The main reason it is hard to date when you are awesome is that people lie to you. I've brought this up with a few of my lady friends who are equally awesome and they were quick to agree.
Here's how it generally goes:
"What do you do for fun," he asks.
"Snowboarding is pretty cool," I say, randomly picking one of the many millions of things I do for fun.
"I love snowboarding," he practically shouts, "I go ALL THE TIME, it's like my favorite thing to do. We should go together!!!!!!"
So I agree and say, yeah, let's go this weekend.
To which he replies, "Um...well I don't have a board anymore."
And I'm confused.
And he says, "I sold it a few years ago."
And I'm confused.
And he says, "I went one time in college and I haven't gone since."
And I'm confused.
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That's scenario number one, wherein dude claims to have the same hobbies as you. A variation of scenario one is when he gets so deep into the lie that he actually ends up doing this fake hobby with you and totally sucks at it. If you are a guy I implore you not to let it get that far, it is profoundly annoying to babysit someone you've just met, and it's downright dangerous to claim you rock climb and try to fake your way through belaying.
Scenario two is the one that really blows my mind. This is the one where the guy lies about his living situation, job, car, finances, generic lifestyle things. The reason this is so weird to me is that I don't care about those things, I'm much more concerned with hobbies and whether or not you can quote my favorite movies, max bonus points if you can make me laugh for real.
I ended up at The White House Grill with one such liar. We had been texting for about a week and during that time he had told me that he was a foreman at a construction company, owned a house, loved dogs, and also loved to read. I too have a totally rad job, house, dogs, and a love of literature; so I was looking forward to actually talking to him instead of texting or yelling over karaoke singers in the bar.
So we sit down and I say, "How's it going," or some variation of that, and he says it's good because he didn't end up working today. "Day off?" I ask.
And he says, no no, Labor Ready didn't need me today.
"Oh okay, you're a temp. I thought you said you were a foreman for a company?"
"No." he glares at me, "I never said that. Why would I say that?!" He's pissed.
Funny, because my phone does store texts, and that's what it says. "I don't know why you'd say that," I shrug.
He snorts, "Yeah well, it's good I had the day off because I had stuff to do around the house."
I perk up. Houses are one of my favorite topics, kinda like when you have kids and all you ever want to talk about is the random things they say and whether or not they have pooped today. "Oh yeah," I say, "I've been thinking about repainting my bathroom."
He glares at me again, clearly something is my fault but I'm not sure what. "I can't repaint because my Grandma likes wallpaper."
"Your Grandma lives with you?" I ask offhandedly, "a few people I know have taken in their elderly relatives, it's a lot of work, but it's nice that they don't have to live alone."
"It's her house!" he shouts, "she took me in, not the other way around."
"Oh," I'm a little taken aback, most of the time I'm so relaxed that I'm practically sleeping, and this guy's negative energy is seriously distressing, "you told me you owned the house."
"I would never say that. You make things up," he throws his fork down on the table like we're about to rumble. "Anyway, my mom and her boyfriend live in the trailer in the backyard, so right now I'm living in the basement. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!!"
"Uh...no." I stand up and grab my purse, "I really need to get a run in before it gets dark."
And I do, I run like hell all the way back to my car.
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This brings us to scenario three: the therapy session. I usually end up on this date after meeting a guy in a bar who seems to be really chill and fun, he's amusing and smiling, he seems easygoing. I'm attracted to people who are confident, self assured, and have a positive outlook. It's pretty easy to trick me on this front because I'm the same even-keeled person every day, and it's easy for me to forget that some other people bounce up and down from absolute nirvana to the depths of despair within minutes.
So we arrive and we sit down for drinks, and he's...sad. As a person who is only sad when sad things are happening, I immediately worry and ask what's wrong. Then I brace myself because I'm sure he's going to say that someone died.
"Oh just everything," he sighs. "My life. My life just sucks."
"That's...too bad?" I have no coping response for this, I can't even begin to understand.
It goes on in this way for a while and I struggle to prop up the conversation for the both of us, even though he seems intent on letting it fall down and crush us. He wants me to keep asking him why he is sad so he can keep saying it's everything, somehow this is enjoyable for him.
At this point, the date is flat and colorless, I fall back on the default question: "So...what do you do for fun?" I ask this like it has six question marks at the end, I'm seriously reaching here.
He unleashes a torrent of words about working too much to do anything fun, his psycho ex girlfriend, why all liberals are stupid, how much he hates living here; topping it all off with an angry statement about how awful it is to be dating. His statement doesn't require a response, which is good because I'm making lists in my head of all the fun things I'm going to do when I get home.
I imagine some time passed but honestly I wasn't paying attention.
"Wow this is awkward..." he mumbles.
"What?" I blink back into the present.
"Well...I'm just staring at you and you aren't saying anything," he spits, angry at my inability to answer the questions he's not asking.
"Oh," I say, downing the rest of my drink, "stop staring at me then."
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So to recap, the people I encounter most often in the dating scene have
- fake hobbies
- fake job/house/car
- fake attitude
