In case you noticed, last week Ms. Ting Ting Guan started a new section called ‘Why I’m Still Single’. You can consider this column a companion piece to that, but strictly from the male perspective. Because, let’s be honest, there are some insane women out there.
A few years back I had been single for a month or so, and I agreed to go on a coffee date with a girl I’d met through some family friends. After talking to her briefly, it seemed like she was a kind, well-adjusted lady with a nice ambitious streak (she wanted to launch her own fashion line, in Philly no less). Why not, it’s just coffee right?
I get to the café a few minutes early, find some choice seating, get a cup of coffee and read the news before my date arrives. The café was your standard hipster/yuppie joint: exposed brick walls, fair trade coffee, organic tea, couches that were obviously bought used, random board games, and almost everyone on a laptop.
Soon after taking stock of my surroundings crazyface shows up carrying a Tupperware container of cookies she made for me. Sweet, thoughtful, and pretty fucking awesome right?
My, soon-to-prove-she’s-out-of-her-mind, date grabs some tea, and we start conversing with one another. Very early on I ask her, ‘So, where did you go to college?’ to which she replies, "I started at Fashion Institute of Technology, but I had to leave." Sucker that I am for asking dumb questions, I say, "Uh, why?"
Now, let’s be sensible. There are plenty of understandable reasons as to why someone might change schools. Maybe the poor girl lost her financial aid and couldn’t afford it. Maybe my so-crazy-she-doesn’t-know-it date just wasn’t that good at school and flunked out. Maybe a tornado hit her hometown and she had to rebuild. Any of those would’ve been acceptable answers.
Nope. Instead of anything like that, insane-o tells me, "I moved in on August 31st, 2001, and then 9/11 happened." Okay, well that sucks. Before I have a chance to respond, she says, "eight days later my roommate jumped off the roof." Um, what the fuck do you even say to that? Worse yet, as I’m soaking up that last statement, she proceeds to go on about how her roommate killed herself, how that made her sad, and how much she liked her roommate – FOR A HALF A FUCKING HOUR!
Call me insensitive if you will, but talking about your dead roommate ranks at number 962 on the list of possible topics of conversation, right behind ‘are we eating too much garlic as a people?’
After scalding my mouth in order to chug my coffee, I told my possibly clueless, definitely crazy date that I had a really important, um, obligation, that I had to take care of. Yep, watching the grass grow would have been a better use of my time than going on a date with someone who obviously shouldn’t be allowed outside. At least I got a good story out of it, right?
