Thursday, May 6, 2010

Training a Puppy

I know I've been out of commission for a while here, but have no fear, there are still countless stories to be told!

There was a guy at another job I had that caught my eye, and I was pretty sure I had caught his. You know that fun, flirty time where there's a clear mutual attraction? We played around in that fun time for a while. We didn't necessarily have to see each other during work, but we'd make excuses to run into each other, and it was exciting.

After a few weeks of this, he asks me for my number. I'm thinking, Yay! Finally! As he's typing it into his phone he says to me, not even looking up from the phone, "You can come over to my place tonight." I can? Lucky me! Oh wait, I remember now. I'm not a whore. "No thank you," I say. He stops typing, looks up from the phone and asks, "What?" Apparently I'm the first woman in the world to turn down his stellar charm. "No thank you," I repeat. He stares at me questioningly, and after a pause he asks as if he's speaking in a foreign language, "Well, can I...call you later?" Aw, I feel like I'm training a puppy! "Yes, you can call me later," I tell him.

Work is busy and I don't see him much or hear from him at all, but about a week later I get a text from the puppy. "You should come over tonight." Whap on the nose with a newspaper. No. Bad puppy. My actual response was, "No thank you." "Aw, come on. Come over." Oh, ok. Now I'm sold. Maybe I need to be clearer. "When we go out, we'll go OUT, not in, so drop the 'come over to your place' thing." And to this I get no response.

About another week later I get another text. "Let's do dinner." Ok, well, I guess that's kind of asking me out. "Where?" I ask. He writes back, "If you drive up to my side of town, I'll buy, but if I have to drive to you, you buy." Whap on the nose! No! Bad puppy! "You either want to take me out or you don't. Sorry, no bargaining."

Now I'm not stupid. Normally at this point the guy would have blown all his chances with me. Well, if you don't know me, let me add in a little extra detail. I'm 6'1". This puppy happened to be 6'8". You just don't come across that many super tall guys, so I let a little more slide with him than I should have.

So he doesn't respond to that statement either. I know what you're thinking, this guy's a keeper, right? I know. About a week later, he sends me yet another text asking, "Can I please take you out to dinner? We'll go wherever you like and it's my treat." Well look at that. Good puppy! I tell him that would be great, and we decide to go out 7pm on Sunday night. He said he wanted to pick me up, and even though I don't normally let my dates pick me up for a first date, I'd worked so hard at turning him into an acceptable date that I didn't want to discourage his positive behavior. So against my better judgment I gave him my address and we were set for Sunday at 7pm.

Sunday afternoon at about noon I get a text from him that says, "I'll be there at 8." I write back, "Thanks for letting me know you'll be late, but can we aim for more like 7:30?" No response from him. About an hour later I send another text that says, "8 is a late start. Can you try for 7:30?"Nothing. Around 4pm I send a text, "When are you coming to pick me up?" "8." Mister conversational. Well gosh, I am really looking forward to this date.

I get ready, and I tend to be early for things, so I was ready around 7:40, with high hopes that he would still show up early since I was so clear that I would have preferred to go out earlier. No dice. 8:00 comes and goes, and I'm still just sitting up in my apartment all dolled up with nowhere to go. At 8:30, I start thinking, is he standing me up? I haven't heard a word from him since 4:00, so maybe he's just blowing me off. Most of the time, that would fall under the category of upsetting, but he had left a sour taste in my mouth I was actually happy with the thought of not going out.

At 8:40 I decide that it's jammie time. I change from my date clothes to my pajamas, wash my face and plop down on the couch for some Sunday night TV thinking about how this is probably a good thing.

At 9:15, I get a call from the puppy. "Hey, I'm downstairs, you can come out," like he showed up on time. No 'I'm sorry I'm late,' no 'I was stuck in traffic,' no nothing. No remorse and clearly no couth.

I reply, "You're over an hour late. Technically you're over 2 hours late because I didn't want to change from our original time of 7:00. I thought you were standing me up."

"Well I'm not. Come down stairs," he says.

"I'm not coming downstairs. I'm in my pajamas."

"What? Are you fucking kidding me? It took me 2 hours to get ready and you're not even coming down?!" Yeah, that's the ticket. Swear at your date before it starts.

I ask, "Why didn't you even call or text to say you were going to be late? I'm not..."

Click.

What? WHAT? He HUNG UP on me?! This fucking puppy just peed all over me! Who the hell hangs up on the person they want to take on a date? And what guy takes TWO hours to get ready? I'm a girl and even if I really really try to take a long time, I still only take about 1 1/2 hours to get ready. Maybe you should have been a man and gotten ready in 15-20 minutes like the rest of the known male universe and you wouldn't have been 2 hours late for our date!! I can't even imagine what the hell took him 2 hours to do, let alone why he would even advertise that it took him that long to get ready.

But I digress. He hung up on me! Wait, maybe he didn't. Maybe he or I dropped the call. I mean, a normal human being wouldn't actually show up an hour and 15 minutes late for a date with no notice and then hang up on the girl for asking why he didn't tell her he'd be late, right?

I call him back and it rings six times then goes to voicemail. Ok jerk wad, clearly this was not an accident or a dropped call. As his outgoing message was playing I was debating on whether or not to leave a message. Then I thought, well of COURSE I'm going to leave a message. I tell him he is one of the most disrespectful people I have known, who does he think he is hanging up on someone like a child throwing a tantrum, and do not ever call me again.

I hang up the phone and I am just fuming. What an unbelievable tool! Seriously. Who the fuck does he think he is?! I'm so beside myself that anyone could act so rude, I call one of my girlfriends to recap the whole thing. Maybe I'm missing something. I mean, really, how does anyone feel the have the right to act like that? Maybe I'm too inside the whole incident and I can't see some big flag saying why this behavior could possibly be acceptable. My friend is with her mom when I tell the story and they both agree, yes, he's a terrible human being and no, there's nothing I'm missing. He's just a major tool and all we can do is be happy this all happened before I went on the date so I didn't have to deal with this piece of shit for an entire evening.

At 10:00, my phone rings. I look and it's the god-forsaken puppy. I'm no longer angry, in fact I couldn't care less about this guy at this point, but an apology would still be nice to hear. I answer the phone, "Hello?" He responds, "Are you coming downstairs or what?"

???

Really? Really? You show up an hour and fifteen minutes late, you don't tell me you're running late, you hang up on me, I leave you a message saying to not call me again, and all of this tells you to wait outside for us to still go on the date?!?! What have you been doing in your car for the last 45 minutes you weirdo? If you really wanted to still go out, why would you not lead with an apology? Wouldn't have done him any good, but come on. What a ridiculous douche bag!

"No, what part of tonight made you think I was still going to..."

Click.

Yeah, that seems about right. I've always been a cat person anyway.

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