App: Tinder

Name: Darren*

Date Location: No idea. Our original plan didn’t work out so we went somewhere around the corner

Location Review:  3.0 Stars – The playlist and vibe of the place was awesome but the food was weird. I got a salad and it was the full romaine leaves with cheese on it

Date Duration: 2 hours

What Happened:

Once a week Tinder will present you with four humans and you get a free super like to use. On occasion, I would take advantage but never had I received a like back.

That was until Darren. I was surprised to say the least. He was clearly more attractive than me, worked in IT so he was smarter, and he messaged me first. Interesting. Within a few messages he asked for my number, we made plans, and didn’t talk until that day. I can dig.

On the day of I texted to check in and see if we were still on. He said yes and we stuck to the plan. I met him at the bar and he looked just as good in person. (As a general note, I was getting over a sinus infection and my antibiotics temporarily left me deaf in one ear.) We walked through to find a spot but it was packed and small talk wasn’t working since I couldn’t hear jack shit. We went back outside, walked a few blocks, and settled on a new spot.

The place was kind of funky. Music was on point and their drink menu was cool. Only thing was that my date was a dick. He was a competitive ballroom dancer and was surprised I knew as much as I did and seemed slightly irked that I had this knowledge without also dancing competitively. My ex competed for years so I was familiar with every dance style, scoring, finding partners, popular competitions in the area, collegiate teams, Latin vs America Rhythm style, random ass ballroom things, and to top it off I danced socially in college. I knew my shit.

One part of knowing my shit is knowing the crowd ballroom dance attracts. You have your really weird people who wear fedoras casually, the technically trained assholes, people who only live and breathe ballroom, normal people, and then there’s this snooty subset that looks down on you no matter if you dance or not. This was Darren.

It wasn’t what he said. It’s how he said it. You could tell he thought he was hot shit. In addition to being a snooty dancer, he was also a snooty improv-er. Kill me.

What really did him in though was that he was no fun to be around in the least. He was tired (fair) but kept bringing it up. I offered to reschedule and he declined but instead bitched about how he was up until 5am that morning and is just so tired. He kept apologizing so I figured we would just do one round of drinks and leave. Fine. Oh no, he ordered food. WUT. If you’re trying to get home why are you ordering shit?

Then the check came. I grabbed my wallet, pulled the card out, started moving my hand to the opposite side of the table, and dropped the card. K. We’re splitting. Fine. But then at the last second he took my card out and said, “It’s easier if we just put it on mine. If it really means that much to you, you can Venmo me.”

UHMMMM.

Then he followed up with, “I just think that if you’re the person who asks for the date you should pay.” WHY DIDN’T YOU OPEN WITH THAT? Or even not say anything and just give me my card back? Bruh if you’re going to pay, don’t make me pull out my card, reach over, and almost knock over all the drinks. Just say, “I got this one” and leave it at that.

We left and he walked with me until he had to turn to get his train. He said we’d have a make up date since he was so tired. I kept his contact info for 3 days, didn’t hear anything, then blocked.