After suffering through middle school and an abundance of failed relations thereafter, I have finally found the source to blame: Parental Masters, specifically Kenneth and Fern (I didn’t change these names. Feel free to either send them fan mail or hate mail depending on how you think I turned out). Good parents tell you that you are beautiful and you can do anything. Smart parents tell you the truth. My parents were good until I got to college, and then they became smart. (See picture below…they told me I was beautiful.)
I am a firm believer that parents should warn their children
that they are either normal or need to do some self-evaluations to fix their
social habits. My mother has no problem telling me I sound like a valley girl
and my high-pitched voice will not take me very far in life. (This is not mean;
it’s just telling the truth. Even though I hang up the phone every time she
says this.) Such was the case with Allen.
Where do I begin? Allen was a math “teacher”, “6’0” and “athletic.”
Allen was actually unemployed looking to teach math, 5’7, and he claimed to
play tennis. (I’m pretty sure I could have won a match, at least on the Wii.)
Once again though, I have low standards so this hardly bothered me. His high
pitched-voice, on the other hand, was a little bit startling.
We met at a coffee shop that Allen quickly decided was not
suitable due to the large crowd invading the space. As we made our way to the
second coffee shop, Allen did not hold back his comments about how the date was
going,
“I think it’s fine that we keep walking to another coffee
place. We seem to have a lot in common. You like sports. I like sports. There
are no holes in the conversation. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up the
conversation on dates.”
As we ventured to the third coffee shop since the second had
the same problem as the first,
“I think we are really connecting. My other dates were full
of awkward silences. This is going really well. Don’t you think?”
By then I discovered, he was going to make commentary on the
date the entire way through, and I was going to politely agree to everything he
was saying. We finally settled at the fourth coffee shop, a vegan hole-in-the-wall…I
like cheese, and I like milk. This was an “udder”ly bad decision.
“You don’t have your phone on the table, and you aren’t checking it every so often. That shows you really respect me, and are having a good time.”
Do you know how to respond to these comments? Do I clap,
like he just scored a basket? The cherry on top was our final conversation
topic. PAST RELATIONSHIPS He asked about my history. I replied nothing serious.
He replied questioning what that meant. I replied, “There is no one from my past
who meant enough to bring into my present.” He asked again what nothing serious
meant. I stopped responding. (We both went to college. College relations for
the majority of college graduates can be described as nothing serious, and we
all know what it means!)
Alas, the date was over, as I excused myself to hang out
with my brother-in-law. Two seconds later Allen asked me out on date two, via
text. I declined the offer.
I want everyone to know: This uncomfortable date full of
commentary is not a reflection of Allen, but a reflection of his parents.
Parents’ inability to tell their children the truth about how weird they really
are hurts the child’s chances at correcting his behavior and venturing down a
more average path. Allen is the product of parents cushioning their children,
when what we need is someone to tell us our behavior is weird, our jokes aren’t
funny, we are destined to live average lives and we could stand to take a
shower.
So this is for all the parents, including my Mom and Dad. I’m
blaming y'all if my search for my NJB, doesn’t pan out as hoped!
