Vamping out on a date

“It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…without a dope rhyme to step to” – Eric B. and Rakim.  Okay, so this random though has absolutely nothing to do with anything but really, it’s been a long time.  Three long days that I’ve been meaning to post, but I’m back with what I was hoping wouldn’t be a hangover, but as life would have it, is.

Remember last week I was telling you about your girl getting her groove back?  I’d gone out two weeks ago and came home feeling pretty full of myself since I’d met a couple of decent men.   Do you also remember how I’d categorized each of them?  Since two are pretty much non-existent and need no mention that left me with two – Marcus and Tall Glass of Wine, 1^st and 2^nd place candidates respectively.  Damn, was I WRONG!

Where do I begin?  Does the fact that I had the ultimate L7 moment and had to go to the URBAN dictionary to figure out what Marcus mean when he used the term “vamp” give you a clue?

Um yeah.

I really think this post should be titled “get the f$%k out of here, I went out with a ghetto 2Pac”, but let me not get ahead of myself and tell you how Friday’s date with him went.

First off, I must admit, my radar must need a little tweaking because now that I think back over the conversations Marcus and I had, I knew just from talking on the phone that he was a different caliber of man than what I was used to.  No, I’m not knocking him because he was a blue collar worker (construction) OR that he dropped out of college and had one too many um, ah’s and uh’s when trying to find the right words.  I’m knocking him because he was way too much of a South Los Angeles stereotype.  Still, our conversations flowed pretty well and we’ve developed a pattern of consistent communication leading up to the date, so I figured we would have a great time out together no matter what.

The plan was to meet up and shoot some pool and converse over a couple of drinks around 7pm.  When I called him around 6’ish to confirm the meeting place and time, I was met with the first of many strikes – first, he tells me that he’d just made it home and wouldn’t be able to make it out that early (and when the hell was he going to call me and TELL me this, at 7??) AND that he couldn’t give me the address to where we were meeting because he didn’t know it himself.  Okay, okay.  Nothing too major so we agreed to a new time and I Googled the address of the place and was out the door.

As I’m ready to make my way, I send him a text letting him know I was near and then he hit me with strike two – replied that he was already at the bar, adding that he was waiting for me in the car while he rolled up a joint.  Seriously?  He mentioned his little habit during prior conversations, but come on dude; you need to smell like chronic au de toilette before a date?

Sigh.

I arrived at the destination and as I was parking, sent him a message asking where he was and he replies that he was waiting inside.  Strike three – he couldn’t come meet me at the door?  Or better yet, be a teeny weenie bit more specific on WHERE the hell he was in the bar so I didn’t have that deer in headlights look as I walk in playing where’s Waldo in every corner?

By now, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just turn on my heel and head for the door but oh my dear readers, it gets better.

Once I’d walked to the end of this place, I looked to my right and saw him slouched in the booth watching the Laker game.  Um yeah, THIS is when I should have turned around and ran or feigned sudden sickness and threw up on his shoes but noooooooooo, I figured I was there, so I would make the best of it.

Marcus stands up and has the biggest smile on his face as he says “Wow, you look great” but sadly, as I give him the once over (as if the demeanor in the booth wasn’t bad enough) and check out his plaid button down shirt, jeans, tennis shoes and green fatigue RAIDER baseball cap, I couldn’t return the favor.  Really?  This is your “I’m going to really impress her” outfit?

Sigh.

So we take a seat at the booth and engage in small talk, while he doles out compliment number two or three.  I sit there staring at him thinking he’s so much shorter, not as cute as I THOUGHT I remembered and his mannerisms are killing me when suddenly I hear him shout “That’s right Kobe, take that shit!”.  In his defense, we were in a room full of gung-ho Laker fans but I kept thinking to myself, it’s a date for goodness sake.  How about a little restraint?

It gets better.  By now I’m looking for the hidden cameras of Punk’d or Hell Date.

We continue talking and laughing, just making small talk and the waitress comes over asking if she can take our orders, so as he’s staring at the menu I notice them.  The fingernails.  What is THAT black stuff in his nails??????  Now in case you missed it, scroll back up and you’ll see that he does work in construction and was tinkering around with his classic Mustang before we met up, but come on – they were nasty.  I just sat there staring and finally told the waitress to give us a couple of minutes as I tried to regain my composure (insert stinky face here).  Honestly folks, dirty nails?

Now if he would have said something like “Wow, I tried to get the rest of this compost or paint off and it didn’t quite work” or “Damn, I didn’t even notice this”, something, I might have given him a little bit of a break so now I’m wondering if he knew they were like that and IGNORED it because he’s just nasty like that or if he thought I wouldn’t notice.

Food is ordered, we’re still talking, he starts getting really comfortable with me and saying how he’s enjoying himself and kicks up his feet on his side of the booth and starts up with the slouching position.  I’m in disbelief and suddenly had a terrible case of the chronic yawning.

In between his ADHD moments when he had to jump up and “go see something in the other room real quick” a few times, me being horrified wondering what substance was under his nails, not understanding where the green army fatigue hat fits in with the brown plaid and jeans attire, learning that he is the proverbial black sheep in the family having dropped out of college (all other siblings graduated and are quite successful) and having TWO D.U.I’s, all I could think about was my exit strategy.

But wait, it gets even better.

I’m sure at some point he noticed my happy and bubbly personality starting to get as stale as 5 day old movie popcorn, but then he does it – asks if I still wanted to go shoot some pool or if I wanted to go back to his house so he could show me his music studio, then watch some movies.  Seriously?  I chuckled and said “I told you, I don’t do home dates and besides, we just met”.  About another 30 minutes go by and while I certainly wanted to knock around a few balls (pool, you pervs), I only wanted to get up and do one thing – walk out the door away from this dude.

Alas, the final yawn came about and he asked me one final time about his home visit offer to which I snippily replied “no”.  I told him I was tired and had to get up early in the morning, so at 10:55pm, I was ready to go.  Obviously, if someone is having a better time than someone else, that first someone isn’t going to like hearing this, so as we were walking towards the door, Marcus comments that he’ll need to find something else to get into since it’s so early.  Yeah, whatever, I’m thinking.

He walks me to the car, I give him the friendly hug (you know the one where your chest and butt are light years away from the other person?) and went on about my merry little way.

As I was pulling into my driveway, I noticed a text message from him that said – “If you plan on vamping out all early at 11pm, let me know in advance so I can decide if I want to go”.  For some reason, this was hilarious to me so I just replied “Um…okay” already having decided that was a wrap after that ghetto fabulous behavior he’d displayed.  The next day he sent a text that was the complete opposite of Friday night’s bitchiness that read “I’m sorry about last night, I was just having such a great time, I got a little grumpy and didn’t want the night to end.  I’m looking forward to many more dates with you so let me know, anytime”.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight!

Needless to say, there will NOT be another and as far as my understanding of the word “vamp” goes, there sure as hell was a negative circumstance presenting itself, HIM!

Until there’s a cure for my hangovers,

Carmen ~