The Pickler

    Once I went on a date that made me think I was being recorded for a show that likes to see how long someone will tolerate a terrible date.

     A while after I broke up with my longtime boyfriend, I decided to make a list of the people I thought I might want to go on a date with. One of them was this tattooed guy who worked in a bookstore that I frequented (since I no longer do drugs and compulsively buy books instead). My brother had been coaching me through the “strike first” strategy of breaking up with someone, which basically entails fucking someone else as soon as possible so that when you hear that your ex is seeing someone, you know that you’ve already “won”. We are an incredibly healthy family that fosters imaginary competitions with the world at large. So, motivated by my sage sibling, I decided to strike first and ask out the most accessible guy on my list, the one stuck behind a counter. I should never, ever let my brother talk me into anything. Ever.

     I went into the bookstore on a cold Bay "summer" night, where I knew he would be since he told me his schedule. My brother told me just to go up to him and ask. No dicking around the bookstore, sulking in the philosophy section. No buying books just so I could talk to him. Well, I sulked in the philosophy section and picked up a couple of titles and went to the counter like a creep. They were working on a crossword puzzle and needed help. Dessert: chocolate ____. “Éclair.” Come on. Of course it was a fucking éclair. I looked like a total genius and left. Then I realized I would have to call my brother back and tell him I pussed out, and years of him shooting hockey pucks at me meant that I couldn’t allow myself to do that. So I took a really cheesy deep breath and turned around and marched back in and asked him if he wanted to go out with me sometime. He wrote down his number and his stupid name (it might as well have been “Feather”).

     The texting session that evening initially indicated that he was probably clever and a good speller. The first red flag was that for our first date, he asked me out for tea. At noon. While there’s nothing actually wrong with a guy that likes tea, there is something incredibly off-putting about a grown man asking a girl to tea. Unless you are a dapper Englishman that is going to later bind me with high quality leather restraints and whip me with a $350 swarovski crystal-studded riding crop, you should not ask me to tea for our first date. No amount of open-mindedness will let my brain think of you as a complete man. I am from Texas. It’s just how it is.

     So I wait outside of the café until he gets there, late, and I realize just how much the context of the bookstore has distorted my view of this character. The fantasy of having a sweet “I’m fucking an employee” discount has significantly altered this guy’s actual attractiveness level. I realize with a cool irritation that I am way out of his league.

     “Hey! Gotta get my tea on!” This is the part of the movie where there’s the sound of the needle scratching across the record player, everyone stops dancing in horror, and a huge bouncer says, “Motherfucker now what did you just say?” Gotta get my tea on. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. So we stand in line for tea. I get coffee, because I am a normal human being, and he decides that the tea selection is not up to his standards. So he sighs and says “Ugh I’ll just get coffee I guess.” He pays for my coffee (what a champ) and then indicates with a weird pointing gesture that I should put money in the tip jar. I don’t, because I don’t think someone deserves $120 an hour to push a button. (One dollar for thirty seconds of work? Fuck you.) Also I particularly hate the people at this coffee shop and would never have been in there on my own. So no, Feather, I will not tip these assholes.

     We sit down and I ask him how he’s doing because even though he has already annoyed me, I am trying to be less of a bitch and be polite. I wish I could imitate the absolute snotty whininess in his voice, but I’m just going to have to ask, dear reader, that you imagine the whiniest, bougiest white kid NorCal voice you can muster. How’s he doing? “Ugggghhhhh.” He actually starts with that sound. “Ugggghhh. Not good. My ex-girlfriend called me this morning, and that’s always hard. We were together a long time and it’s hard talking to her.” (Yes this is actually happening, I think.) I nod. “She called because our cat that we raised together died of a stroke this morning. So I’m really sad about that.”

     It takes every piece of my evil being not to explode into laughter at this point. I don’t think you could deliberately craft a more pathetic arrangement of words to introduce yourself with. Mind you, other than the éclair moment, and a comment about some music on the stereo at the bookstore, I have never had an actual conversation with this bozo. So to learn that the cat he “raised” with his ex died of a stroke…it’s too much for me to deal with. So then he asks me what my major is, since I buy a lot of books. It will be important to note this question. Asking someone what their major is indicates that you most likely assume that they go to college. He continues, “I never went to college. I think that four year institutions are bullshit, and people that go there are idiots. It’s just totally bullshit.”

     So, I’m in college. In fact, that’s the only reason I moved to this stupid hippie town. But at this point I already hate him so much I decided to just let him keep talking and I don’t bother filling him in. He whines about where he’s from and where he lives now. He whines about some girl he went on a few dates with who went out with a different guy. I am starting to think he hates me, and that he is doing this on purpose. He suggests that we walk to a cemetery which seems like a neat idea to me, so even if he is totally terrible at least I get to see a cool old cemetery. Before we go to the cemetery, however, we have to stop at a different café so he can “Get his tea on.” Yes, he said this again. Out loud.

     So at the cemetery, which was like a bajillion miles away, he continued to bitch about every single aspect of his life without asking me anything. Then his phone rang. He answered it. It was a creditor. After getting off the phone with the creditor he proceeded to tell me about how much debt he was in, why he was in debt, and why it was so hard to get out of debt. I get it, I’m an American girl, but in case anyone is unclear, this is not first date material. When he answered his phone the second time, I told him I needed to go to class, to which he responded, “Oh, where do you go to school? The community college?” (He had indicated that junior colleges were okay for some reason, just not four years.) I said no, I go to the university. That’s what I do. That’s why I live here.On the way back, he filled me in on his hobby, which was pickling. Pickling. Like, taking food and preserving it in a jar. Pickling. 

     The last I heard from him was one night when I walked by the bookstore on a date with an actual man that is hot and has been in a fight before and doesn’t say things like, “Well he was blocking my driveway but I didn’t want to get into conflict so I just waited instead of asking him to move.” I walked by with this hot man that I find very entertaining who has hobbies like “fucking” and “eating” instead of “pickling” and the bookstore idiot texts me, “Hey! How’s it going?!” The last time he had texted me I just responded “Cool.” to everything he said, whether it was fitting or not. If someone did that to me, I would die of shame and never text them again. So he texts me as soon as I walk past the bookstore, clearly on a date with an awesomely good looking dude… “Hey!” I never responded because, honestly, it’s better for all of us. I hope his pickling is going well. I’m going to get my degree and get laid and get money. BAM!

     And that’s my dumbest date ever story. The only other awkward date that might rival it is when I went out with a guy in high school who had a locker next to mine and I was really excited because it was my first date-date, and he and some friends picked me up and we were going to play pool and then it turned out they were all Mormon and they were trying to get me to be Mormon too. That was disappointing. I would have been a real whore in high school had I the opportunity. For some reason the jesus kids were really after my soul.