7 months into a serious relationship, I’ve been having little epiphanies about my single life…perhaps I’ve gained some distance and wisdom on it, rather than reporting from the eye of the Dating Hurricane.

I believe a bad date happens because of at least one of 5 elements:

1. BAD INTEL: You go out with someone and you find you missed important info or weren’t given it. For instance, my friend was set up with a guy with a missing arm – and no one thought to give that poor girl a heads up, “Hey, by the way, he’s missing a major appendage. FYI.” That’s a severe example, but it can also be when someone posts unusually flattering pictures of themselves or their pictures are blurry, far away, in dark bars, etc. and you hope for the best (I’m sure she’s hot and she’s just had terrible, terrible luck being photographed)…which brings me to….
2. LACK OF DUE DILIGENCE: You didn’t vet this person enough before you agreed to a date. Maybe you didn’t talk to them on the phone and relied on your “text chemistry” or “e-mail banter” or how much you seemed to have in common (on paper). I had one of the worst dates with a girl who seemed perfect for me – quirky, young, into pop culture, but she had blurry / far away / sunglasses on / no smiling photos (see Rule #1 above) and we never talked before meeting. I could have caught her weird, socially awkward personality on the phone and wouldn’t have suffered through a painful, painful dinner I, of course, was on the hook for.
3. DIDN’T TRUST YOUR GUT: An acquaintance of mine had a terrible date with a guy who was verbally abusive and mean the entire night. When I asked if she talked on the phone with him, she said she did and there were no red flags. None at all. When I pressed her, she finally admitted he was really sarcastic when they had talked. Perfect example of ignoring a red flag. I talked to dozens of girls who were boring (but nice) and hoped for some kind of personality miracle when we met for coffee and it never happened. People don’t make huge personality shifts between the phone and in-person.
4. IGNORED STANDARD DATING PROCEDURES: Evan Marc Katz had a recent blog about the 10 worst dates people had and more than half could have been avoided by sticking to common sense stuff when meeting a stranger (especially a male stranger) – like always meet in a public place. Many of these people were coming over strange guys’ homes on date 1 or worse, inviting them over to their home (“So, if you don’t want to assault me on Date One, here’s where I live so you can do it at your convenience.”). One even robbed some lady in the middle of the night when he asked to sleep on the couch. In his blog, there were a lot of bad situations that wouldn’t have happened in Starbucks on a Saturday.
5. BAD SURPRISE: These are cases of just bad luck – wrong place, wrong time — just couldn’t have seen it coming. Like when my validation ticket failed and I couldn’t get out of a mall parking garage and cars were backing up behind me honking and my date shut down (granted, she could have been nicer about it) or when a date took me to a party where the host attacked me with garlic baked squash or when I met a girl at a diner and her devastatingly handsome ex-boyfriend (or ex-or-current lover – I couldn’t tell) happened to be seated next to me at the counter when she walked up and then was rattled to the core for our entire date…while he ate his meal right around the corner from our booth. And then came over to say goodbye. And they kissed on the lips.

In June of 2011, I had a date with a 29 year old petite, cute nerdy girl around the corner from her house. She was FUNNY — now, I don’t say that lightly. As a former stand up (and occasional depressed person), it’s a huge feat to make me laugh. And this girl did it often. We had a 1 hour and 45 minute coffee date that just flew by.

We went out a few days later and saw a comedy show also around the corner from her house and then kissed her car. Unfort., the mood was ruined by two assholes who kept driving past us with their brights on again and again.

I called for a third date….and nothing.

I was a bit surprised, but she seemed a little guarded, a little snarky, probably not ready for any kind of intimacy.

But she was funny. And I needed new friends.

So about a month or two later — I don’t remember, I wrote her a postcard (I was in her neighborhood and remembered the building where I dropped her off and jotted down the address one day) and said, “I know you don’t want a third date but you are the funniest person I’ve ever gone out with and seem to have a lot of quirky stuff in common, so if you ever want to see a movie to go to a weird art or comedy show, let me know. YOUR MAILMAN READ THIS” I wrote in big letters at the bottom.

That was probably late summer of 2011.

Then the other day I saw her on Match.com. I clicked on her profile and read it and then a day later I got this:

I had a e-harm date on Sunday which annoyed me a few levels.

First off, we had a lovely chat, she was a striking redhead (in her photos), a therapist, a good listener, good laugher. I was looking forward to it.

I call a few hours earlier to confirm we are still on. No response. (We had made the date the day before).

20 minutes before 3, I text “Heading out now” (no response).

Luckily, the coffee shop was no more than a 5 minute drive. It might have been 4. So if she stood me up, I could get back home pretty quick.

