Thursday, January 8, 2009

Brent Broker

Age: 37
Height: 6'2"
Occupation: commercial insurance broker

I've been skulking on and off one particular dating site for upwards of five years, and I've met A LOT of guys from it. Only one guy I still keep in touch with and consider a friend, but I digress.

I have this thing about paying for dating websites. I know it's not fair to the guy because he's spending the money to contact me, but shouldn't he pay the $2.00 to send me a message? To get to know me? Never mind that I'm just too cheap to pay the $2.00 myself.

Brent is one guy that paid the toonie. His profile was great. He seemed nice and family oriented, smart and warm. His emails were really well written and didn't give me the heebie-jeebies. When he phoned and left a message to confirm our coffee date yesterday, his voice was manly and resonant. Things were looking good.

We had agreed to meet at a coffee shop near where I work. He ended up getting confused as to where it was (in fact, he went to the wrong chain shop entirely), but through the magic of cell phones, we managed to meet up on a nearby street corner. He was wearing a navy blue suit and he looked sharp. We walked back to the coffee shop that was in the mall and grabbed a coffee.I didn't let him buy me a coffee - was that wrong? He didn't insist - was that right?

We sat down at a table at the adjacent food fair and sat across from each other. And then, it started to feel awkward. He was grasping for questions to ask, instead of just letting them come naturally from conversation. It's not that the questions were wrong - they were the typical getting to know you questions. But it felt more like an interview than a chat.

Within 10 minutes, he made the big boo-boo that I'm not sure I can really "get over" -not that it was particularly traumatizing, but it was dating faux-pas. Let me set it up: he asked me if I had lived here all my life and I mentioned that I was born in the Philippines but had moved here shortly after I was born. He then launched into a story about his ex-girlfriend (strike 1) who is Filipino (strike 2) who he broke up with because she was self-centered (strike 3). He continued to speak about her in less than neutral terms (she was crazy; she was part of a religion that he classified "a cult").

I admit it - I asked questions and egged him on, just to see if he would continue talking about her. He did. And then I think he realized he was breaking a fundamental dating rule by talking about his ex, and badly! He pulled back a little and said, "Well, it just didn't work out." Perhaps he could redeem himself...He tended to talk on and on, without asking too many questions of me, until he sort of stopped in mid-speech, looked me in the eye and said, "Are you dating? You know, are you dating anyone? I guess you are, cause you're out with me. Me, I was dating this girl back in August and we got pretty serious but then we broke up three months later so I've been single ever since. You know, just take a break. But I'm not really the type to date more than one person at a time, but that's just my preference. So are you dating?" Did I mention that after awhile, his manly voice began to resonate with cheesy car salesman undertones? Cheque please!

The date ended about 45 minutes later when he announced that his real estate agent was showing his place and he had to be available at 6:30 in case someone made an offer. he then went on a bit about how he was buying a bachelor suite in Yaletown and that he had enough money to buy another place, you know, as a rental. That kind of sealed the deal for me. I hate it when guys try to impress you with stuff they have and not who they are.He asked me if he could call me, and I said he could. As I walked away, I classified him as "take or leave". If he calls, great. If not, perhaps even better.