Money Can't Buy Me Love

The date I am about to describe to you almost makes me uncomfortable just writing about it so I hope you can appreciate JUST how uncomfortable it was to experience it live and in color.

I was set up with a man who we will call "Hefner" as this was the name given by the very observant homeless man who walked us from the restaurant to the car. In 3 short blocks this severely intoxicated man was able to accurately peg my date's personality.

We had agreed to meet outside his posh downtown condo and walk 3 blocks to a near by wine bar. As I pull up in my modest, fuel efficient vehicle I see a young man in a dapper suit waiting on the street corner. As he approaches to greet me I take note of his Michael Buble shuffle - fit for a dance floor - not a street corner. He greets me with a wink and a "Good evening Doll". I immediately begin to disengage. Doll? When did I become your Doll? Between having never met you and shaking your hand? He then puts out his arm inviting me to grab his and stroll merrily towards the restaurant. I hesitate, link arms awkwardly for 37 seconds then make up an excuse to release my arm. I have an itch - the beginning of the rash he was about to give me perhaps?

By the time we reach the restaurant I am well versed in JUST how important he is. After all, he is a wildly successful energy trader who owns 7 houses. As we are getting seated, he puts in a request to have the lights dimmed. I can feel the rash developing. We sit down and take a glance at the menu. Hoping this would be a one glass wonder, I assertively state I will only have a glass of wine. He tells the server we will have a bottle, asks for his suggestion and then orders the opposite. When the wine arrives, he arrogantly swirls it around, sniffs and analyzes and declares he is not quite satisfied but will keep the bottle. He winks again and declares he would like to make a toast "To the beginning of a wonderful blind date". I vomit and then cheers this cheese ball.

"Hefner" made great attempts at getting to know me, but unfortunately every question he asked he was just so eager to answer for himself that there was little room to interrupt. I begin to give him one word answers as that's all I could squeeze in. He acknowledges this and says (wink) "I am sorry, its not my intention to interrupt you, I am not that type of guy. I mean look at me, I wear great suits to work everyday and may be very successful but I am a very laid back, considerate guy." Are you? At this point, I tried very hard to manifest the chandelier above my head to fall down and violently take my life. It didn't budge so I skip out to the washroom. Why I didn't just keep walking is beyond me. I went back for more!

I returned to the table and decided I was going to treat the situation similarly to the way you would when encountering a bear in the wild. I decided to disengage entirely and play dead. Things took a turn for the worse as this only enticed him to try harder. As we were sitting there in silence with nothing but a terrible techno song pounding in the background he says "I just love this jam!". Jam, as in song? Followed by "Speaking of jam, what is your favorite kind?". I give him one word back, "Strawberry" I say. He sneaks out to the bathroom. While he is away the server approaches with a tray of mini strawberry jams. He looks at me with pity, shrugs his shoulders and walks away. When "Hefner" returns he winks again and tells me that he made special arrangements to get me "all the strawberries in the house" and that he "Ok'd it to have them slipped in my purse before we leave." I acknowledge his odd effort and decline the offer to steal 7 jars of jam from a classy establishment. He also proposed we make arrangements to have our table, yes WHOLE table, moved outside to the court yard so we could "enjoy our wine under the moon light". Oh dear god. Fear not, I declined. With the double rejection, he begins to try harder!

He starts to ask me about my family and quickly cuts me off to, of course, tell me about his. He decides he'd like to "sing me a few lines of a special song". I grip my seat and tell him he should not do that. I get fairly adamant about it but nothing stops this tenor. Yes folks, he began to sing "Young at heart" at the table, loud enough for our neighbours to hear. He says "Its the only accurate way to describe my parents" and then requests that we toast his mother and father. WTF?! I don't even know your last name let alone your mother and father. I declare that it is time for me to go. He takes out his money clip, waves his credit card in the air to get our poor servers attention, pushes his chair back and stands up. I am hoping he is about to declare the obvious (TERRIBLE MATCH) but no, he is a getting up to ask me to dance -in the middle of a crowded restaurant - with techno music playing in the background. Thank you Ryan Gossling, but this is not the Notebook. This is actually the worst date of my life, so please, please sit down. I got up and walked past him and hit the ladies room again. I give myself a pep talk and reminded myself that there are only a few more minutes left of this torture.

As we are leaving the restaurant a lovely old man named Clayton Wolf approached us. He was missing 97% of his teeth and slurred the majority of his words but managed to create dialogue. This dialogue being the best conversation I had all night. As "Hefner" tried to encourage the bum to leave us, I encouraged him to stay for the 3 block walk. And so he did. Mid way he stopped, swayed, turned to me and said "Who is this idiot? Hugh Hefner??" and points to the 'dapper' man beside me. I crack up and look around me for cameras. I thank "Hefner" for the glass of wine and bid him farewell, shake Clayton's hand and thank HIM for an enjoyable date.

I hop into my car and begin to pull out when Clayton bangs on my window. Expecting him to ask for some change, he simply looks at me with his glossy, tired eyes, he winks and says "Your platinum babe".

I'd like a divorce...

I am now clear on what it would feel like to be in a less then satisfactory marriage to a man. ‘Ken’ and I went directly from date 3 to common law status. This of course, was not my idea.


Date 1-3 were wonderful. Here he was, a handsome, successful, small town boy with funny and enduring quirks. He was affectionate beyond description and this spoke right too my piscean heart. Later on I would learn that this was his only redeeming quality.


