While my date had astutely removed himself from my sight to use the loo and to allow me to ponder my shortcomings, I reflected on my sad predicament, wondering how I would extricate myself from this Thursday night snare into which I had fallen. My brain feverishly ran the gamut of possible outs from sudden illness to arson. If I only had a flare and inflatable raft, I could create a diversion:
 |
| Step 1: Inflate raft. |
 |
| Step 2: Light flare and get away. |
 |
| Step 3: Explosion! |
Alas. I had a beer bottle and a lightly used tissue.
It was while I was hastily trying to construct a molotov cocktail out of these things that my date returned to the table and, to my horror and amazement, sat beside me, hemming me in between himself and the wall and effectively cutting off my escape route. In chess, this is what is referred to as "castling".
I’d like to get real for a moment. Inexperience with dating has made me ill-equipped to handle awkward situations like these. Dating is one of life’s unpleasantries I have managed to avoid with a high degree of success up until now. Believe it or not, 100% of my relationships (if they can even be defined as such) were actually initiated without ever resorting to dating. However, I’m thirty now, and at this age there is just something weird about using tickle fights to initiate sexual relationships. But someone should have warned me that dating in your 30s would be a veritable smorgasbord of broken dreams. It’s like going on a series of fruitless job interviews for a job that you don’t really want, that won’t pay you enough, and that has a meager benefits package.
Sometimes you get awkward questions like: “If you had to give up either oral sex or cheese for the rest of your life, which one would it be?” And you answer: “Oral sex—because you can still have sex, but you’d never be able to eat nachos again, and everybody knows that nachos without cheese are just sad tortilla chips.” Then at the end of the night you hug each other coolly and go your separate ways, slightly relieved that you didn’t have to make out, but ultimately proud that you stuck up for cheese because deep down, you knew you were right. Cheese is delicious.
But I digress. I had just been castled.
As my date settled in beside me, looking disproportionately pleased with himself, I gave him my least encouraging look:
It did not make his head explode as I had intended, but you know what they say, "if at first you don't succeed..."
“… try stabbing them in the face with a dirty fork instead.”
“So," He began smugly, as my fingers curled tightly around my utensil, "Why do you have so many defense mechanisms anyway? Someone must have really hurt you.”
OKAY. TIME OUT.
Once upon a time, in a magical land called Victorian England, defense mechanisms were known as “modesty”, “decency”, and “propriety”, and to have them was to be considered “feminine” and “virtuous”. Now, defense mechanisms are what you have if you are sexually broken because you actively choose not to engage in carnal acts with narcissistic douche bags, who in their blind quest to bullshit you into removing your undergarments, insult your intelligence at every possible opportunity. Any rejection incurred during this exercise must result from some sort of deficiency on the woman’s part, because it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that the offending party’s bullshit is utterly transparent, and that they are lacking in subtlety, tact, personality, humor, or intelligence.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how pop psychology is ruining society and my sex life.
I had to shut this down, and fast.
TIME IN.
“No, I wasn’t raped. And no, I don’t come from a broken home. And no, I didn’t just get out of a relationship and/or psych ward. And no, I’m not a lesbian. The hard, unpalatable truth is that any potential sexual desire that I might have felt for you no longer exists because you are an arrogant, presumptuous man and your prying questions have officially stopped being charming. I can’t even fathom enduring any sexual overtures from a man who spent the first half of our date reducing me to a Jungian archetype.”
Believe it or not, I actually don’t enjoy being mean to people. My natural state of being is essentially gentle and lovable. I’m like cactaur: Adorable, timid, but deadly when provoked.
With a feeling that almost resembled pity, I waited for him to choke on this bitter pill.
Instead, he laughed.
He laughed.
“NO!” I exclaimed in a paroxysm of hatred.
“Now you’re getting angry. Defense mechanism.”
I immediately saw the error of this outburst and regained my composure at once. The emotion that almost resembled pity vanished in the presence of more potent feelings.
“It’s not a defense mechanism," I explained with Vulcan-like clarity. "I just don’t like you.”
He continued to laugh at me as he moved in closer. At this point, he was so far into my dance space that I could smell the memory of his deodorant. It was at that point, as I was poised to chew my way through him to get free like a rabid, cornered possum, that I discovered my salvation on one of the barely viewable televisions hanging over the bar like my personal high-definition Jesus.
“Well, look at that. The Bruins are ahead by 2 points.”
That, admittedly, was a defense mechanism. Using sports as a distraction to get out of a bad date is perhaps not the most MacGyverishly original thing I could have done, but I have since learned that it is most effective at ending an evening--even more effective than brutal, emasculating honesty.
Needless to say, at the end of the date I did not make out with Sigmund Freud, and when he offered to drive me home, I respectfully declined and said that I would gladly walk. From Needham.
