Reed

Poor Reed. He was more of a pity date, an experiment. He had messaged me long before I had paid for match.com (if you don't know, match doesn't allow you to see the messages you get until you pay. Lame. It does however let you see the multitudes of "winks" received from 43 year-old men, shorter than 5'3" Filipino boys, and the occasional thirty-something that lives in Chicago sending his smiley emoticon with the intent of getting some booty while on business in SF.) But I finally did pay, and he had sent me a nice message about how we like the same tv shows (Skins, 30 Rock, etc.) so I decided to give him a try even though he looked nerdy and balding in his photos, and inexplicably wearing a suit and standing in front of a promotional backdrop at a red carpet event for most of them.
And he was. Nerdy. Terribly nerdy. We went out to this nice restaurant in the Castro (2223 Restaurant) and things were immediately awkward. I can't even remember what we talked about except that there were talks of the lighting in the room. Instant. Bad. Date. Online he made it seem like he had a high paying tech consulting job, but it turns out that job was only temporary and now he was unemployed. He still paid for my meal and wine even though it was a bit expensive. He offered to drive me home and my conscience flickered between guilt versus the 20 minute bus ride home, because I never intended to see this guy again, but late night bus rides in date clothes through the Castro and Western Addition are keep-your-hand-on-your-pepperspray fear inducing. I took him up on his offer because though wary about driving in cars with strange boys, I honestly thought I would be safer in his car than on a dirty muni bus at 10pm (in hindsight and more city experience I would have been fine on the bus and it would have been better than the awkward ride home.) In front of my building I thanked him for the ride and meal, and not knowing how to say goodbye with the intention of never seeing him again, I jumped out of the car and panicked and blurted out "let's do this again sometime!" But that ended up being for naught since apparently I was as much a disappoint to him as he was to me, as he never contacted me again. Maybe I was too stylish and hip for his nerdy tastes. Or at least that's what I try to tell myself. But that was not the last time I saw him. There is nothing like seeing an ugly guy you went out with once on a date with an uglier girl than you as you're awkwardly trying to save a seat for a guy in yellow water-resistant overalls that will end up ignoring you the entire night at an outdoor screening of JAWS to really make you question your self-worth. But that's a story for another time...