Blind Date

“I guess that not being able to see makes dating a whole lot easier,” a one-time only dinner date suggested. “I mean. It wouldn’t matter to you what people look like. You could be with a really ugly ****** and you wouldn’t care.” 

I know beauty when I see it even if it’s not all about looks. I might just work my way into a conversation with an attractive man if one gets close enough to judge. True, it might be a very short-lived conversation because it all fades to nothing in the absence of a brain.  

This disconnect between what I think, and what others think I think, has offered up some comically tragic dates. What do my friends think of me? Why do they assure me that so and so is just perfect when they are obviously not?  

“My ex-wife is a beach,” said a heavily accented man from Botswana who sold discount utilities for a living and wasn’t afraid to ask for leads… “it was terrible. I had to get away so I went to the bitch every weekend.”  I was open mouthed. 

“I was at the bitch when I decided to give it all up and come to England.” He sighed in longing, presumably not for the beach. “Do you have any idea of how much it costs to park a car, long stay, in Botswana?” 

I did not. 

“Oh do come out for dinner,” insisted the man who had been sitting on the other side of the table during supper the previous night. I had neither spoken to him or had the faintest idea what he looked like. I took advice. 

“He’s nice,” said our hostess. “His Father was a vicar.” 

“A drink?” I countered. 

Halfway into the second glass of paint stripper he said. “Oh do come back to mine for a fish supper.” 

“That’s kind, but I need to be elsewhere by nine.” 

“Do you want to be my girlfriend or what?” he hissed. 

“Or what,” I said. 

My friend, Sceptic Tank rang to inform me about a date I would be going on that was not open for discussion. “He’s a really really young sixty-five” she said. “He’s really really nice looking and has a super cool apartment. He’s a really really nice man.”  

I had a sneaking suspicion that he may really really be playing in a different game. 

The really really nice man immediately called for a quick interrogation and a resume of no more than five hundred words that he would appreciate before Tuesday. I obliged.  

“Let’s have dinner.” He was very enthusiastic. 

“A drink would be better as I have to be somewhere else by nine.”  I said, planning ahead. 

We struggled for conversation. He asked me why my last relationship failed. Poor manners was what I wanted to say. I asked him about his likes and how he spent his time. He said that being retired could be lonely. I was sympathetic. We started to talk about antidotes to loneliness. He goes to a lot of talks and I was moved. Then he said, “Yesterday I went to a very good talk on IBS followed by a finger food lunch.” I don’t know why this was funny, but it was. He was moved, but not in the same way as me. 

On queue the phone rang.  

“Well how did it go?” 

“Not well,” I said. Sceptic Tank seemed taken aback. “That’s the last time I take instructions on dating from a woman who can see less than me.” 

“Yeah…He called me…He really really liked you, but, well, he thinks you are just too independent.” 

That really really takes the ******* biscuit. 

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