Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 329(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
That leaves me.
Chloe Scott. Third wheel, or seventh wheel in this case.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have. It’s just that I’m super awkward. Plus dating is hard.
I’ve been stood up. I’ve been sent dick pics—more unsolicited dick pics than I can count. I mean, what is with that? How does that seem like a good idea? I deleted the first one figuring it was a random loony. After the third one I checked my online dating profile, wondering if I’d somehow checked a box requesting penis pictures. I couldn’t even find an option for that.
Once a guy forgot my name—in the middle of our date. Just last month I went out with a guy who asked me if I wanted to have sex before dinner. I’m not even kidding. I met him at seven outside of the restaurant and he mentioned our dinner reservation was at nine. I was confused, but I put a smile on my face, thinking he’d actually forgotten to get a reservation and now we had to wait till nine. No biggie. But no. He told me he lived around the corner from there and he thought we could go back to his place before dinner. Because, and I quote, “It’s not good to have sex on a full stomach.”
I’d met him online a few weeks earlier—having joined a dating website in my quest to fulfill my being-an-adult checklist:
Graduate with honors.
Secure a full-time teaching position.
Find an apartment.
Learn how to date.
I’d felt comfortable with him. I’d enjoyed talking to him both online and eventually over the phone, and he was one of the few who hadn’t sent an unsolicited dick pic. So when he’d asked me if he could take me to dinner I’d readily agreed.
Then he made the comment about having sex on a full stomach. I was about to make a sarcastic joke, thinking he was kidding, when he continued. “They have great steak here, but I can’t eat red meat before sex, so I thought we could do sex before dinner instead of after.”
Totally. Serious.
I about had a heart attack because in my limited experience I don’t know what one says to that. Besides no thank you, obviously. But I hate rejecting people. I hate it. I teach the second grade. I’m all about kindness and inclusion and not hurting feelings. Which is stupid, I know. Bad behavior does not deserve a reward. That’s what I tell my classroom. Be kind, class. Treat each of your classmates as a friend. Compliment each other. If you know something, share. If you can help someone, help. When they do, they earn classroom coins that they can exchange for special prizes in my classroom store. When they’re unkind to a classmate they lose a coin.
But those rules don’t apply to dating. So while I wanted to ask my date to hand over his coins, I’m not sure it would have been effective—or given the message intended. But I wasn’t putting out to spare someone’s feelings. So I made it clear I wasn’t having sex with him on the first date. I tried that once, in college. No lie, the guy didn’t remember having sex with me the next day—or pretended he didn’t. Neither of which was great for my self-esteem.
So I’d declined his offer to have sex before dinner and he’d declined taking me to dinner. He’d left, and I’d gone home and eaten ramen noodles. Which is fine, it’s not that tragic. Ramen noodles are delicious.
I was on a dating site once before. Everly, my college roommate, signed me up without my knowledge. Apparently I had a lot of interest based on a profile I didn’t fill out and conversations I wasn’t having. My bestie, posing as me, was very popular. Later, she would try to tell me that it was practically the same as me being popular, but I wasn’t buying it. She did get me to go on a date disguised as a tutoring session. How she got the guy to meet me in a college library I’ll never know. It took me twenty minutes to realize he didn’t need tutoring in sophomore English, that he had in fact graduated with a degree in engineering four years prior. It took another five minutes for me to explain to him that I wasn’t the girl he’d been chatting with online and apologize for my roommate’s well-meaning interference.
I wasn’t interested in Everly’s matchmaking. College was for studying, preparing for the future. Plus Everly thinks with her heart, not her head, and where did that ever get anyone? I mean, yes, she did marry a billionaire who’s crazy in love with her… okay, never mind, my point sucks. But I’m not Everly. Flying by the seat of your pants and thinking with your heart works for girls like Everly, but not for girls like me. Men gravitate towards Everly. I send off warning signals that say, Too much work.