Forget about people you get along with, who seem to be a great match for you and then disappear for no obvious reason whatsoever. Nevermind the blatantly WRONG people who swim in the contaminated pool of online dating. Sometimes the smallest details can hinder the beginnings of a romance.
Bob had so much promise. He looked like a meatier guy than I’m used to in his profile pics, but by no means obese or sickly. He had a cute face, a good job and was very friendly in our correspondence. After a few days of pleasant texting, we decided to talk on the phone. He told me that he had a cold for the past few days, but was feeling a lot better and would give me a call as we had planned.
Source: http://homophonesweakly.blogspot.com/2013/03/meatier-meteor.html
(Side note – it’s embarrassing that English-speaking people confuse these two words!)
The first issue was that he sounded TERRIBLE. His voice was really scratchy and it sounded really difficult for him to get his words out. Yet, he told me he was doing great and I could decipher his words so we started talking. I think we first started talking about working out, since I had been at the gym earlier and I attempted to break the ice by making fun of sweating while on the treadmill. Bob told me that he took salsa lessons every week and was starting to get good at it (it had been a bet between he and his brother if he would go, and he ended up liking it) which I enjoyed hearing. What I didn’t enjoy hearing about was the “soaking wet” body he had in his dancing clothes when dancing, and how he never thought it would be such a good work-out. I give Bob a lot of credit for dancing with strangers, but I just couldn’t get the image of a large man making scratchy sounds while doing salsa steps in two t-shirts that he had soaked through out of my mind once he shared that with me.
Source: http://reedcar.wordpress.com/
After the sweating, we started talking about where we each live. It was then that Bob casually mentioned that he didn’t live in Queens, as he listed in his profile, but spent most of his time in Delaware at his parents’ house. He still rented the place in Queens for work, but was planning on getting rid of it soon. I thought, “so what the heck is he talking to me for?!” Delaware is not exactly next door to New York City. I didn’t say anything about that, considering we didn’t know each other but I was sufficiently confused and his coughing started to increase.
This wasn’t the soul-singing deep voice that some people get when they get sick:
This dude sounded like he had gotten into a fist fight with a large cow…and then he swallowed the cow…but some of it was still stuck in his throat. Sexy, isn’t it? Anyway, after he said a few words, he would crumble into a coughing spell to the point that I was on the other end, genuinely concerned for him, asking “are you okay?!?” to which he would skip a beat, and say “yep, I’m fine.”
I’m pretty sure the finale was his largest coughing fit of the call, where I believe he spit something out at the end (cow hide?). Being who I am, I couldn’t help the sarcastic “that’s sexy” comment to come flying out of my mouth. Well, Bob was amused by that as well, starting laughing which caused more coughing. That was when I said I was going to let him get off the phone…and get first aid or something.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, even on the phone. I’ve screwed things up on my own enough to know that. I hope Bob’s cough went away and he’s enjoying sweaty salsa in our first state. That’s what Delaware’s known for, right?
notsosmitten 
