On a beautiful summer afternoon, I was obviously sitting inside, on my couch in the air conditioning, and staring at profiles on my favorite free online dating site. Jay and I started IMing and since he typed in full sentences and didn’t ask me to come over to his house within the hour in a costume (happens all the time), I decided that he was dating material. Jay had his own apartment, a job and looked to be pretty handsome. About 6 feet tall, with wavy dark blond hair and he worked at a music label (yes, I was shocked that some still exist too!) We bantered humorously back and forth via text for the next day or so and made plans to meet at a wine bar that Saturday night.

I had left another bar earlier after watching a friend’s band to make it on time for our date and it turned out that I was early. He picked a cute place. I sat at the bar and sipped my wine waiting for him to walk in, while yet again, trying to look cute and breezy. And then Jay came through the door. I suppose he kind of looked like the person in his photos, but there was something lacking. I honestly feel like online profiles can really mess with one’s head since they are only one-dimensional. This then forces us to create the second and third dimensions in our heads and if our date doesn’t match up to that creation, there might be some severe disappointment and lack of chemistry.

So there was zero attraction to the in-person Jay. Nothing blatantly wrong with his appearance but it just wasn’t there. But hey, he was friendly enough and we were at a bar, so I had no problem getting to know someone over a glass of wine or two. The topics of conversation ranged from how Jay’s 19-year-old cousin was crashing at his apartment to how Jay liked to keep mixed nuts in his freezer and randomly snack on them. No, neither of these topics or anything else we discussed made him any more attractive, nor did the film of sweat that was easing its way across his forehead and heading down the rest of his face. He swabbed his brow with some napkins, but the sweat wasn’t stopping. The moisture was that of someone’s perspiration in the midst of a heavy work-out, but alas, he was merely sitting at a bar.

Jay at the bar.

After about an hour and approximately 4 not-so-absorbent cocktail napkins later, I made my move to leave. I was staying at a friend’s empty apartment for the night, which was a few blocks away. Jay offered to walk me there, which I thought was nice and polite, until I felt a giant clammy hand reach out and take mine as we walked down the street. I nervously glanced to my side while Jay kept the conversation going, and I kept wondering what made him think that this was an occasion for hand-holding. Yet, I didn’t pull away.

About two blocks away from my destination, while we were in the midst of discussing something very intense (most likely mothballs or the whittling industry or something) the giant cold cut-like hand pushed me over to the door of a CVS pharmacy. And suddenly, there was a tongue in my mouth for a few seconds. Astonished, and wondering how the cold cuts got from my hand to my mouth, I pulled away and said the only logical statement I could muster: “Thank you.”

CVS / Lover’s Paradise

I was sufficiently grossed-out, if not now terrified that Jay thought we were having a romantic experience. I kept him chatting about music for the rest of the walk to my friend’s apartment, and when I announced that we were there, he seemed to lean in for another tongue lash, or even worse: an invitation upstairs. I giggled like a 5 year old school girl while he stared at me. I figured a kiss on the cheek and a “Thanks, talk to you soon!” declaration into the smoke that billowed behind me as I ran into the building would politely hint that I was not interested.

Once I got into the apartment, I took to scrubbing and sanitizing my hands and mouth as much as possible. As I started a text to my friend, asking how much white wine of hers that she would allow me to drink to kill the creepy boy germs and my memory of our experience together, an incoming message popped up:

“Now you know I’m a good kisser.”

I do?

Needless to say, Jay was another (incredibly creepy) frog in my quest to find a prince.