Dating Follies: Deal Breakers, Dining and Dashing

Deal-breakers. 

What are the immediate ones that come to my mind when dating, you ask?  

You can’t be married, separated or ‘have a situation’; you can’t be bi-s.exual or have had any type of s.exual relationship or encounter with another man; you need to be self-sufficient and employed; you need NOT want any [more] children; you need to be respectful and polite; you need to have a car and if not, a good reason as to why not; if you have a kid, you HAVE to pay child support and be (or make every effort to be) an active parent; you must like food (more on that later); you need to be pleasing to MY eyes and be presentable; you have to be up on your current events, be able to hold a decent conversation and communicate well in written form. And oh my goodness, you need NOT be a girly-man.  You can be handsome but not pretty and petite.  You should at least be my height and not be intimidated by my love for 4” heels.  Asking too much?  If you think yes then, oh well because those criteria need to be met to get us to a first date.

But there are certain deal breakers that you may not know of until you’ve happened upon a situation.

Like, such as (shout out to South Carolina’s 2007 Miss Teen USA contestant)…

I met a fellow a few weeks ago.  Let’s call him DandD.  We communicate via phone and text (side-eye to excessive texting, by the way) and agree to meet for an appetizer to watch a bball game since our conversations had precluded him from being on the deal-breaker list.  Upon meeting at the local wing spot, we decide it’s nice enough to dine outside and watch the game on one of the 2 flat screens.  Side note: DandD had on a baseball cap that I was hoping he’d remove but because we ate outside, he kept it on.  I wanted to see his bald dome but it didn’t happen that night.

We seat ourselves and enter: our waitress.  Lovely young lady who felt quite embarrassed to ask for a credit card prior to us ordering the obligatory water. It was restaurant policy to prevent folks from leaving without paying for the food.  We totally understood and DandD handed over a card.

I don’t know why – I’ll attribute it to intuition – I continued the conversation of eating a meal and skipping on the bill (otherwise known as the ‘Dine and Dash’) but continue, I did.  I asked DandD had he ever done such a thing.

“Why, yes I have,” he replied. And he laughed.

With a nervous smile, I immediately asked him when did he do that and he said it was years ago in high school.  Ok…I can get with that…although I’ve never done such a thing; I realize people do silly things in their youth.  Crisis averted. 

“Oh, and I did it once with my son a few years back,” he proclaims with a big, cheesy grin like it’s something to be proud about.

“Wait, what!?!?” I say.

DandD goes on to explain that he and his son went out for their birthday at a well-known chain restaurant that specializes in ribs.  The birthday promotion of said establishment is that if you have a certain name, you get your entree for free.  DandD and his son share that certain name and their birthday is a mere day apart so the bday special applies to them.  They proceed to order the most expensive entree.  After they've eaten like pigs (his words, not mine) the check comes and DandD can’t figure out why the total isn’t much lower than anticipated.  The waitress tells him that the promotion is for a free entree up to a certain amount of money but that anything above that amount is billable.

Waitress leaves and DandD tells the son to get up and exit stage left quickly.  Son questions…father says ‘do as I say AND as I do’…and they jet without paying all the while snickering on how the restaurant got 'got'.

What parent does this…with their child, no less?

Is it just me or is that unbelievable?  A grown man tells (and demonstrates) to his teenaged son how to be a thief.  And laughs about it.  And is bold enough to disclose this information to a person that he has met only once.  Wow!

Upon learning this information I was immediately turned off.  I knew right then that this little meet-up wouldn’t develop into anything.  I was a little upset that I learned this information within minutes of meeting DandD because I couldn’t fully enjoy the lovely evening, my sweet tea or my appetizer.  But I did take comfort in knowing that at least the bill would get paid.

Add Dine and Dash to the list of my deal-breakers.  

But wait, did I tell you that I went out with him again?  Call me crazy a glutton for punishment but, I did.  And that led to several other deal-breakers that I happened upon.

We’ll chat about those later but I can assure you that there hasn’t been a call or a response to a text after date #2 from me.

iCan’t.