by Anonymous

The holidays are fast approaching, and I’m sure all of you are busy with decorating, shopping and preparing your homes for the festivities.  As for me, I’ll be heading South to visit family and taking a break from dating in Bucks County for awhile. Boy, do I need one. For this last date, I decided to take a chance and go for someone 10 years older than me. I was expecting, tall, dark and handsome, but I ended up with none of that. Instead I got short, nerdy and well, you’ll get the picture.

As my online dating fiasco continues, I saw an lengthy email, full of compliments and someone who truly read my profile inside and out. He was cute and seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. We chose to meet in New Hope at Fran’s Pub to grab a burger and fries. Nothing too fancy and a bit more low key.

We exchanged numbers (big mistake!) and started texting a few days leading up to our date. He was quirky, funny and witty. Everything I like in a guy, but he seemed to take it to extreme. The overwhelming compliments became too much and as our date approached, he would send me random time countdowns when we would see each other. It was as if we were counting down to the ball dropping for New Year's Eve. On the day before the date he literally did an hourly countdown. He would write, “23 hours and 16 minutes until I see you!”, or “Only 12 hours and 2 minutes left!”, and finally, “See you in 56 minutes!”. At first I thought it was cute because I found out he was a math teacher and thought it was his dorky mathematical side coming out, but when my phone beeped every hour on the hour, it became such a nuisance, but I didn’t want to be rude. We shall call him, “Math Mike”.

On the night of the date, as I struggled to find parking and locate quarters to feed the meter, I noticed I was 15 minutes late and I still had a few blocks to walk. I sent him a quick text as I scurried down Mechanic Street in my high heels to let him know how sorry I was for running behind. When I arrived, he was sitting at the bar, beer in hand and a big grain on his face.

“You must be Mike,” I said with a smile as I extended my hand.

“And you must be my date for the evening,” as he bent forward and kissed my hand. Awkward, but cute.

As soon as we sat down, he suggested we order a pitcher of beer with “a lot of napkins”. This is going to be a long night. Math Mike took most of the lead in the conversations and mainly just talked over me. I discovered he was against marriage, he had a daughter only 8 years younger than me and he didn’t like to date women taller than him. At one point I took a quick look at my iPhone and saw my girlfriend had texted me “How’s it going? Should do the emergency call?”

As tempting as it was, I said no and came up with my own way of escaping.

“I’m having a fabulous time, but I really must be on my way. My meter is almost out.”

He threw 8 quarters to me and suggested I feed the meter instead. I politely declined and executed my escape route.

The next day Math Mike said he’d love to go out again and I was honest and said I wasn’t interested. He suggested we wait 30 days and see how I feel then about having a second date. As the 30 day marked approached I did a small countdown to myself to see if he was going to follow through. Don’t you know, right at the 30 day mark he contacted me asking me on a 2^nd date. I had to put him down lightly, so I lied saying I had met someone. Poor guy never made it to the final countdown.

Better luck next time.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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