She shows up (on time) and she is dressed for the gym — jogging / workout outfit, big, Jackie O sunglasses, a big baseball hat (the kind you get free at charity event — it was even autographed by someone), running sneakers, no make up, all her lovely hair tucked under the cap.

Meanwhile, I’m wearing a banana republic sweater, dark new Levis, John Varvatos shoes, I shaved, I have stuff in my hair.

It made me feel that she DIDN’T GIVE A SHIT. Didn’t do a damn thing with her hair, didn’t put even lip gloss on. It made me feel not worth 3 minutes of prep. Hell, a nice blouse and nice jeans — even flip flops would have been okay.

Oh, and she NEVER took off the sunglasses. (I suggested it, but she refused)

She was gorgeous (under all the workout-I-don’t-care) and we had a nice time (and a great talk the night before), but she shook my hand and told me to “enjoy the book” I had with me as we parted.

She’s not on board, right?

I was matched with a girl named “Susie” on e-harm. (I like calling it “e-harm” instead of “e-harmony”). I think we made it through the “5 Questions of Death” and got to talk on the phone.

On the phone, she sounded like a 11 year old. You know, that tiny, mildly squeaky voice. And answers questions in short stacco bursts. And when I told a joke, it took a second for her to process it and then laugh, like when you tell a joke to a kid. You know, you can watch their brains figuring out the twist and then they go “Oh, ha ha ha.”

I didn’t know if we should get together, but she was super, super cute. 5 feet and a curvy little body. So I made plans to meet at a breakfast place near her house and left it on her VM. And then she called me back VERY EXCITED about the place I choose. Unusually excited.

CUT TO: The date. She’s 15 minutes late. And since was early, I had been sitting there for 20 minutes.

She shows up and she’s cute. And dressed like a kid. She had big white buttons on her jeans. Like she stole her pants from a Raggedy Ann doll. In fact, she’s the type of girl that would buy clothes with really big buttons. Or wear Blow Pop/Hello Kitty/SuperGirl T-shirts UN-ironically. Or overalls. It was hard to imagine her in a dress. And she had tiny little kid hands. What was not tiny was her bosom. She had a very adult bra-size. It was tough to process these two “ouvres” in my head.

It turns out she was excited about the place because she thought they had closed and they had choc. chip pancakes which she ordered and was very, very excited about. Like a kid would be. Like because they got choc. chip pancakes all was right in the world at that moment. It was kinda charming and made me uneasy at the same time. I felt like a Big Brother taking a Little Sister out for pancakes.

Conversation was tough as it sometimes is with an 11 year old. At the 35 minute mark, I said, “Well, my meter was going to run up” (which it was because she 15 mins late) and she suddenly looked sad.

“I can refill it…but while I’m gone you gotta come up with some questions to ask me, okay?” Somehow I didn’t sound like a dick when I said this.

I re-fill my meter and come back and sit down.

“What’s your favorite animal?”

For a second, I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t.

“I guess meerkats. I liked that show on Animal Planet — Meerkat Manor. Maybe 2nd, sloths. They are kinda popular now. After that Ellen show freakout with that blond actress.”

“Mine’s an elephant. And when I watch shows about elephants. I have to hold this elephant doll I have.”

Oh shit.

(TO BE CONT.)

http://screen.yahoo.com/confirmation-28488596.html

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make this play in my own blog, but trust me — it’s amazing….

Why? Because’s it’s happened to me and it’s one of my pet peeves….

Just the other night I was closing an OK phone call with an interested woman and I said, “Well, we should get coffee or something sometime…” (Meaning: Let’s get together)

And she snaps: “I don’t like coffee. It’s like a job interview. I’d rather do something active.”

“Like bowling?”

“No, ha, I hate bowling. I mean, like a walk down the Promenade.”

I think she heard the screeeeeeeeccccccch sound in my head of me pulling onto the side of the road cause she quickly added, “But whatever you want to do is fine.”

I was on the fence anyway and this just tipped me over. I don’t like when the other person has their own little first date rules they try and impose. It feels controlling. And not fun.

Why can’t coffee feel like when you just hang out with a friend?

Plus, I like to wear my nice shoes on a date and they ain’t meant for long walks.

After that last disaster date, I am trusting my gut. Thanks, Carrie!

a 1st date you’ve had THREE TIMES.

There’s a difference. A big one.

I remember this first occurring when I was in New York, close to my last year (prob. 1999 or early 2000), I had coffee with this redhead who worked for a famous director — THREE TIMES. Coffee. We never even graduated to dinner. Or even lunch. We literally met for coffee three times. And each time, it was basically the same date — small talk, a few laughs, no physical progression. Not even a kiss. Or a touch on the arm.

It was the Groundhog Day of Dates. Same date — same length, same level of intimacy — just a different coffee shop and day.