Date 4 took a bit of a turn. We had a date night planned. He mentioned he would be late. What he didn’t mention is that he would arrive disheveled, reeking of a combination or Whiskey, bug repellent and body odor with no clean attire to change into. When he arrived I greeted him to help him carry his numerous unorganized, variety of bags up to my apartment. Immediately he declares he needs a shower and I echoed his declaration. He also casually mentioned he needed to wash his clothes as he was getting picked up at 6am for another sporting event tournament. You are sleeping over? Puzzled, I put his clothes in the laundry all the while curious as to what he would put on post shower. Oh, that was not a concern for this man. He decided it was perfectly normal to kick back in his ginch for the remainder of the evening. I found his un-natural ability to be completely comfortable around me to be somewhat enduring. I sure should not have shared that vibe, however.

Fast forward 2 short days. I receive a 5 minute warning that he is back to see me post sporting event again. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he will arrive in better shape then last time. WRONG! Same scent oozing from his pours. How this man ever had hand eye coordination on the field after consuming such a quantity of booze is truly beyond me. I spot a change of clothes and feel relieved. I also spot women's deodorant and feel confused. Shortly after arrival I spot him with his head in my fridge. I acknowledge and he says he is searching for snacks. I cheffed up some 'grub' and we settled in for a movie. Within minutes I had a dead rhinoceros on my lap. So deep into drunk REM sleep that the man cannot be woken. I blast music, vacuum, gab on the phone and nothing. So I leave him, continue on with my date with myself and eventually take myself to bed.

I wake up to a naked beast lying next to me who claims he has been up all night with a particular bowel disturbance. How romantic? He requests to be left in bed for the day. I leave for work and hear no further from him throughout the day aside from a text asking where I hide my bathroom tissue. At this point his once enduring qualities were on trial.

I return to a dehydrated human who's sex appeal was slowly dwindling. This dwindle picked up quite the pace. It appeared as though he had moved in. I got the sense that he was not going home. I admit, I am majorly faulted for giving people too many chances and empathy usually gets the best of me. This is the point I should have taken the man to his home that may or may not exist. However, my faults got the best of me and I didn't kick him out. No, no, I waited 2 more sleeps! 2 more baffling days of a common law relationship. He kicked it in ginch on the couch and now and then I would interrupt him with his hands scratching his man parts. He continued to battle his bowel disturbance's...in my wee one bedroom condo. He ate dinner out of a pot and had to be told to do the dishes. I found dirty socks between the couch cushions and a pair of his underwear behind the bathroom door. He made me privy to the fact that the take out we ate gave him horrendous gas. So bad that at times I had to leave the room. Is this what it is like after a few years of marriage?! One thing was for sure, I could now empathize with those nagging wives out there who's sex life no longer existed in their marriage. I HEAR YOU LADIES!

This morning I evicted my live in boyfriend.

As I watched 'Ken' enter the doors of his apartment, I felt peace. There was nothing to hide with this man. If this is what showed up in the first 4 dates, then it can only get worse from here. I pulled out of his visitor parking with confidence. I am filing for divorce for irreconcilable differences.

A Night of Mansomnia...

A few successful dates have occurred with 'Ken' and most recently this Man of men, spent the night amongst my bamboo sheets. It was more of a sleep-less sleepover in my opinion. No, no - no tangling in these sheets occurred. In fact would you believe me if I told you that this rhinoceros sized stud was more of a Koala bear in bed then ME. Let me remind you that my layer is of size…and I am NOT. At one point around 2:37am I began to slip off the edge as ‘Ken’ had cuddled his way right on top of my pillows. Luckily his tentacle like arms had a solid grip and he must have sensed the slip and gripped tighter.

Part of the reason I lay awake for 6 of the 8 hours spent in bed last night, was due to the fact that my core temperature was reflective of the Sahara desert as I used a 6’3 male as my quilt. The other reason is that I have some sort of a psychological barrier built up around the ability to get shut eye with an attractive unfamiliar man in arms reach. Unfortunately I believe this is a reaction to the fact that it has been sometime since I shared space with a male. The sad truth. Here is how it all goes down:

• 1st sleepless hour goes by and I begin to notice the insomnia taking over
• 1:45am - I begin to really stress. I have an 8am meeting and I remember I am running very low on under eye concealer.
• 2:20am - begin to feel rage for the man next to me who is on the brink of snoring. Snoring makes me SNAP
• 2:50am - I wake the snoring man up to declare to him that I am STILL wide awake.
• 2:51am - the man reacts gently, kindly, compassionately with a sweet ‘I know babe’ and my rage immediately disappears. Love is in the air again
• 3:30am - I begin to tear up and formulate my ‘calling in sick’ phone call. Then I ingest 1 gravol.
• 3:50am - I ingest a 2nd gravol
• 4:30am - after waffling between rage, grogginess and depression my body finally surrenders to the sedatives and I pass out.
• 6:30am - alarm goes off, I sneak out of bed careful not to disturb the sleeping giant, put coffee on, try to squeeze the last drops out of my tube of concealer, and then finally just cut open the tube and scrape the inside to cake over my large black bags under these eyes.

Next sleepover I am hoping to get 3 hours instead of 2. I figure if I push on through, it can only get easier from here. That is, if Ken sticks around long enough to break the cycle of mansomnia.