Take my most recent match.com date. It was an ideal set up, seemingly handsome thirty-something casino dealer with a nice jawline and full head of hair. I happen to like poker so his profession was not an immediate red flag for me. Honestly a single guy in his thirties with his own place in the city is on my radar-- I don't care if he's bagging groceries at Jewel.
I began to have my doubts when he chose pick me up cafe as the meeting place for our first date. At first I assumed it was simply a cheap hipster ish alternative to a real restaurant. Little did I know all of those leopard print jeans and triple shot red eyes were simply a front for a hub for young sexually ambiguous zombies to earn a living selling fried vegan food and coffee.
Vegan (n.) a special breed of zombie that lives off of plant based brain substitute.
My date arrived late missing half his hair and all melatonin in his skin. I had also mistaken is sallow cheekbones for dimples in grainy profile pictures. Apparently lean is the new moniker for malnourished. He excused himself for his lateness on the grounds of being hungover and spending the entire morning puking.
"Well," I said, "if this were an interview I don't think you'd be getting the job right now."
"I went to a Costume party as a zombie last night."
"Yeah you should think about taking off the makeup." But I saw past his ruse. I saw resident evil, I know the drill. He then took out his phone and showed me the pictures of his costume.
"You want to know what's really fucked up about my costume, it's pretty creepy."
"Tell me you're actually an attractive banker with a condo in streeterville, and any moment now youre going to unzip your face to reveal him."
That was pretty much the gist of the date. We ordered a plate of fried nonsense that they humorously referred to as calimari and I got the gnocchi, which was more gno-like-cchi.
After polishing off my food and half of his I decided it was time to settle up so I could go back to my zombie free zipcode and he could go back to hugging a toilet bowel. I pulled out my wallet, thinking that this date really couldn't get much worse; then he put his "wallet" on the table. His wallet was one of those duct tape fabrications the high school students buy at craft fairs to convey a sense of nonchalance. But really when your wallet is made of duct tape all it conveys is that you're broke like a bad joke.
It wasn't even ironic duct tape wallet. It was just duct tape.
I'm going to interrupt this dissertation on zombie romance with a short guide to what a wallet says about the man you're with.
The rubber band: this is the devil may care type of man that can't be tied down to material things. I sense that this guy is unable to commit. A man who uses a rubber band instead of a wallet is either very masculine or very disorganized-- if he has a beard he is the former and if he's clean shaven the latter.
The clip-- these men are the minimalists of our time. They can do a lot with a little (in every conceivable way). These are the guys that don't ever get around to painting their walls, buying furniture or decorating anything but their desk at work. If the clip is silver he'll pay for dinner, if its an oversized paper clip he'll ask to borrow twenty bucks.
Bi-fold--this is the more modern wallet that most men carry. They're also the most boring. I'm sensing a really dull hobby. If the wallet has one of those chintzy plastic pullouts or is made of cloth or anything but leather he has bad taste and won't understand why you won't display his prized signed baseball on the coffee table.
Tri-fold- this is for the man with a more is more approach to life. This style of wallet is favored by short balding financial guys with an abundance of, well, crap to carry around. Think George from Seinfeld. Although this man may live a cluttered disorganized life he's got the goods to back it up and usually a near perfect credit score.
Zip wallets-- this is for a man who isn't afraid of his feminine side, but still refuses to call what he is using a coin purse. This is the wallet for born this way gays and exact changers. Just be wary of anything made of nylon or canvas or that has hello kitty on it.
Nothing at all--run, don't walk, run away from this guy.
And then there's duct tape wallet guy:
"I know my wallet is pretty lame."
"Admitting you have a problem is the fist step to recovery."
"It was a gift from my mother."
"She sounds...economical," which is to say economy class. The image of a Midwestern woman pushing a shopping cart down an aisle in WalMart came to mind.
"She made it herself."
"Mine too. My mother made it with a Visa card."
"So you want to grab a drink or dessert somewhere else?"
"Sorry I think I'm at my threshold for today."
"Fine but I never told you the really messed up thing about my costume!"
"Did your mom make that too?" Then he proceeded to tell 'the fucked up thing' was that a year ago he met his sister's husband's brother and he died recently and they gave him all of the guy's clothes. And since he didn't want to wear them he ripped them and used them as zombie clothes so his costume was the zombie of his sister's husband's brother. "Okay," I said, "You might not want to tell people that."
Instead, allow me to tell everyone for you on my blog.
The important thing to remember about zombie romance is that it can only lead to you skewering the other with a wooden stake and running in the other direction, so it's best to end things before it gets to that point. Remember, just because zombies are undead doesn't mean they don't have zombie emotions. So you'll have to let your zombie date down easy.
Not returning his messages should suffice, especially if the message is this:
"You're not going to blog about me are you?"
No comments:
Post a Comment