end a date with an errand

before i start this story i just want to say that i don't consider the first "date" with someone off of an online dating site an actual date. what i consider them to be is are-you-crazy/who-you-say-you-are verification. you don't know until you meet the person whether they're legit or not. god forbid i consider it an actual date and the person turns out to be a nut job. i would never forgive myself for going on an actual date just to find that the guy is a pedophile. or socially inept. or looks ten years older than he portrayed. or worst of all... isn't funny (haha)! but for ease in the sake of this story, i'll call it a 'date.'

once upon a not too distant past i went on a date with a guy who told me he wanted to write a book about his dates gone wrong. naturally i asked him to tell me a couple of his stories. they were funny-ish but i wouldn't say they were enough to base a book on. anyhow, at some point during story telling time he closed his eyes and clasped his hands together as if he were talking to God. he wasn't, of course. he was just talking about how a girl followed him into a store after he'd said he didn't want to go on a second date. the thing is, his eyes remained closed for about six seconds! six! do you know how long that is when you're sitting across from someone while eating sandwiches? it's pretty much the equivalent of forever. just try it! next time you are in someone's company, close your eyes for six-"mississippis" and try not to feel weird. it's not possible...well not unless you're an oddball of course. in the span of sixish seconds my thoughts went as so (while my eyes shifted back and forth wondering if anybody else was aware of the strange that was happening before them): "uhh...what's going on here? where'd ya go buddy? wow, this is awkward! if i really want to i bet i could pay for my meal and get out of here and he wouldn't even know it as long as I'm quiet. dude, he's the one that's going to end up being written about! little do you know you might be a blog post someday, Guy." and it wasn't just once...it was a few times throughout the date.

to be fair, he was a perfectly normal person otherwise and had a decent sense of humor but needless to say, it was strange enough for me to become uninterested. after lunch and hanging in the park for a while he mentioned going to some show later in the evening. nope, not gonna do it!!  i needed to find an exit strategy stat! i'm not sure why i settled on this method of escape but i found myself saying "alright well i've got to go return a painting to a friend so i'm going to go drop it off at her place now." it wasn't a lie. i actually had a friend's painting from Paint Nite in my possession for a month and decided that that very moment was the appropriate time to finally drop it off. in other words i basically told the guy i'd rather run an errand than continue on this date. 

initially when i did it i thought it was a douchy way to leave a date but now that i think about it again, it's actually a pretty effective way of ending a date while letting the person know that you're not that interested. at the least it's one step above being completely cowardly and saying "I had fun. [liar!] sure, we can do this again. [liar 2x]" and then never answering their calls/texts. i'm not saying this is going to be my go-to exit strategy, but i am saying that it worked well. he seemed to really enjoy the date considering he said it was a lot of fun and that he wanted to hang out again, but then i had to run an errand and i'm positive he got the picture. i never heard from him again. whew, that was easy enough. who knows...maybe i'll end up in a book somewhere someday!