Story 59: The last straw

Dating has been a real challenge for me over the years. People say I am too picky, and perhaps I am, and as I get older I sometimes wonder if life has passed me by. Lately,  it seems that getting a third date is harder than Roger Bannister running a mile in under four minutes, or pilot Chuck Yaeger breaking the sound barrier, but seriously, some of these women are very weird.

I went out with a woman a few times that had a bad habit of sticking out her tongue at strange times, and not in a sexy way.  It had to be neurological in nature, but I just couldn’t handle it.  It turned out that my friend Roberto had gone out with her too and had a similar experience, and reacted the same.  

More recently,  I dated a woman who I thought was very attractive at first.  I took her to a nice vegetarian restaurant in New York City on a dark and stormy night.  The date went great and I believed there really might be some potential.  In fact, I eagerly texted her on the Long Island Railroad after the date. Something I rarely do.  

However, the next time I met her for improv comedy in NYC.  I waited  for her outside the UCB theater.   This time I met my date at 6:30 p.m. A bright sunny evening.  She started walking towards me and waved, but I didn’t recognize her.  She looked much worse. It was like the Seinfeld  episode where a woman looked very different in the daylight.  I looked behind me but no one was there. She approached me and said,

“What's the matter you don’t recognize me?” She asked.

“I don’t have the best vision.” I lied. 

After the show, we went to a tea bar and had iced teas.  I had iced green tea and she had iced passion tea.  I joked to my friends the next day that the only passion I had that night was when I drank a bit of her drink.

“Would you like to try some of my drink?” She asked.

“Sure.” I replied ready to dip my straw in her glass.

“Wait,” She stated. “Let me get a third straw.” And with that she preceded to get additional straw.  She put a third straw in her drink.

“Try some please.” She said with a flourish.

I wanted to say to her, “If it’s this hard to drink your drink, how the hell are we ever going to be intimate? 

I took a brief sip and smiled, but inside I said to myself, ‘This third straw is the last straw’ and while there was a third straw, there was no third date.  

Life Lesson 59: I believe the basketball coach John Wooden or Wayne Gretsky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take in life.” and I while I agree with this statement, sometimes your shots go in, but you don’t really want to score.