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From Hell:
Bad first dates...
OF INTEREST
This article is directed at every young lady who knew within the first five minutes of a first date that they would rather be trapped in a cage battling a flatulent grizzly bear. This is the story of one such date that started in a hairdresser’s chair.
I was walking through the mall and spontaneously decided to cut about an inch and a half off my hair. I was lucky to have found a man available for the job. Gino, a tall, dark haired southern Italian man led me to his chair. We discussed his recent weight loss and passion for the gym, along with passing references about ex-girlfriends. While trimming the ends of my hair he asked me if I was Irish, a common misconception because of my red hair. “Actually, my dad is from Rome.” That was it; he had found a fair, redheaded “good Italian girl” who was a University graduate and also spoke Italian!
When he asked if I was busy that night, I said yes. Then he asked me about the next three days, to which I also replied that I was busy. I was actually oblivious to the fact that he was trying to ask me out (I tend to miss that a lot). One reason for this may have been that he was cutting my hair, and the other was that while he was good looking, he also appeared to also be a lot older than the men that I’m used to dating. A grown up! After I paid him, he wrote down his phone number for me to call, should I want to talk (but about what, I really don’t know). We soon arranged a date later that week. I was very nervous to go out with an adult. I mean, he was 31, with a job and wrinkles surfacing. But I sucked it up. I needed to get over my ex, and learn about the other great men are around. And maybe I was mature enough to date an adult, I reasoned. After all, I was more mature than my ex in some ways. However, this date would show me that a tall, dark handsome man of 31 could still be a child.
He called me the evening of the date. He had just left his parent’s house, where he still lived, and was driving to the subway. I had him meet me there so he would not know where I lived. Then, before my eyes, he pulled up in his blue Honda Civic, with a single light, red colored door. I am not a car person, and had he been a young college student, any car would have impressed me. However, at 31, with a full-time job and never having to pay rent as mamma and papa don’t charge, what the hell was he spending it on? It certainly was not on cars. I would soon learn it was not on dates either.
I opened my own door and got into the passenger side. The faint smell of stale cigarette smoke filled the air, and a Ferrari car freshener hung from the rearview mirror, accented by a pale blue rosary. I wish the car had been the worst part. My eyes then passed from the horror of the car to my date. There was Gino in all his stereotypical Italian glory. His shiny black button down shirt was undone down to the second button, revealing a terrifying full chest of curly black hair. Nestled in his bed of chest hair was a gold crucifix, the arms of Jesus appearing to be held to the torture device by the black hairs curled around the cross. His hair was gelled back so much that to peer at his head almost required wearing sunglasses. He had also decided on decorative facial hair for our evening, a thin line running down the sides of his face, almost in the same manner that the cracks on the face of a dummy do.
Our first stop was his older brother’s house, where he had to pick up something for some construction company his family owned. When we arrived at the townhouse in Thornhill, his 40-year-old married brother offered me a beer. I politely declined, and after about five minutes of awkward discussion, Gino and I were off. We drove to a nearby pizzeria. Yes that’s what we Italians eat all the time – it is true. Well, thanks to Gino’s planning and male sense of direction, we arrived fairly late and the restaurant was closed. I looked around the area and spotted a sushi restaurant, which he refused to try on the grounds that sushi “is alive.” I then suggested the Hungarian restaurant across from it. He eventually agreed and as we sat down, he began to complain that he did not know what to eat there, as it wasn’t Italian food. No shit! It’s Hungarian, it’s different, that’s the point! Of course I did not say this, and instead suggested he order the sausage, while I got a potato dish and salad. When the sausage arrived, the madness began.
He looked at me with a face of confusion and disgust as he examined the pieces of pork laid out on his plate. They were cut into small links, with curved, dried tips. The appearance differed from what he was expecting, although a sausage is essentially a sausage. He commented, “I can’t eat this. It looks weird!” I then spent the next half hour trying to convince this 30-odd-year-old man that although the sausages were shaped differently, they were still sausages. Finally, I cut a very small piece on his plate and begged him to just try it. He did, then ate two of the sausages, and left the last two. Once we were back in his car, he spent the drive to what I had assumed would be the subway talking about how he had just eaten such strange looking meat, and how it was nothing like the Italian sausages he ate at home, and the general merits of Italian cooking over any other type of cuisine. We turned the corner at Bathurst and Wilson and he pulled into a parking lot, where he asked me if I wanted to have a drink with him.
At Starbucks, he brought two small black coffees to the table, and began to ask me questions about topics ranging from what I thought of the sausage to what Catholic School I went to. In this conversation I mentioned that I had gone to Catholic school, but was raised Lutheran. He asked me to explain what that was and I obliged. After mentioning the name of the 16th Century Catholic priest/monk and Protestant reformer Martin Luther, he jumped in, enthusiastically exclaiming his familiarity with the man by saying, “Oh yeah, the guy that got shot in the ‘60s.”
It is far too painful to reflect on the next ten minutes spent until I was able to convince him I had to leave as I had work to do at home. He walked over to the door with me. I stopped to close my purse and as I looked up, I saw the door slamming in my face. I caught up to him at his car, and he opened my door for me. I asked to be let out at the subway. He stopped the car about 20 feet from the door and said, “This alright?” I answered, “Well, since the door is all the way up there and I am here, closer is best.” He laughed and let me out. I gave him a hug, the type you give to a friend who has a terrible runny nose and conjunctivitis.
He called me several times after this date, having apparently believed that we had an amazing time. I often wonder if men are even in the same Phylum as us. When I got home, my friends called and asked how my date had been. I responded, “I really don’t want to talk about it,” and went downstairs to watch “The Daily Show.” Ah, Jon Stewart – now there’s a man after my own heart. ¤ Lara