Miranda is a 28-year-old waitress who lives at Yonge and Bloor. She describes her look as “polished and feminine, with a splash of barrio fabulous.” She says, “I’m a little impulsive, and an ‘I’m doing me’ type of person,” and tends to be flirty, “often by accident.” Miranda’s interests include salsa-dancing, playing piano, and learning new languages. After having been mostly single for the last six years, she met Sam at a dance class.
I’ve done online dating, but I also meet a lot of guys in real life. Sam was an amazing dancer, and was confident and direct when he approached me at a “guys against girls” dance competition. Physically speaking, he wasn’t my usual type, but I was impressed with his forwardness and his dance skills. He asked for my number and called the next day. Guys these days seem to only want to text message, so when he asked me out on the phone, I said yes.
We met on the corner of Bloor and Lansdowne. At first, the conversation seemed to be going fairly well—we had a lot to talk about when it came to the dance community. I could tell he was super into me, but I still wasn’t attracted to him, and I started to notice that he didn’t really get me.
The restaurant he chose was Copacabana, which serves Brazilian food. I reminded him that I was vegetarian, since many Brazilian places tend to be pretty meat-focused. He still wanted to go, so I figured he had checked out the menu beforehand. Still, the restaurant was one where the waiters came around offering all sorts of meat, and even the menu advertised “22 kinds of meat” and almost no vegetarian choices. I wasn’t very impressed. Why bother asking me out if you aren’t going to show me a good time? I also noticed that he was speaking in the present tense about how we were “seeing each other,” which I found strange. I had the sense that he thought we had already decided we were starting something. There was clearly some kind of alternate universe playing out in his mind.
Sam did a variety of things that turned me off: He told me he doesn’t vote, he asked me if I was “one of those women who overanalyze things,” and, while we were eating, asked me flat-out if I had ever cheated on someone. The last straw was that he didn’t pay for dinner after he asked me out and suggested the restaurant. I grew up surrounded by Latin-American men who always paid for women. When the bill came, even though he had eaten most of the food and, obviously, all of the meat, he said, “Do you want to go halfsies?” He got points for taking me home himself but, while we were on the TTC, he put his arm around me, which felt possessive and macho.
Sam walked me to my apartment and I tolerated a kiss outside the entrance for some reason. He texted me several times after our date with lovey-dovey messages, but I told him I was busy.
Miranda rates her date (out of 10): 4
Want to be a dating diarist? Email datingdiaries@thegridto.com.