After the 3rd, I had to e-mail and and ask her if we were dating, not dating, friends, not friends or what. I wasn’t mad, I just needed clarity. I just didn’t want to have a FOURTH coffee date. She wrote back she was on the fence and that’s why we went out so much, but ultimately wasn’t feeling it. (We later hung out as buddies when I visited NYC a year later, but since lost touch)

I’ve had about four of these “Faux 3rd Dates” in the last year, but only now can I really distinguish them from a “Real 3rd date.”

• The dates are oddly far apart. I went out with ‘Lena’ last year — we had our 1st date in Dec, our 2nd in Jan, our 3rd in Feb. To contrast that, the Snarky Redhead I just went out with — we had 5 dates in 21 days. Every 4 days or so. There’s freakin’ MOMENTUM.
• They don’t progress physically. You don’t kiss until the 2nd or 3rd date. And it’s not a really good kiss — it’s basically a peck.
• The dates are all the same — you don’t feel like you are getting to know the other person any better — you don’t feel them opening up, you don’t feel any closer with them, you don’t like them any more — it just feels like an exact replica of Date One.
• You just feel you are on the fence about them and they are on the fence about you. You ask them on a 2nd or 3rd date and if they refused, you wouldn’t care. There’s a “what the hell” quality about it. And you are curious to see if they’d say yes to another date — almost like you were placing a half-assed bet with yourself.

It’s rare I have bad dates like I had today, but it still happens.

She was a Plain Jane, a teacher who lived in my neighborhood. We had an okay conversation. She was kind of cute. I was trying to go for cute-and-unassuming rather than sharp and attractive.

From the minute ‘go’, she was not on board. She totally checked out. When I was ordering for us at the counter, I could feel her swimming away in her mind. Ordering took forever too.

And for the next 45 minutes, she didn’t ask one question, didn’t engage me, didn’t seem interested in my questions — she was JUST WAITING FOR IT TO BE OVER. Stared at the tabletop most of the time.

At the 50 minute mark (just about when I was going to end it), she says “Well, my meter’s going to run up” and stands up.

I stand up. “Well, thanks for coming out,” I said like I was a talk show host.

We half-ass hug each other and SHE JUST WALKS OUT. I am still at the table.

Not even the-let’s-walk-out-together.

Uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Sometimes people have Aspergers. Sometimes I end up on dates with them.

Yesterday I talked on the phone with a really cute, nerdy girl who had I been e-mailing and IM’ing on match — once we started talking, the red flags began to go up — she began to take over the convo (“Where do you live? I live in Silver Lake!”) get really excited about small details (“There’s all these handwritten signs around here and a guy with no teeth who sells corn from a trash can he wheels around on a cart and also…”)

Uh-oh. I think she asked me one question in a 25 minute conversation — where I lived.

And when I got off the phone it started to make sense more — especially her job, academic researcher. And she sounded like a hyper 12 year old, not a 35 year old woman.

Anyway, that wasn’t the worst one.

In early 2010, I went out with a woman who was a well established film director in her native county (actually kind of famous, like had magazine articles written about her) — we had talked before meeting and she did talk a lot and wasn’t picking up my vocal cues but I just chalked it up to her being nervous and the Skype we were using instead of the phone.

We met at a cafe in Venice — and she was very striking — and tall — BUT TALKED NON-STOP FOR AN HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES. And maybe asked me one thing (that had a short answer). The last 15 minutes were her telling me EVERY DETAIL about the new screenplay she was writing. So LA. Sooooo Asspergers. It felt like my face was on a stairmaster — just the barrage of little words.

I drove her to her car where I noticed she seemed to want to kiss me and that she had what seemed to be a small cold sore growing on her lip. I hugged her, she got out and I drove home and took a nap.

The sad part is, MONTHS LATER (like 4 or 5), she e-mailed me a long-ish letter (a couple of paragraphs) and asked me if I wanted to be FRIENDS. This just crushed me. This girl is so alone, so lonely, she reaches out to a guy who didn’t call her for 2nd date months earlier?

I didn’t know if I should reach out with a polite, no thanks (where would I begin?). I was dating someone at the time and ran it past her and she said forget it.

So I did. I still feel a little bad.

My 2nd date philosophy is a simple one: If they were attractive enough, nice enough, interesting enough (or interested in me), I’d ask them on a 2nd date. Maybe I wasn’t / I’m in LOVE, but thought/think that’s there’s a little something there, I initiate another get-together.

I like to give women a chance I think a lot of women don’t give me.

If I was bored or sensed they were bored or not interested or they weren’t cute enough, I wouldn’t / I don’t.

I have a feeling that women (ok, a generalization) don’t operate like this — if they didn’t feel butterflies or didn’t see you as their future husband during the coffee date or don’t see you ravaging them in bed, they don’t bother. Too many buses coming down the pike to bother with any one particular bus.

