trash somewhere in that house.  Cringe.

***********

98.  Not Being Jane Austin – I couldn’t believe it when she said that I simply failed to measure up because I wasn’t a proper Mr. Darcy in the flesh.  Just where did I put those knee-breeches and long waistcoat?  The fact that I could in fact recite from memory the entire plot of Jane Austin’s ‘Persuasion’ unfortunately didn’t redeem me in her eyes in the slightest.

She really got up my nose, so I asked her when I needed to drop her back at Refuge Pines, a noted local private bughouse for the terminally demented.

************

99.  The Sports Widower – I knew she liked sports… a lot, but it is not a religion for me.  I’m rather partial to baseball and I don’t mind watching our local pro football team lose (usually rather badly) but my life doesn’t revolve around professional sports.  Instead of a dinner date, she requested a date at the local ballpark.  Well, that night at the ballpark ended up costing more than most dinner dates and then at the very end of the date she announced that she was a confirmed Lesbian.  

Damn it!  She had scammed me!  All she had really wanted was to score some nice tickets to see the game at someone else’s expense.  I did a little research and found that she had pulled this scam on at least three other gents at our dating service.  We compared notes and then filed complaints and she was kicked out of the dating service, but I still see profiles very similar to hers still running on Craigslist.  Caveat Emptor.

************

I was now way more than just seriously pissed!

That was the last straw, I raged at everyone who would listen!  The doomsday clock on the wall was going to stay stuck at ‘Now Serving #100’ because I was done with dating.

Done – finished – fini!

I was over and done with dating - for good.  Frankly by this point in my life, I would have been hard pressed to thing think of anything nice to say about a woman, let alone select any of their allegedly fair sex for a long and very meaningful relationship.
No More!

*************

This attitude lasted for about a week, and then the love of my life walked into our café.   

I was working one evening at cleaning up some old Chinese jade snuff bottles to make them ready for display in a showcase when I looked up suddenly into the eyes of sheer perfection.

“Farah says that you’ve gone off women… for good.  Are you going to go bat for the other team now and chase after buff hairless pool boys?  You do tend to look at women’s asses more than their tits.”  The divine creature asked.

I stuck my tongue out at her and blatted.

“Good stout and brave fellow!  Once more into the breech!  Besides, I’ve got a few hundred dollars invested in your dating pool, so get off your cute tight ass and go make some romance!”

“Bah!  The world, or at least this section of it, is remarkably short of suitable, attractive women of indeterminate years looking for a sane, reasonably normal and fairly well-adjusted relationship.  Beside, my friend Antonio at my favorite Italian restaurant says he’s suffered enough property damage and has promised to chuck the next woman I bring there into a dumpster.”

“That would be a terrible shame, because Tony makes my chicken piccata just exactly the way I like it and he has never once complained about my dining habits.  Tonight I’m in a lasagna mood though.  Now see what you’ve done!  You started to talk about food in front of a hungry woman and now I’m starving!  It’s all your entire fault… but to make up for it, I will allow you to make take me out to dinner.  Are you ready to go?  Besides I think that snuff bottle is actually soapstone and no amount of polishing is going to improve it.  It also looks like a later Victorian era reproduction as well, but I’m sure you’d already noticed that.”

I hadn’t.  That was worth the price of dinner and then some!

**********

Our dinner date would have been a dream, except for the odd disfunctionality of the entire experience.  Antonio not only was delighted to see me enter his restaurant with a new date, but he fixed up a special table for us with his best glassware and his finest Italian wine!  

I should have smelled the rat right from the start!

By dessert, when he declined to offer me the bill for payment of this magnificent feast, I knew the fix was in… especially when Antonio came over to give his niece a big hug and kiss.  I’d been played and ‘scammed again’ - but in a delightfully different and nice sort of way.  

Besides, I’d already been in head over heels in love with her since the garlic bread first arrived at our table, long before our lasagnas arrived.

Even dressed casually, she was a creature of beauty and elegance.  She was cultured and very well educated but never wore it like a suit of armor.  Her father, Antonio’s brother, was in banking and her mother had been a Charleston, SC socialite.  Obviously she had money, but she didn’t flaunt it.  She had many hobbies and interests, including antiques and owned and operated her own antiquarian bookstore.  It was also quite clear that she had a wild sense of humor, a natural love of adventure and fun, and a perhaps a rather checkered past of intimate wildness with very unsuitable men, like me.

“So,” She asked me with a laugh, “what exactly were your qualifications for your future intended girlfriend?”

“Oh, the usual small little things that every man looks for.  A bisexual gourmet chef from a filthy rich family that looks good in stiletto heels and a set of pearls… and nothing else, and enjoys lots of quality time spent with her lord and master… mostly on her knees or all fours.  Just the usual tiny things necessary for domestic bliss.”

