8 - Cocky Ginger

Warning: explicit content. Explicitly foolish, too...

In person, online daters (myself included) can tend to be a let down. Ex. Cocky Ginger. In my background post, I stated I agreed to online dating at the urging of my friends. And they certainly owe me for this next one.

Cocky Ginger had intrigue. He owned a small business, had a thick neck and a pleasant face in pictures. Not a lot went on in our messages, except he let me know very early on that he was wary of crazy women. Apparently he had a track record of running into them.

Total red flag. Every woman you meet is bat ish crazy? Well newsflash: if it has a vagina, it’s crazy. That’s part of our gifting. The cookie comes with the cray. But if you attract particularly crazy vagina creatures, that’s a reflection of you, sir.

Cocky Ginger asks me out; foolishly, I agree. I let him know I’d like to do something chill, just to see if we vibe in person. To my utter joy, he suggested we meet at a taco joint in Carrollton. Joyful because he picked a place, not because I’m a fat kid who loves tacos. But yah, I’m also a fat kid who loves tacos.

Y’all have learned by now that I don't even know how to be on time. Characteristically, I stroll in about eight minutes late wearing the original white v-neck shirt and blue jeans I wore to meet Nondescript.

The taco place is teeming with families: children in soccer uniforms, teenagers in letter jackets and babies with chubby legs. I really, really like looking at chubby baby legs, so I was happy with his choice.

I spot Cocky Ginger immediately: A slight man with red hair and a crooked smile. Some might say an endearingly crooked smile. I am not some.

Also please note, his height wasn't in his profile. He's definitely under 5’11. Clerical error on my part. Here we go, anyway.

He greets me, and we stand at the counter to order. He gives me recommendations on the best tacos as we stand in line. I was hungry (dammit), so I choose the pulled chicken taco he recommends and a bottle of water. Slowly, I reach into my purse for my wallet. I dig around a while before pulling out cash. My date just stands there. Sigh. I hand a $5 bill to the cashier to cover my $3.88 tab. Pretty sure I was in slow-mo the whole time.

The doe-eyed cashier hands me my change. Then this flame-haired lame says “Oh, I would have paid for your taco.”

Really, clown? Well why the %^#@ didn’t you, your skinny ass stood right there the whole time, I think loudly with every ounce of my being. “Well I got it, no worries,” I peep.

We sit at a booth against the back wall next to a group of high school girls.

“So tell me about these psycho women,” I say.

And he begins to spin a tale about how women, and men, regularly go to crazy lengths to “get their ginger fuck on.” Oh. Uh...say what, now?

“Everybody secretly wants to fuck a ginger,” he asserts. Oh! Well I guess we’re jumping right in here. Right on in. He says “fuck” about 587 times. He’s not even from the Northeast, y’all. Vulgar as this clown was, he was also my type of storyteller. He knew how to let suspense linger, he used foreshadowing effectively and he was animated.

As he’s telling a story about a woman who flew from Hawaii to his house with nothing on but a trench coat, I realize despite my complete lack of attraction to him, I enjoy the boldness of his personality. Minus the cockiness seeping from his gaping pores, that is. “I’d fucked her before and women think I’m really good, so she came back for more. Not to be conceited or anything, but they always do.” Right...

He takes a bathroom break, probably to go fuck himself, and I pull out my phone to reply to a text from my favorite giant. The group of 5 giggling teens in the booth next to me rises, gathers their trash and loudly prepares to leave. One of the girls stops at my booth on her way to the trashcan. She's very tall and has very large teeth. “Umm I just have to tell you that you're so pretty,” she speaks quickly.

Well, that made the whole night worth it. “Oh my gosh, thank you so much!” I reply.

“Umm is that guy your boyfriend?” the girl scrunches up her face as she asks.

“No, it's our first date.”

“Oh okay, umm, we were just saying you're too pretty for him.”

I laugh, “I don't know what to say to that.”

“Umm sorry, I just had to say it,” she says.

She swiftly turns back to join her friends headed out the door. Well dang. She was ruthless. No ruth at all.  If the children are our future, 2050 looks #savage.

Cocky Ginger returns, unaware of the knowledge just dropped on me by a teen girl. He asks what I have planned that weekend. I reply, “Oh not a lot, probably cleaning on Saturday and then church on Sunday. The usual.”

“Church? You’re a Christian?” he asks.

“For lack of a better word, yes I am.”

Old dude flips the script faster than Trump’s toupee  on a blustery morning. He braggadociously launches into his travels on mission trips, his time at seminary and his current “job” at a local church in the A/V department.

“Yah, religion is important to me, too” he shares. He stares directly into my eyes and says, “I used to pray for people and heal them.”

Oh, so after you’d “ginger fuck” them, you’d “ginger heal” them? What the hell kind of circus is this? Go jump from a trapeze into a flaming hoop or something.

The problem here is not that you can’t have worldly experiences and be a person of faith. I’m a pretty worldly person myself. The problem is he suddenly changed the entire way he presented himself when he found out about my faith.

And the sheer arrogance of it all! He wasn't sharing to relate, he was absolutely bragging and trying to impress me with his Christianly works. He'd have an easier time impressing me by making balloon animals.

He literally said, “They created special time for me to pray for people. They'd bring me the really sick ones because they'd always get healed when I prayed.”

No, joker. The healing is not your doing, but His.

He shares a few more stories about how he’s God’s gift and soon I reach the point where I’m yawning and my eyes are stinging from tiredness. And my ears are hurting from nonsense.

We say goodbye and another one bites the dust.

Test 1: Fail. Lame fail, at that.

Test 2: Definitely not. I work with a guy from Boston, I get enough swears during sales meetings.

Verdict: He started texting me more than I wanted him to. He asked me out again and I told him I didn’t think we were compatible. He said “That’s fine, but why.” I told him I wasn't a small woman and I’d be self-conscious about dating a slender man because we’d look like a marshmallow and a toothpick. That’s exactly what I said. He replied “I’m going to the gym a lot more, so I won’t be small for long.”

Wrong answer. Several more attempts from him later, I ended up blocking him.

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