My Adventures in Internet Dating- First Date

About a week into internet dating I have several conversations going on with several guys.  One of them, TediousGuy (name changed to protect the boring) asks if I want to meet.  Our schedules aren’t a great match, but we decide to meet over coffee during my lunch break the next day.  I tell a coworker that if I don’t come back by my habitual (ten-minutes late) time, she should call the police and I go to meet TediousGuy.

He’s let me pick the place, and since I don’t have much time I’ve chosen a small café in my downtown.  It’s ten minutes from my work and Starbucks is much farther, so although I don’t love the coffee here, it works.

My first hint that this will never work? It should have been when he messaged me that he’s glad I’m not too tall and I realize he’s three inches shorter than me (according to the height on his profile).  But I’m determined not to let that get in the way.  No.  My first hint this won’t work is when I order myself a nice black coffee and he grabs a bottle of Coke.  He doesn’t like coffee.

We chat for almost an hour, during which time I’m itching to check the time on my phone basically every three minutes.  I’m bored.  I could get over the height thing.  And the coffee thing.  The fact that he lives with family because he can’t afford to live on his own.  The lack of any education after high school, or interest in intellectual pursuits (I don’t need a college education, but I’m a reader and I’ve learned that I need someone who can make me think).  I can’t get over the combination.  Plus I’m bored.

And then.  Forty minutes into our forty-five minute date.  He says that he’s older than me and he can probably teach me a lot “when we get that far”.  No.  It’s time for me to go.  Thank goodness, the alarm on my phone picks that moment to go off and tell me I have to get back to work.  I make polite noises and go to leave, but he walks me the block to my car.  I definitely get the idea that I could have  goodbye kiss if I wanted.  I shake his hand instead.

I don't talk to him again, but I hear from him every so often for the next couple of weeks.  Once he even asks how I'm doing and tells me that he hopes everything is okay.  That "even though we've only known each other a little while [he] cares about [me]."  I don't respond.  Because what I do I say?  I'm sorry you care about me, but I'm just not that into you?  Probably not.  He gets the message and I don't hear from him again either.