Tina is a 32-year-old café owner who lives in the Danforth area. “My hobby is daydreaming,” she says. “I spend hours thinking of playlists for my café.” Tina also enjoys playing with her nephews, zoning out on the couch with a bag of chips, and biking around the city. She is looking for a guy “who knows what he wants,” and with whom she can be herself. She had been single for six months before meeting Frank online.
I can’t say there was anything in particular that I liked about Frank, but there wasn’t a glaring reason to say no when he messaged to ask me out. I was feeling pretty “beige” about the whole thing, but tried to remain hopeful.
We had decided to meet at a nearby gelato shop—in our emails, I had mentioned that I was a fan of its grapefruit flavour. We were also planning to go for dinner afterwards, which was a little weird, but whatever—when it comes to dating in Toronto, I’ve learned not to stand on ceremony. Dessert first is not a deal-breaker.
Frank was not very attractive in person, but I was willing to give him a chance. I ordered the grapefruit to go, and he followed suit. We started walking toward the restaurant, but about two minutes in, he stopped. “You know,” Frank said, “I just need to tell you that this is terrible.” I blushed. He was a little more honest and upfront than I was used to.
“I don’t know how you could have suggested such a thing,” he continued. He was smirking, and gestured at his gelato with his miniature plastic spoon. “It’s so bitter!” he chuckled. I began to understand that this was his way of teasing me and flirting. It was nauseating. “It’s too bad that you don’t like it, but it tastes great to me,” I said. He then admitted that he hated grapefruit, and I asked him, exasperated, why he ordered it. He said it was because I told him it was good. “It’s grapefruit! It’s not exactly cryptic, what they’re shooting for,” I snapped.
Frank laughed, said I was just “bad at making decisions,” and suggested that he call the shots for the rest of the night. Any self-respecting woman in the city would have left at this point; I, on the other hand, kept walking with him. As we neared the corner of Yonge and Eglinton, I asked where we were going for dinner. When he said the food court, my patience for him plummeted.
“But first,” he said, “come here.” He walked over to a garbage bin on the edge of the sidewalk, and pressed the lever with his foot. I walked over, and he held his gelato cup in my face. “I want you to see how much of this is going in the garbage because of your bad decision-making,” he scolded. “I want you to see this waste, because it’s your fault.” I paused, and then told him that he was right: The gelato was bad and wasn’t agreeing with me, and I was going home.
Tina rates her date (out of 10): 1
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