Mini Me

Oh boy… This was a classic first date.

I joined a dating service when my last relationship ended. I was very disappointed, a little disillusioned, and frankly just didn’t want to deal with the madness of match. So I paid several thousand dollars to work with a company that specialized in matchmaking. I thought to myself that I would be much better off if I paid someone else to find me a boyfriend, as I was clearly not choosing properly for myself. When I joined the service, I met with a relationship counselor, filled out a bunch of paperwork about who I am, what I’m looking for, and what I want and need from a relationship. From this information gathering, they would then send me off to one of their matchmakers who would search high and low for the man who would surely sweep me off my feet.

What it is I’m looking for, so you’ll know, is someone smarter than me, someone who can engage in witty banter, someone who knows what’s going on in the world, and has an opinion he wants to share. I want someone who is educated, worldly, successful as a person, and who wants to enjoy life in all its many facets. Looks mean very little to me, and height means even less. I am looking for the smart boy, the one who makes me work harder just to keep up, and whose very presence in my life makes me a better, stronger, wiser person. I want someone better than me, smarter than me, and more patient than me because my future kids deserve the best dad the world has to offer just as I want and deserve the best partner the world has to offer.

Big shoes to fill? You betcha. But I’m happy enough in my own skin to wait forever it such is my fate.

Anyway, back to the matching service...

They first paired me with the Republican, so it would seem to me that they’d‘ve put in a little extra effort to unsour my dissatisfaction with their quite unremarkable first impression. I don’t believe my expectations were set too high, but I made it very clear that I wanted to be matched with a rocket scientist smart guy. And what I got was his intellectual antipodal.

I was the first to arrive, as is usually the case. I am perpetually punctual, to a flaw in fact, and always carry a book or newspaper with me so I can gleefully await the arrival of whoever it is I’m meeting. I sat in the coffee shop (this great little gem of a place on Silver Lake Blvd., called LA Mill Coffee), sipping on my chai latte, delving into The Prince, and looked up when I heard his voice (we’d spoken on the phone a few times prior to our meeting and I had assumed (yes, I did make an ass of me by doing so) that it was telephonic shyness that left a hint of intellectual dearth). What I saw standing before me was a four foot tall creature that looked shockingly like Dr. Evil. I am pretty sure my date had been the model for the character made infamous by Mike Myers. But like I said, looks mean little to me, so I wasn’t going to write him off without getting a little taste of that intellectual acumen my matchmaker promised I would find in this date.

Unfortunately, however, his intellectual capacity resembled Forrest Gump as strongly as his physical appearance likened Dr. Evil. But what’s a girl to do in such a situation? Was I meant to excuse myself to the ladies room, only to flee out the back door? Or was it appropriate to stick it out, and present myself at my most charming? As an aside, this question sparked quite an interesting debate amongst my nearest and dearest, who differed as much in opinion as one might hope they would. The general consensus was that being charming was the best route, but that I should have returned his calls to let him down easy. I didn’t. I left it to the matching service to let him know we wouldn’t be seeing each other again.

I thought long and hard about the advice of my friends, and though it was really important to me that he not think I didn’t want to see him again because of his physical appearance, I just couldn’t really think of a nice way to tell him that he’d need to tack about 40 points onto his IQ count before he could consider himself worthy of a second date with me.

Though it’s fairly needless to say at this point, I ended my relationship with the matchmaking company and rejoined match.com because as time-consuming and annoying as match really is, within its many pages exists an abundance of first-date fodder.

The end.