There are some dudes out there who I am 100% convinced have other people write their online dating profiles for them. Possibly female family members or empathetic friends…or maybe both. I vaguely remember striking up a conversation with a handsome blond-haired, blue-eyed beau on J-Date.com. Yes, you read that right. Light haired, blue-eyed Jewish guys are a rarity but they do exist. He had plenty of photos on his profile of him smiling at different events, and described himself and his life in a pleasant, detailed manner. An attractive human being with a personality and interests. I was sprung.

Now that I am thinking back on this experience, there are two things I need to point out:

1. If you are a regular reader of my posts, you know that I rarely forgot names. Well, this guy is the exception to that pattern. I have zero recollection of his name because he barely left an imprint on my memory.

2. This may have been the point in my online dating existence where I decided that a phone discussion was a requirement before actually meeting my potential love interest in person.

And so we carried on our conversation via text messages for a while and I got to know whats-his-face as a cool guy who was really sarcastic and had plenty to talk about. We had decided to meet for a drink at a bar that he chose and sounded perfectly fine to me.

And the bar was fine – extremely casual, and unassuming. I arrived first and sipped my fun beverages while I waited for the latest Man o’ my Dreams to show up. While I was looking down at my phone, or at the bartender, or the floor – basically anywhere but the stool next to me, my date showed up. There was no sign that he had actually walked into the bar and arranged himself next to me. I didn’t even notice that the door to the bar had even opened. He was just there all of the sudden.

Just imagine this scene for a second. I’m kind of nervous and waiting for someone to walk in and he literally materialized next to me – AND DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING.

So here is what I remember of the dialogue we did exchange:

Me: Hey there – I guess you are [my date’s name]. Nice to meet you in person (smiling, though having no idea what’s going to happen).
Him: (low mumbled voice). Hey. You too. (looks away)

And the struggled exchange continued like that for the entire time it took him to get a beer down and for me to basically inhale the drink he offered me. Each time I brought him to a topic, it always came back to his employment, and the same thing about his employment. I had known from his exciting profile that he was a tile salesman.

So when I brought up where I was from he said, “My office is in Brooklyn, where I sell tile from.”
“Working in sales can’t be easy,” I offered at one point, trying to see if he would maybe feel more comfortable when I gave him an opener about his favorite topic, and would talk a bit more. His response: “Well, my type of sales isn’t too bad. Everyone needs tile.”

Right.

Or when I said I would love to go back to Europe soon, he offered, “I’ve been to Italy – you know they are the tile capital of the world.”

Have you fallen asleep yet? I almost did. As I made a beeline for the train station to get home (which he didn’t walk me to), I kept asking myself who the heck wrote this guy’s profile.