Dating Disasters, Part 3

by Simone Westfall — May 22, 2007

We strolled through Riverside Park after dinner, at dusk, rollerbladers and runners whizzing past. We sat on a park bench and held hands. Rick was caught up in the romance of the evening, murmuring about the beauty of the polluted sunset over New Jersey. "You're kind of a tense person, aren't you?" he asked. When his strong hand started to massage the back of my neck, I felt myself melting. Within short order, we were necking furiously. Rick was a good kisser, not too much tongue, not too much drool. Before long I was growing a little hot and dizzy. It would have been so easy to suggest going back to my apartment, a few blocks away, but in this instance--based solely on intuition, on whim--I decided to apply the third-date rule. No activity below the waist until Date Number Three. When I came up for air, I invited him for dinner in my garden the following Saturday. He eagerly accepted.

He showed up at my door at six with a bottle of wine in hand. And for the first time, without a jacket, wearing only a knit jersey shirt. And without a jacket, he looked like....my grandma, my late grandma on my mother's side, the one with the capacious bosom and meaty freckled arms. I led him through the apartment to the garden and studied him with growing distress. His "breasts" were surely larger than mine. I do not remember now quite how I made it through dinner, which was most likely pasta, a salad, and dessert. And at least two stiff gin and tonics, and a couple of glasses of wine. What was I to do at this point? Throw him out? Say, I'm sorry I can't sleep with you I've suddenly developed a terrible case of halitosis? I never have sex with men who are more generously endowed than I am? My solution was to get blotto and have it over and done with.

And I do not have much memory of what it was like in bed, other than recalling that he was at least generously endowed all over and that at times I felt I was being hefted around between a pair of Parma hams. Afterward, he was annoyed that I sent him home with a coy "I'm just not used to sleeping with another person. Sorry."

When I woke up late the next morning, with a thundering headache, I checked my email and found a message from Rick. "I don't think it's a good idea for us to see each other again. You drink too much."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.....thank gawd.

Simone Westfall is the pen name of a novelist and critic in New York City. To read all of Simone's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.