I did have a date about 2.5 years ago that went so well, I actually walked away thinking “hey, I think that girl will be my next girlfriend” and was absolutely dumbfounded when she didn’t go out with me again (she pulled the “2nd date shuffle” on me). About a year ago and wrote her and kindly asked her if she remembered me and that I was having a hard time getting 2nd dates if there was something I did that turned her off.

Her reply:

Honestly, I don’t remember that well.  I know you didn’t say or do anything wrong – I would remember that.  I think I was exhausted by dating at that point and a little bit burned out on the process.  I was going on about three first dates a week and expecting some miracle or lightning bolt to happen on one of them.  I rarely went on any 2nd dates – because I didn’t hear back from people or I was too tired to respond to someone – and eventually just cancelled my membership out of exhaustion.

Three dates a week? That’s even too much for me and I date pretty frequently.

In acting class I learned about the “moment before” — before you enter a scene, your character has had a previous moment, a life before that scene, which directly effects how your character is going to act in the present moment. Was he just yelled at by his boss? Did he just get smiled at by a pretty girl? (Often when you only get “sides” in an audition — just the few lines you are playing — you have to make up a previous moment for the character.)

I mention this because I think the “moment before” a date is pretty critical, especially with women, who are unusually sensitive to moods and their surroundings. That’s why I don’t like to meet women immediately after they’ve worked late at the law office and still are in their pants suit and in ‘attorney head.’ There is something to be said about the days (30′s? 40′s? 50′s? 1880′s?) when women spent a few hours “preparing” for a date, bathing, relaxing, grooming and transitioned into “date mode” and stepping into their femininity.

What happened to me last week was when I got to the vegan hipster bistro to meet my date Francesca, she was in the midst of being hustled.

I got there 6 or 7 minutes late (I called ahead while in terrible traffic) and I saw what looked like her at a table outside and she was sitting with another woman. There were drinks on the table, so I thought maybe that’s not her — these ladies have been here awhile. So I call and then hear HER phone ring at that table. She says to woman she’s sitting with (her back facing me), “You gotta go,” with an unusual amount of anxiety in her voice.

I approach, stand in front of the table and they are arguing.

Woman (mid 40′s, black, dreds): “I told you how much before I sat down.”

My Date: “No, you said it was free.”

Woman: “No, I did not.”

(Now, I don’t understand what is happening — I thought maybe she had a business meeting before me — she was a freelancer –and my head isn’t really clear since I just spent an hour in traffic trying to get to Hollywood in what would have normally taken 35 min – 45 minutes max)

Then, flustered, my date says, “Okay, fine — I’ll pay you, it doesn’t matter,” reaches in her purse, thrusts the Hustler a $20 and the Hustler hustles out of there so fast, there was practically a puff of smoke where she had been standing.

Then my date tells me what happened — the woman approached and offered a FREE palm reading.

Now, I’m from back East (lived in NYC, went to high school in the inner city) — nothing’s EVER free — there’s always a catch. When people try and hustle me here in L.A. I say, “Dude, I’m from NYC — we INVENTED this.” One guy actually said, “Sorry, man” like he was violating my patent.

So this lady’s hustle is she says it’s free, but then says she didn’t say that, then out of social awkwardness and social anxiety and white guilt, the mark gives up the money that never would have if they knew it was $20 at the start.

So, understandably, my date — who is BREATHTAKING — pretty in her pictures, but just stunning in real life — is a little shaken.

I tell her a story how I got hustled in L.A. in a faux almost car accident to make her feel better. She comes off the ceiling a bit.

After an hour of nice chatting and laughs, she announces, “Look, I’m just getting a friend vibe from you — I just wanted to be honest, because your profile says you appreciate that, I mean, I’d go out with you again to get to know you better, but romantically I’m kinda on the fence so I’m not making any promises — I just want you to know if we go out again.”

(Now this was a woman who e-mailed ME first a note that said in the subject line “D — You look and sound absolutely fabulous” a couple weeks before)

Me (recovering from the shock, trying to keep a smile on my face): “Wow — that’s the first time in twenty years anyone’s told me that even before that first dated ended. So, just so I’m clear — we can go out again, as friends, but with small portion of romantic potential on the side?”

She laughed and nodded.

I picked up the check and got a “awwwwwwwww”-our-chests-are-not-touching-pat-on-the-back hug.

I bet if I knew what was going on and told the Hustler to get the fuck away before I called the cops, she not only would have not dumped me at minute 55, she probably would have made out with me, having stepped into my masculine and saved her. I bet something inside her was blaming me for being late, ’cause if I was on time, she wouldn’t have gotten hustled. She didn’t feel SAFE on some primitive level.

Had I just gotten there a few moments before…