TKOG Who goes out with someone from Craigslist

This post teaches you how not to treat first dates. For a secretary’s-eye view of how to bend administrative assistants to your will, check out my piece in Life As A Human.

NTKOG #193: The kind of girl who not only goes out with but lives to tell about a date procured on the sketchiest site on the internet, hands down. (Though if you’re actually on Craiglist now, I can’t vouch for what your hands are down…)

I am: skeptical of legitimate dating sites — let alone a website one of the normal and proven functions of which is to find a random stranger to mess around with in the last stall of an Arby’s bathroom.

I am not: too picky about any quality in a man except one: he needs to be exceptional. A trait that’s shockingly hard to find outside the ivory tower.

The Scene: Finally, the conclusion of my three-part saga about posting the most absurdly specific Craigslist ad ever.  When last we’d left, I’d requested a man who was brilliant, weird and wonderful; received some funny and charming replies, but didn’t see actual potential in any of the replies — except one.

Oh that one, though. The six-page email — entitled “You Had Me At Smoot-Hawley Tariff” — covered a range of topics: Craigslist Guy’s educational background (entirely acceptable), career aspirations, current pleasure reading, ’20s obsession, Amazon Prime membership. Everything, in short, required to pique a right-minded girl’s interest, plus impeccable grammar and a little panache. “I’m tempted to think you are some sort of illusory oasis in the desert of the internet,” the email ended. “I have never hoped for a hypothesis to be disproved so hard before.”

So I responded. A lengthy and interested response, in fact, after the sending of which, I allowed myself to get a little giddy. That was mistake number one.

Mistakes 2-7?

2. He signed his next email: “Longingly yours.” Creepy much? But I gave him a pass, until…
3. …all of his subsequent emails were riddled with so many typos they were almost literally unreadable. No spaces between seven or eight words at a time, near-homophones replacing the intended words every few sentences, creative capitalization. But perhaps he’s a fan of free-form poetry, I rationalized, or maybe dyslexic. Hell, Jordan Catalano couldn’t even read. But then…
4. …he started peppering every other sentence with a “lol” or “haha”. Funny people do not laugh at their own jokes in real life. Even moderately unfunny people should not be so hard-pressed for laughs that they feel the need to virtual-chuckle at their own non-jokes online.
5. Fortunately, this grew to be less and less of an issue, as it took him over six days to respond to any email I sent after the initial two. After a while, I began to hope I was done with him, but then, in my inbox, another typo-crawling missive, every week like clockwork. Which is how…
6. …it took us TWO MONTHS to schedule a date. Which I think even he couldn’t have wanted to go on, considering he scheduled it for:
7: SIX FRIGGIN’ PM. You know who schedules dates at 6pm? Ax murderers, retirement home hussies, and dudes who are too lazy to change out of their work clothes first.

So can I just come out and say, hey dudes, let’s maybe not be so much of dating guys from Craigslist? Or do you want to hear about the date as a little bit of back-up?

I showed up at the bar about ten minutes late, straight from work, after a twenty-minute pep talk with my mom about how much I didn’t want to see this guy. Finally dragged myself in and recognized him immediately. Because there was no one else in the bar. It being 6 fucking pm.

He was nursing a beer already, so I ordered a gin and ginger, prepared to slam it down and run home. Unfortunately, Craigslist Guy didn’t share my plan: he pantomimed sips of the beer, nursing it through my two gin and gingers and then, as I was signaling the bartender for a check, immediately requested another hour-and-a-half beer.

But surely, you’re saying, y’all must have been involved in some sort of conversation to make the booze flow so slowly? Half right. On his side of the date, the conversation flowed like oil into the gulf. Every word I managed to shoehorn into the spaces he took for breath seemed to remind him of another story that had happened to one of his friends — nothing, you see, ever happened to Craigslist Guy personally, a life void he filled by appointing himself professional historian and publicist to his very average crew of undergrad homies.

After a while, his conversational tyranny grew so patently ludicrous that I began to test him:

CG: It’s amazing how territorial hipsters get in Billyburg. Oh, that’s what we hipsters call Williamsburg, if you didn’t know.
TKOG: Tell me about it. Last time I was there, I got in a barfight. I had to punch someone.
CG: That’s cool.  Yeah, so when my friend was there, she was in line for the restroom and [five minute anecdote that reaches its climax with some frosty glances. about which i am hearing. third-hand. kill me.]

CG: So where’d you grow up?
TKOG: Vegas. It’s pretty crazy there.
CG: That’s cool.
TKOG:  Yeah, y’know, lots of coke-fueled orgies in high school. Friends working in strip clubs. But that was nothing compared to the thing that happened senior spring…
CG: Oh, okay. Did I mention I’m from Maryland? [five-minute rant about -- oh, who knows. I was busy discreetly rubbing gin in my eyes to try to feel feelings again.]

Finally, after three hours of frantically pursuing any possible out, managed to talk my way out and run to the T station. Although he offered to walk me there, I declined and he seemed happy to remain at the bar. He probably didn’t even notice I was gone.

The Verdict: Well, at least he wasn’t the Craigslist killer. Still, what an awful waste of an evening. Friggin’ dude was so consumed with trying to seem cool and interesting that he didn’t take a second to notice I’m easily twice as interesting as he is. Although I do owe him for one thing: he single-handedly convinced me that dating just can’t be worth it. Here’s to being single ’til grad school.

Tagged as: boston, cambridge, craigslist, date, first date, he also condescendingly explained to me who the decemberists are. look asshole i've been listening to and hating the decemberists since 2003 -- before they were signed to capitol, he also totally knows about this blog but it's been so long since the date that if he reads this he kind of had it coming, how are people so socially inept?!, in all fairness when i was allowed to talk i enjoyed talking to him slightly more than talking to a plant. but less than talking to my stuffed elephant., no offense to people who met their sigs on craigslist. but let's be honest. either both y'all are crazy or you're in the lucky like 0.0000002%, single, terrible date, we were at the bar from 6 to 9 and he didn't even SUGGEST grabbing a bite by the way. i was friggin' starving., you make me stop ovulating