“Oh dear, I’m badly over-qualified then.  I loved to diddle my best girlfriend at my private finishing school and my college roommates and I shared many wonderful hours with a rather special double-ended dildo on weekends when we couldn’t get otherwise laid by prep school boys or outlaw bikers from ear to ear.  My mother did send me to a famous cooking school in Connecticut after college and I’ve learned some really nasty fun things that can be done with really good chocolate mousse in bed while wearing seven inch pumps, but it makes the pearls hard to clean afterwards.”

“I defer to your superior expertise then.  Your resume for the very vacant position seems quite in order!”  I laughed.

“Quite,” She agreed, “but that’s not the point.  Now we’ll see if you match my currently current qualifications... but on the other hand, I do also have an opening for a swarthy pool boy, if all else fails.”

***********

For the next two weeks she played the game of ‘hard to get’ down to perfection.  She knew just how to keep me stimulated and primed for the chase after her.  I’d call her pleading for another date but she’d always put me off… but in a very carefully calculated sort of way that sounded ‘reasonable’ and not too ego deflating.  I’d grumble and be an utter bear to deal with at work for a few days and then call her up to try my fortune again… and then later yet again.

Finally when I got that second date, it was just as good.  She dolled herself up a bit and wore her lovely long rusty brown hair up into ringlets that teased the bare shoulders of her spaghetti strap dress.  She didn’t wear the full seven inch heels, but she carried herself like a goddess in the more mundane four inch ones.  This dinner at a nice seafood restaurant I was allowed to pick up the tab, but she offered to pay the tip.  I declined to let her, this time.

Getting that third date took me another two full weeks of near pleading effort, but it was worth every moment of the wait.  She wore an utterly amazing silk halter gown that was nearly backless almost down to her ass, and it showed off the glories of her flawless front cleavage to perfection.  I’m still not entirely certain how she kept all of the important parts of herself covered.  I spent the evening agog at her splendor and probably spilled about half of my dinner into my lap because I too agog with wonder to eat or chew properly.

She grabbed the dinner bill before I even had a chance to look at it and gave me a beady-eyed stare that confirmed that tonight was ‘her treat’.  I offered to cover the tip and she accepted.

It was hard, but I acted the perfect gentleman all night and didn’t ravish her right on the table at our restaurant, or later when we went dancing.  The way her ass cheeks and tits moved under that thin dress guaranteed that she was the center of attention all night long… but she only had eyes for me!  It was also quite clear that she wasn’t wearing anything at all underneath that dress!

The smile on her face all of that magical evening told a different sort of story this time, namely ‘play your cards right and you’ll see this dress again… right on your bedroom floor.’  

Yes, that dress did end up on my bedroom floor… and once again the next Saturday night on her bedroom floor, as I shared her bed and lovely house for the weekend.  Yes, she really could cook and she was also an utterly delightful and delicious nasty whore in the bedroom!  It went absolutely without saying that she was also every inch the lady, when her clothes were on.

No!  I’m not going to give you all of the extremely naughty details!  She was now my fiancée and a real proper gentlemen never discusses the rather abundant charms and unusually creative sexual proclivities and inclinations of his wife, or wife-to-be.

The hook was in… fast hard and tight. 

************

It didn’t take long for her to relocate her bookstore and merge it painlessly and smoothly into the café operation as an equal third partner.  Soon her own wonderful tastes for acquiring new beautiful antique items began to improve my own stock.  We began to constantly upgrade my old stock with nicer and more expensive items and our profits only further increased.  Since Ankar hadn’t yet rented out the other half of the retail space next to us, we made a sweetheart of a deal to rent out the extra 4000 sqf and the café operation doubled in size, and soon also nearly doubled our sales.

Nearly immediately, I began to wonder how I functioned at all without her!

*********************

There was some debate about her entitlement for her claim of winning the contest jackpot of nearly ten thousand dollars with her lucky number of 100, since she was now a partner in the business, but once she announced that the entire contest award would be blown on a fancy party for everyone who had entered the contest pool, customers included, there were certainly no lingering hard feelings.

******************

On our wedding night, I learned her last terrible secret.  That she had heard about what a great guy I was from Antonio, her uncle, and she had clandestinely watched a few of my later horrific dinner dates from back in the kitchen.  Sizing up my favorable qualities, she had deliberately gone to my café and placed her bet on the very next available date number, number one hundred and set out to deliberately conquer me right from the very start!

In penance, I ordered down to room service for some chocolate mousse and she bounced deliciously out of bed just long enough to put on a long string of pearls and her highest heels.  It was a long and very delightful night and we twice had to order more mousse!