It was Thursday night and I had just arrived home from a warm evening bike ride. Moments before, as I biked across the city with the sun setting at my back, I relished in the notion that I was free (truly free) and that, as an independent lady, I wasn’t required to text or check-in with anyone. As I peddled home, sacredly clutching a now crumpled LCBO bag in my one free hand, I reflected on how just days before I had privately decided to call it quits with the whole online dating scene. I was officially breaking up with the electronic cupid who continuously spammed me with messages from delusional men with atrocious grammar.
I had just cracked open a cold Peroni and was leisurely kickin’ it on my new couch when a name and number that I did not recognize loudly flashed across my iPhone.
It was Ben, a man whom I had recently met on OKCupid weeks before. I had half-heartedly given him my number, making it easier for us to chat via texting — and I found it more than a little odd that he took that as an invitation to call me. (Educational side note: calling someone you’ve never met from a dating site is considered to be an alarming faux pas). Maybe it was his mysterious voice, his honest and forthcoming attitude, or the perfect blending of the two, but we immediately hit it off. We talked for an hour.
“What’s the weirdest date you’ve ever been on?” He asked. I told him that I went on a date with an Irishman whose accent was so strong that I didn’t understand a word he said. I sat across from him for 2 painful hours, nervously smiling while nodding like a insane bobble head, saying really generic phrases like, “Oh that’s nice” and “Wow that’s great!”
Ben told me that he had recently been on a date with a really nice and respectable woman. “She was beautiful. A real knock-out, but while we were walking, she leaned over and bit me on the neck!”
“She BIT you!?! Oh. MY. GOD.” I laughed so hard that I thought beer was going to shoot out of my nose.
“Ya, she bit me on the neck — hard too– she seemed normal, I mean she was a lawyer after all. I guess I should have known better, considering that her profile said that she was into vampire stuff and shit.”
“Oh, so your call tonight is sort of a screening process then? You’re just calling to feel out if I’m a biter?”
The conversation was flowing and the beer was being consumed in equal parts when Ben suggested that we meet up — right now, “Come on, let’s be spontaneous and meet up for a walk! How fast can you get ready?”
20 minutes later we were strolling along Queen West together. Ben was just like he was on the phone. He was energetic and his charismatic aura was downright captivating; I felt like I’d known him for a lifetime. Within minutes of being with him, I already knew that I would say yes to a second date.
And then, only blocks later our warm evening stroll took a disastrous turn.
He told me about one of his many successful business ventures which had something to do with rating ladies of the night online (think ratemyprof.com but for escorts). I really tried to overlook this alarming news because 1. he didn’t seem like the type, and 2. he claimed that it was a business opportunity only — nothing more. And as I silently digested this surprising (and disgusting) game changer, I mulled over the fact of how I would introduce Ben to my mother…
And then there was this awkward bump in the road.
