My date with Tom? Major disappointment. I agreed to meet him at Saks in the jewelry department. (Don’t ask. It was his idea).  As soon as I saw him my heart sank. Let’s just say his pictures were flattering, to put it mildly. His hair was speckled with grey, and not in a sexy George Clooney way, and he was definitely not 6’4” as he boasted in his profile.  For a second I considered turning right around and hightailing it out of there before he saw me, but my conscience compelled me to stay.   

I scolded myself for being so superficial as I approached my date. He could be really cool and interesting to talk to, I assured myself optimistically. Or…not.  Within the first two minutes of conversation, Tom must have said “nice!”—in an unbearably annoying octave—about 20 times in response to what I said.  I tried to remain upbeat, hoping that his irritating comments were due to nervousness and not a reflection of his typical personality.  

Neither of us was really in the mood to shop, so we left Saks and started walking uptown. He asked if I was hungry and I said no, uneasy at the thought of sitting down to a full meal with this guy. Since it was such a nice day, we decided to take a walk through the park and talk. After about an hour of mundane conversation, we left the park and continued to walk along the Upper West Side. After a while, Tom suggested we go see an IMAX movie. Apparently he had just received free tickets from his company. How generous of him!  Not wanting to commit to another two hours with Tom, I told him that I had plans to meet my sister later in the afternoon. 

Undeterred, he proposed we visit the nearest 7 Eleven instead. Yep, you read that right: 7 Eleven! And he would even pay my $2 subway fare to get there! There was some kind of special promotion going on that he wanted to check out, apparently. As exciting as a trip to the convenience store sounded, I turned that down as well, this time using its inconvenient location as an excuse. We agreed to just keep walking uptown since we were heading in the direction of my apartment anyway.  We engaged in more forced conversation and, at one point, Tom flexed his arm and asked me to feel his muscle.  ”Impressive!” I enthused, while secretly rolling my eyes beneath my sunglasses.  

After all that walking, my shoes started to hurt, so we stopped to rest on a bench for a few minutes. Tom began telling me about his passion for karaoke and that Kelly Clarkson is one of his personal faves to belt out. To emphasize his point, he sang the first thirty seconds or so of “Since You’ve Been Gone”…I don’t know which was more disconcerting, the fact that he knew all the words to a Kelly Clarkson song or the fact that he was painfully tone deaf. By that point we were about three blocks from my apartment and my foot pain was way more bearable than spending another minute sitting next to Tom, so he walked me back and we said our goodbyes.  As he headed towards the subway, I heaved a sigh of relief.  At least I didn’t sacrifice the entire afternoon.