Clare is a 30-year-old lawyer who lives in High Park. She describes herself as “easygoing and friendly.” For fun, Clare likes to go to concerts and grab drinks with friends. She says, “I don’t really have time to date with work being so busy, but I usually have some kind of ‘distraction’ around.” She is looking for a funny, laidback music lover with ambition—and a beard.
I met Eli after work at a Bay Street bar. Like a lot of those guys, he was good-looking, well-dressed, and well-educated, but he was also funny and seemed sweet. We fell into witty banter right away, and he asked me to go out some time. We texted a lot between meeting and going on our first date, and his texts always made me laugh, or at least smile. His sense of humour seemed to be perfectly aligned with mine.
A few weeks later, we went to a dive bar. He chose it because I told him I liked bars with character. It was two dollars for a tall can. At first, the vibe was really good. He made me laugh that deep, gut-level laugh, so I was impressed. We spent a lot of time talking about music, and even though I had an important meeting in the morning, I stayed longer than I had intended to. However, the more beers we had, the more our conversation turned to work, money, and status, and our witty banter turned into a real argument. He started to disagree and push back on everything I said. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t doing it, too, because I was. I thought he might be trying to get a rise out of me, because people don’t say the kind of stuff he was saying if they really believe it.
It turned out that Eli was a totally right-wing conservative with a completely ignorant and idiotic view of society and social class. For example, he thought that everyone with a tattoo made a conscious choice to never succeed in life, which made me really angry. I found him totally obnoxious and made this clear to him, even through the haze of alcohol. I could tell from his behaviour and demeanour that he gets this drunk a lot, and that he gets off on peacocking and arguing with women. He had transformed from a smart, funny guy into an insulting drunk like it was nothing.
When we left, he was completely wasted, and while I thought it had been really clear that we hated each other, he insisted on walking me home. After we left the bar, he walked into an underground parking lot and peed against the wall. Later, he stopped dead in his tracks, leaned me into a fence, and kissed me. He also tried to put his hand down the front of my pants, but I stopped him.
Eli emailed me at work a few days later, but when I told him that I had no plans to do anything that week, or ever again, he called me a baby. I never ended up responding to his message.
Clare rates her date (out of 10): 2
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