There are days when I wonder if I am less of a princess and more of your garden variety bitch. This is not to say that I've resigned my position as president of my own royal fan club, but I can see where my greasy, black, banana peel of a heart might not be that little ray of sunshine that everyone seeks in their day.
For example, I am a sadistic laugher. Not familiar with the concept of sadistic laughing? Allow me to explain. Simply put, I love to watch people hurt themselves. Now, I'm not giddy with glee at the sight of, say, a multi-car pileup on 494 during rush hour, but I just might be the kind of person who follows a fire truck. One of my favorite sadistic laughs comes at the expense of my local fitness freaks. You know who I'm talking about. Picture it. You're working out at the gym, huffing and puffing and wondering why you drink so much when you catch a glimpse of the guy on the treadmill behind you. And he is fierce. He's running as if being pursued by wolves. (I usually double-check to make sure rabid wolves haven't snuck into the gym – because let's be clear. That guy is running fast enough not to be eaten. Me? Not so much.) He's running fast and furious and then, suddenly - he's airborne. Yes, boys and girls. He's been EJECTED from his treadmill. Since laughter is good for the soul, I see no problem with pausing for a five minute laugh break while I catch my breath and try not to pee my pants.
What the hell does this have to do with kissing frogs, you ask? A lot, as it turns out. Because I am not a nice person. This has never been more obvious to me than when I found myself out on a date with Frog #7, Nice Guy for Anyone But Me Frog.
Frog #7 and I were matched by that magical internet Cupid known as PseudacrisBrachyphona.com . (Have you Googled it yet?) A cursory exam proved that he passed all Princess D's Nine Commandments with ease. We did not, in fact, work together. There were no tadpoles. His inseam appeared greater than or equal to his waist size. We're the same age; he's human, employed, and heterosexual. As a bonus, photos indicated a full head of hair and all key teeth were present and accounted for. What could go wrong?
Boredom, desperation, and a desire to allow one of my best friends to live vicariously through me converged and I agreed to a date with Frog #7. Before I detail the many, many ways this date went wrong, let me give Frog #7 the props he deserves by cataloging what he did right:
- He planned the date. While I am a big old bossy-pants under normal circumstances, I think it is so cool when the Frog takes charge and plans the date. I have to make decisions all day, every day to earn a paycheck, and I find I've become allergic to real-life decision making as a result. In addition, I'm always worried about everyone else's good time, and if I pick something that you think sucks, I'll stress out, have a lousy time and probably get a pimple.
- Not only did he plan the date, he planned a pretty good one. Knowing little about me except my height, age, city, personality type, and that I love to eat, he suggested we meet at Lake Calhoun, grab dinner, and then either canoe or walk around the lake. Romantic? Check. Meeting my need to eat? Check. The way to my heart is through my stomach. Or, put another way, food whore? Yes, I am.
- He called me the day of to reconfirm. This was important because most of the date details were arranged online, which always leaves margin for error (translation: high probability of being stood up).
- He arrived early. Unfortunately, he was the only one of us who was punctual. I underestimated the Lake Calhoun traffic on the first nice summer Saturday afternoon of the year, and I spent an obscene amount of time trying to park. I did, however, call to inform him that I was not standing him up and provided an explanation and ETA.
- He paid for my food. Please see Frog #4 for details on why this is a big deal. See also: Whore, Food.
- He walked me to my car at the end of the date. In this particular case, I would have preferred to have been left alone, but I appreciate the gesture. Chivalry is not dead. (Believe me – I know and have in fact dated frogs that would have me walk crack-house lined streets dodging open gunfire by myself on my way to my car without a second thought. I thought it was sweet and annoying that he wanted to walk me to the car.)
Doesn't he sound like a nice guy? He really, really is. So why didn't I kiss Frog #7 and wait for the metamorphosis to Prince? Well . . . buckle your seatbelts and prepare to judge me.
The adjectives most frequently employed to describe me are smart, tall, witty, and psycho-bitch, depending on whom you're asking. I'm dubious about my own set of smarts, but eventually even princesses start to drink their own Kool-aid. Because I can spell, add, subtract and tie my own shoes, potential frogs are required to demonstrate correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling. In addition, I need someone who can keep up with me intellectually. When Frog #7's opening line was, "Well, then – you're a real tall one then, aren't ya," I got a little nervous. Could I overlook his Fargo accent and his firm grip on the obvious?
I chalked it up to nerves combined with being outed on exaggerating his own height. (Side note: do men use a different measurement system than the standard inches and feet? Is it like the metric system or something? I know what 5'10" looks like, and in my experience, every guy who says he's 5'10" is at least 3 inches shorter. ) Plus, it must have been intimidating to have me towering over him in some very cute but not low-heeled shoes.
Because nothing good was going to come from a conversation about measurement, I deftly changed the subject and learned that my date "drives truck" for a living. Not "a" truck, not "the" truck, just truck. I used to be a professional dishwasher, call center cubicle jockey, bill collector, and movie theater usher – I don't judge people based on their jobs. As long as you're able to pay your way, you do what you have to do to get by. No reason that a guy who "drives truck" can't be interesting, witty, charming, and fun, right?
Small talk continued, complete with long pauses. As it turns out, two socially awkward wrongs don't make a right. After a dead-end conversation about snowmobiling (no, I don't – my cousin was killed in a snowmobile accident and for some reason, it lost its appeal after the funeral), Frog #7 bust out with, "How do you feel about recycling?"
At this point, I knew that we were pretty much doomed. Do I recycle? Of course. In fact, I've been recycling since before it was cool. Someday, I'll tell you about the scholarship I received from Coca-Cola in recognition of my efforts to make my high school more eco-friendly. But aside from participating in the act of recycling, I don't have much to actually say on the topic.
I gamely sucked it up and tried to engage Frog #7 in conversation about current events, books, hobbies, etc, but as it turns out – aside from being human, single, and subscribing members of PseudacrisBrachyphona.com, we didn't have much in common. We strolled around Lake Calhoun, desperately trying to fill the awkward pauses in conversation. At one point, Frog #7 invited me to guess his weight.
Did he think he'd stumbled into the carnival and that he was eligible for a prize by asking me to guess his weight? Was he that nervous? Were his conversational skills that limited? God only knows. All you need to know is that I guessed wrong. If I had been a contestant on The Price Is Right, I would have lost the showcase showdown by overbidding. Since I not only towered over Frog #7 by a margin of four inches but also outweighed him by 15 pounds, I changed the topic quickly before he felt compelled to guess my weight, thereby forcing me to drown myself in the lake.
I didn't employ any sneaky, "get out of date free" moves this time. Frog #7 was just too nice. He walked me to my car and as a commercial driver, was concerned that I might not be able to get out of my parking space, so he helped me maneuver a tight squeeze and I escaped without incident. We exchanged a lame, grandma-type hug and as I sped away, I wondered if I knew any nice girls I could introduce to Frog #7. And then I let out a huge sigh of relief thinking, "I survived! It's over!"
I went out on a date with a petite, skinny, snowmobiling, recycling, professional garbage man – who just so happens to be very, very sweet. I am quite sure he is the prince someone is waiting for. Unfortunately, he's not the prince for me – a fact I'm going to have to share with him at some point since he's called me three times since our date and wants to see me again. Nice as he is, there isn't enough cake on earth to get me to sign up for an encore.
So, what have we learned from this? In no particular order:
- The internet may be trying to screw you. Buyer beware.
- I sure am a tall one, aren't I?
- You don't always need to kiss the frog to know that he's not the prince for you.
© 2010 Princess D
