Normally I avoid blind dates with the same conviction a gay man avoids becoming a gynecologist. Why waste your time examining someone you didn't have an interest in to begin with? My friends, Brad and Kim, however, had spent weeks trying to convince me to go out with a friend of theirs and I finally relented if for no other reason than to shut them up. Besides, truth be told their friend was attractive and, having been in a bit of a dating slump, I decided that a blind date in this case was, on the whole, slightly better than no date.
Her name was Patricia. She was an accountant at the medical supply company where Kim worked, a mother of two and some sixteen months removed from a divorce. She was on the tall side, slender and attractive in that simple, understated way that too often goes unappreciated in our surgically perfected pop culture society.
We agreed to meet on a Friday night at a quiet little French-American restaurant in the heart of downtown. Such places are always a good choice for first dates. The food and drink is generally good enough that even if your date doesn't impress you at least walk away still feeling the evening was somewhat worthwhile.
We started off with the usual pleasantries, tried-and-true icebreakers like 'where are you from' and 'what's your retirement plan look like'. Patricia was charming enough and clearly intelligent. She even had a decent sense of humor and an easy smile to go with it. All the same, though, by the time the appetizers had arrived I knew she had sorted me out and placed me in the 'not potential love monkey' bin.
I had a pretty good idea why I was so easily and summarily dismissed. Patricia's subtle double-take when I had stood to greet her at the table was a clue. I had assumed that Kim had told her all about me or at least mentioned the obvious things. I figured she would have slipped in any potentially problematic factoid between a couple of minor exaggerations to the positive in order to balance things out, something like, "He's ridiculously rich, has a little bit of a handicap, and can pick a lock with his tongue." Judging from Patricia's initial reaction, however, I gathered Kim hadn't mentioned any of those things. Then again, maybe she had. There can be a big difference between knowing something and actually seeing it.
In any event, I could see throughout dinner that Patricia was wanting to ask the inevitable question. To her credit, though, she managed to refrain from doing so until the third glass of wine had arrived, which as anyone versed in social decorum knows is the acceptable moment for bluntness.
"What happened to you?" she asked setting her glass down.
