There’s this guy I know from grad school. While I don’t know him-know him, we’re friends on facebook in a very “people-you-know-in-common” kinda way. He starts chatting me up pretty regularly on fb and calls me a few times. I discovered very quickly that he’s the kind of person that can talk and talk for like 10-15 minutes without any response or input from you. This was a little annoying at first, but I’m used to (over)talkers and am always in the market for men who can talk me to sleep (it’s much better than listening to that “sounds of the ocean” bs) .
So one day he IMs to ask if we can hang out that night. It’s last minute, and he clearly doesn’t have a plan for a location or activity, but I throw him a bone (because I’m a sweet, compassionate lady) and suggest that we meet up to play pool in union square.
He’s already secured a table by the time I get there, so I go over to meet him and he goes in for the big hug which catches me off-guard. Not that there’s anything wrong with the big hug, I just wasn’t expecting it as an opening gesture from someone you don’t really know all that well. All the while we’re playing pool I’m getting distracted by this guy’s appearance. He’s not bad looking or anything like that, but he’s extremely well put together, the light purple sweater over the shirt and tie with grey jeans was one thing, but then I noticed that his hair was kinda long and perfectly trimmed, and his nails were freshly done. So I wondered if maybe I just happened to catch him on that one day when he got a shape up and his semi-annual manicure, or if the coiffed hair, effeminate beard and shiny nails are his every-day do. When I come across guys doing this urban metrosexual thing I’m always trying to 1- discern if my gaydar was off and 2-perhaps more important than if he’s gay, figure out if he’s prettier than me, because I can’t date a guy who is prettier than me, or who has boobs that are bigger than mine-it’s just not fair…but I digress.
Anyways we continue to play pool and the rest of the date is pretty uneventful. We end up finishing our wine at the bar and talking a bit where I try to explain that I tend to be uncomfortable with unanticipated touching from people I don’t know too well. He seems to acknowledge that he caught me off guard with the hug earlier and then keeps the conversation moving. We end up talking about the 5 love languages (more on that later) and overall have a pretty decent date….. until he walks me to the train, says goodbye and shakes my hand. It was like we just left a business meeting and he’s agreed to fax the TPS reports.
I’m puzzled, but don’t say anything in the moment because I need to rush home where my jump off aka the young boy is waiting outside my apartment (don’t judge me). I spend the next hour or so telling the young boy about the my date, and apologizing for leaving him waiting- because of Mr. Handshake man can’t close a conversation even when you’re standing in the cold outside the 4 train. When I tell him about how my date ended with a handshake and he laughs and says that’s what I get for stiff-arming the hello hug in the first place and it’s my fault for throwing the guy’s game off before the date even started.
As usual I think on what the young boy said, because I think he’s smart, and decide to make a joke out of the handshake in an IM conversation with Pretty Boy Handshake the following night (yes I passive-aggressively mask contempt with derision- in case you didn’t know). We get to talking and the conversation quickly turns into a quickfire round about what I’m willing to do sexually. I try to dial it back, but he keeps up with the rapid fire questions and he’s really over the top, when I become non-responsive and won’t entertain his anal sex questions. (Yes after a first date that ended in a handshake he follows up with anal sex.) In my mind I totally can’t figure this guy out. I mean we had a conversation about boundaries, especially physical boundaries, and also how you show someone that you like them. So how did he get from handshake to anal sex??
Line steppin’ and entitlement. He just took too many liberties and acted way too familiar way too soon. Sometimes with the line steppers it’s inventing nicknames, others it’s asking personal questions, but most often it’s starting “sexy” conversations that are inappropriate. And in general, sex questions with someone you just met and are not having sex with are inappropriate. Dude basically came off creepy and perverted and then tried to act like he didn’t know where the line was. Really dude? You thought it best to end a date with a handshake to not seem too forward, and then go in with the sex probing? This guy saw a line, decided to step on it to test the waters and then when I called him on the line stepping, he pretends he didn’t do anything wrong or perverted, and says he “has a right to be horny”. Now I don’t know if he was born with that combo of line steppin’ and entitlement, or if this is something he picked up from his frat brothers, at the barbershop or maybe at the nail salon. What I have to conclude is that this guy is a habitual line stepper; I imagine he acts like this all the time and no one ever says anything. He’s left thinking all the women he meets are prude or perhaps not as pretty as he is.
