Date with probation

Webster's dictionary defines probation as "critical examination and evaluation or subjection to such examination and evaluation". This date definitely had that. I wrote to you about the ex-Marine in blog "Boom on the phone" Saturday night was our dinner date. By the way, his job is a probation officer. Have you seen the television sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond? The brother Robert in the sitcom, that who I was on a date with. Well, not the actor but the date I had, talked and acted and had a negative personality just like the character Robert on the sitcom. Thankfully, he didn't touch his food to his chin every time he took a bite.

When we first met, we shook hands and he handed me his business card. I replied, "Oh, thanks, if I ever need a probation officer, I'll know who to call.

We agreed to meet at one of his favorite restaurants, he arrived there first and discovered there was an hour waiting list. Then he said, "Lets go to another place."
We left there and just decided to take one car so I rode in his car since it was his town and I didn't know where I was going anyway. The next place has a 45 minute waiting list. He turned to me and with a disappointed look on his face says, "Let's try another place." I said, "I don't mind waiting." "No" he said, "I know another place we can try." I told him, "It is Saturday evening, everywhere we go is going to have a waiting list." But yet again, we were back out in the parking lot walking to his car in search of another restaurant.

The next restaurant, what do you think happens, another waiting list. He can't wait, so we end up leaving that place also and going to another that is just a step up from a diner. I am wondering how we had gone from a nice restaurant, to a steak house, to another steak house to a diner. This is a bad sign on how the date is going to go, I can tell already. To his liking, the waiting list was only 20 minutes. If we would have stayed at the first restaurant, we would have been eating our nice dinner now.

He orders before me. Dinning etiquette, the woman's order is always taken first. If she doesn't know what she would like, you wait. I actually knew what I was ordering. When the waitress came to the table she was turned towards me and asked, "What would you like to order?" He jumps in and says, "I would like to order." After the orders are placed, the dreaded conversation begins.

Mostly he talks about money, how he doesn't ever have enough of it and he wants to date someone who is in a higher class or income bracket than he is. He continues on telling me about how he has dated lawyers, attorneys, other probation officers, his last "relationship", (and I use that term loosely), he says was with a news reporter. I asked him, "So what are you doing sitting across the table, out on a date with an artist?" He replies, "Because you have balls." I looked at him with a look of shock, he continued on, "I don't mean that to sound bad but you are bold, confident, and out-going." Oh, I was still confused considering how much he puts focus on money. He actually said, "You can't make it on less than $100,000. yearly income anymore. It's a tough world out there." He said that a lot, I think that is his coin phrase, "It's a tough world out there." He was wearing a diamond encrusted men's bracelet and a pinkie ring. Yeah, a pinkie ring. Are you serious!? This money hungry guy has plenty of it.

Okay, on to the reporter he told me about. This is the "last relationship" he had and said they broke up a month ago. He said, "It was really heart breaking for me, I thought she was the one, everything clicked, I thought I was getting closer to the American dream. She broke up with me, it was a total surprise, it took me almost a month to get over her." I asked him, how long were you together?" Much to my surprise, the way he was carrying on about her he replies, "A month, we went on two dates." "two dates?" I asked with a surprise look on my face. He said, "Yeah but we talked between those dates too." FREAK! I don't think two date consist of a relationship but he obviously does. Then I begin thinking, "Shit, this is our first date, he is already half way there!" How do you call two dates a relationship?

He is another one of those men who inhale their food. I think he swallowed half of his steak whole. "I'm sorry, I am a slow eater" I said to him as he sat with an empty plate. He said, "I think I eat fast, it is a trait from being in the military." When the waitress came back, he ordered dessert. As he ate his dessert and I tried to continue my meal, he carries on about this reporter. That is how he referred to her as "the reporter".

The date dragged on for three hours of him talking and then he says, "I have been so unsuccessful in dating. I don't understand it. It's a tough world out there." Then he continues on, "I can't understand it, I'm a great guy." Oy vey!@#$%^!@#$% The date was more like a therapy session than a date. Well, I can definitely understand it. He has a negative personality not to mention controlling.

He went on and on about money and standard of living, and blah blah blah. He said that a lot of it is peer pressure. I told him, "I think it is materialism." I said, "When people judge you according to what your income is, that is a problem. If a person looks down on you because you don't have a Movado watch, their are just..." I was stopped in the middle of my sentence by his laughter. He was laughing so hard. Which took me back because he didn't laugh through the entire date, he barely smiled.
When I looked at him in the midst of his uncontrolled laughing, he pulled up his shirt sleeve and there on his wrist was a Movado watch. I was a little mortified. I put one hand over my mouth and the other on my chest, "I am so sorry!" I apologized to him. He just continued to laugh. I smiled with embarrassment. He said, it's okay. He thought it was really funny. Thankfully.

Do you ever forget a person's name? I forgot his name, but what is worse, I didn't know I forgot his name. I was calling him by the wrong name throughout our entire date and he never corrected me. OMG! I could not believe I did that!

Boom on the phone

Boom, boom, boom! The sound on the phone was boom, boom, boom. I wasn't sure if it was a base drum or a man talking in a low voice. I adjusted my hearing aid. Ah, there is is a man with a very low voice; it boomed through the receiver of the phone.

A phone date with a guy from a large city, like me but now lives in a smaller city, again, like me. We told each other some of our sorted tales of dating. I would say that we have had some equally bad dates. So it was reassuring that I wasn't the only one running into road blocks on the road of dating. I am starting to think that it is a one way street with a lot of pot holes. lol What does that say about me? Maybe I am a vagabond on the streets of love.

He is an ex-Marine. I dated a couple of Marines, their not too bright and both of the ones I dated cheated on me. Neither were serious relationships but still it is pretty shitty to cheat on someone. Don't worry, I won't take it out on this guy. This one seems nice. He talks a lot though, that's fine, then I don't have to say anything but it is hard to pay attention when they don't stop for a breath of air.

We set up a date for Saturday. He is taking me to one of his favorite restaurants. The first choice he offered was a restaurant that I really don't like, they have terrible food. Do you remember the blog, Blue Roof and bad credit. That is the place he wanted me to go to. I told him I really don't like that place, they have terrible food. Yuck! Everything taste so bland. Then he suggested his second favorite where I have never been so, I accepted. I guess we will see how we get along.