From the beginning (sort of)...

The name of this blog comes from a notoriously bad date I had that happened around ten months ago. As recently as two nights ago, I had people asking me to repeat the story so that they could bask in my embarrassment for just a little longer.

I should preface this by saying that I have very odd taste in men that has often been ridiculed. My roommates and I always say that one of the reasons that our friendships last is because we never go for the same guys. Part of that is also the fact that I only date men that are so socially awkward that no other self respecting woman would be caught dead with them. Its not that I search them out. I think its something in my pheromones that attracts them. Whatever it is, they always find me, and I always take the bait.

This particular date is completely my fault. There was actually a moment the night that I met Creepy that I leaned over to my best friend and asked him if he thought this guy was semi-retarded. Why I would then go out with this guy is beyond all understanding. I take complete responsibility for how bad this date was. I went in, eyes wide open, to a situation that couldn't have turned out as anything other then a ridiculously bad date. What I did not know until after the fact was that this guy had already been nicknamed Creepy by a group of my friends who didn't seem to think this information was relevant prior to my going out with him.

Creepy and I met at a party. We talked a lot that night, both of us completely inebriated. That is possibly why I ignored the obvious signs that this guy was a little off. I wrote off the close-talking and over-eagerness to alcohol. Mistake number one. When he asked for my number, I gave him my home number, not the cell. The cell is reserved for people whom I actually want to talk to. In an odd turn of events, however, despite the fact that we rarely answer the home phone, I answered the night he called and agreed to go out with him that Sunday. No time was set, but as it was a date, I assumed it was dinner or drinks, some sort of evening activity. You can imagine my surprise when he called at noon and said he was coming to pick me up in an hour. There was no way that was going to happen, so we compromised and settled on 3pm.

He had made this big deal about how he had the whole date planned out. When he showed up at my house, his big plan consisted of a choice between bowling and pool. Neither sounded appealing, so I chose the lesser of two evils and went with pool. I live just south of Hollywood and there is a great pool hall right on Hollywood Blvd. Creepy had other plans and instead took me 10 miles out of the way up to Glendale to a pool hall he had heard was fantastic. It was closed. So back down to my Hollywood pool hall we went, and didn't even end up playing pool. We just got some food and watched football. He was nice, very attentive (a little too much for a first date) and we didn't lack for conversation. He was definitely a close talker and felt the need to be touching me at all times, which should have been a huge red flag.

After we ate, he suggested a movie. Sounded good to me because it required very little brain power, specifically the movie we chose. Now picture Hollywood, where we were at this point. There is the Arclight and the Manns Theaters to the West, a couple of theaters in Los Feliz to the East. And most importantly, the Grove and the Beverly Center, both within blocks of my house, where he would eventually need to drop me off, just southwest of us. But no, those are not good enough theaters for Creepy. He insists we go all the way to Culver City, again, a good 10 miles from where we were. We see one of the worst movies in the history of man, The Forgotten, and at this point I am ready to go home. Its like 7:30pm, we've been hanging out for 4 hours and I knew 3 hours ago I wasn't interested.

However, my naiveté is raring its ugly head and when he insists on having a drink, I agree. Little did I know that the drink was at his house, which is next door to the theater, which obviously he planned all along. Creepy was a sneaky little bugger. We get up to his place, where he proceeds to give me the grand tour of his one bedroom apartment. I noticed right away that while he has a roommate, who is home, there is only one bed in the bedroom. I'm not sure what to make of that situation and since I pretty much lost all tact much earlier in the night, I ask him. Turns out, Creepy sleeps on the couch in the living room. What kind of guy insists on bringing a girl back to his place when he doesn't even have a bedroom? Answer: Creepy McCreeperson.

Now this is where it gets really special. He relegated his roommate to his bedroom and takes me to the kitchen to get a beer. I shit you not; the beer was barely open and in my hand before the boy mounted me in the kitchen like a schnauzer in heat. As I grappled with the current situation, which was this man humping my leg, I think I went into a state of unparallel shock. I didn't move, I didn't respond, and yet here this guy was dry humping me in his kitchen with his roommate not twenty feet away in the bedroom. I can't even tell you how long this went on, because I think its been buried somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Eventually he finished, I guess, and asked me if I wanted to see one of his films. He had earlier told me about his days at L.A. Film School and was apparently eager to show me one of his masterpieces, which is, I can only imagine, the logical next step in his bizarre mating ritual. We go and sit on the couch, his bed, and he puts the movie in. He wrote, directed, and starred in this picture, which was twenty minutes long and for the life of me I can not remember at all what it was about. It was okay. It was a student film. Not sure what else to say about it.

Obviously, my response was no where near the raves he was expecting. The movie ended, he leapt off the couch, turned off the VCR, turned on the light, stared me straight in the face and said, "You hated it, didn't you?" The disdain in his voice freaked me out. "No," I replied, terrified that this was the part in the scenario where they found my body in the trunk of his car, "I thought it was funny."

"You didn't laugh" he sneered
"Oh, you can't use me as a litmus test. I laugh at awkward moments." Trying anything to appease him.
"Well this was hysterical" he yells.

Now I am grasping for straws. I have no idea what to say, so I pick out a character in the movie, the sidekick Dave, and say "Dave's character was really funny."

"I know, I'm a horrible actor!" He seems genuinely hurt, well as hurt as an insane person can be.

He picks up my purse and tells me he is taking me home. I put on my shoes and we walk down to the car. Somewhere between the apartment and the car, something starts pricking my toe in my shoe. As to not upset him anymore, I don't mention anything and slip off my shoes quietly in the car. He doesn't say a word to me the entire drive. I don't even know if he is breathing at this point because I am afraid to look at him. We get to my house, and while he has been a gentleman (with the exception of the dry humping) the whole date, he barely even looks my way when I exit the car. I don't even think I was all the way out when he started driving away.
So here I was, standing at the bottom of my stairs, shoes in hand because there was still something poking me, after a 7 hour marathon date from hell. I get up to my porch and look at my shoe. There, having made its way all the way through the sole, is a 1-inch rusty nail sticking up right where my big toe should be. I walk into the apartment, where my roommates are all sitting on the couch. "How was it?" was the big question.

"At least the nail didn't go through my foot..."