YOU'RE SINGLE BECAUSE YOU'RE 35 AND HAVE GUINEA PIGS

I like to tell myself that the reason I keep putting myself in these situations is for the comic relief of my friends, but I think I'm really a dating masochist that can't keep away from the crazy.  Or believes "this time it'll be different."  And we all know what I'm talking about...

...the internet.  It feels like I've done this so many times I can't count, but really, in my entire life, I've been on "internet dates" probably 5-7 times.  That's an average of less than one a year.  I suppose that's not entirely pathetic.  Or at least less pathetic than some.

This time I was using a different site (an app, if you must know) that I got on just to see what it was like after I heard about it from a friend.  I never had any intention of dating anyone from it, especially since the first people it sent me were shirtless 19-year-olds who worked construction.  If I haven't stated this before, I'll go ahead and say that a shirtless selfie in your bathroom mirror is an immediate NO.

Playing around one day it actually came to someone that looked cute, and was in my age range.  I clicked on his pictures and he had about 5, all of which were pretty attractive.  Some were silly, so I assumed  he had a decent sense of humor too.  I mindlessly click the "interested" button and forget about the app for a few weeks.  Fast forward to last week.  I check the app again in that span of time when I lay in my bed at night and tweet stupid shit all at once and play bingo on my Iphone, and I have a message from him.  Leaving out uninteresting details, we made a date for last night.

First off, we were supposed to meet at this place called the Red Door in the Valley.  According to Yelp, it was hard to find because the entrance was in an alley and unmarked.  I arrive, and am wandering around the alleys of Toluca Lake looking for a glowing red door and finding nothing.  I text him to say I'm lost, and that I'm in some alley.  This is already starting off great.  He ends up finding me before some rapist does, and we discover that (of course) the place we were trying to go was closed.

First impressions - I just met a guy in a dark alley for a first date.  I can't really see him well, since it's so damn dark, but the first thing I notice is his voice...his GAY voice.  Not in intonation or specific ways of speaking, just the pitch.  I hadn't ever thought about this before, since it hadn't really come up, but that instantly took him from a 7 to a 4 on the attraction scale.  I'm still in shock as he decides to find another place for us to go. 

We end up at some nice loungey place with appetizers and fancy cocktails and comfy seating, which I find perfectly acceptable.  What I don't find acceptable, however, is where the conversation is leading.  While eating bites of prosciutto and sipping my coconut mojito (weird combo, I know), he decides to tell me that he doesn't speak to his family because a) his parents are dead (very matter-of-factly), b) his sister is one of those ren-fair people who is actually convinced she's living in the middle ages at all times, and c) his OTHER sisters are weirder than that one in ways he's not comfortable talking about.

So his much older sister is apparently insanely delusional and dresses in medieval garb at all times, speaks the weird old English, and married a guy who wears FULL METAL BODY ARMOR AT ALL TIMES.  I sit there and shockingly listen to it all the while wondering why he's telling me this, since he HAS TO KNOW that crazy is genetic.  If she's that weird, you've GOT to have something creepy going on in your head.  Not to mention the "unmentionables" - the other sisters.

Trying to steer the conversation back to something where I'm not thinking of ways to covertly set a fire so we have to run out of the restaurant and I can escape, I bring up where I live.  This leads to a discussion of rent and apartment searching.  Boring, but tolerable.  Not weird...yet.  I did mention (since I was pretty sure the date was over on my part anyway) that it's hard to find pet-friendly places since I have cats.  He replies with an enthusiastic "I KNOW!" and proceeds to get out his cell phone to show me "his boys" that make it so hard for him to find a place in LA. 

If you're a guy and you refer to your pets as "your boys," they better damn well be trained fighting pit bulls because otherwise you sound like a giant pussy.  So this is what I was expecting to see when he scrolled through photos on his phone.  Or maybe a couple of weiner dogs.  Ok, with this guy, perhaps cats.  No.  Not even close.  "His boys," and consequently the background on his Iphone were TWO GUINEA PIGS.  LIKE THE RODENT. 

Don't get me wrong, guinea pigs are cute.  IN A CHILD'S ROOM.  The fact that he a) owns them, b) refers to them as "my boys" and c) brings them up on a first date are not good signs at all.  Then, because I'd pretty much checked out at this point, he launches into a 20-minute-long monologue about different things his guinea pigs do, funny stories about them, blah blah blah.

I actually blocked out so much of the evening I don't honestly remember how I managed to signal that it was time for me to be going.  Suffice it to say, I managed to get out of there and have him drive me back to my car, which was by our original romantic alleyway rendezvous.  He pulls the car over and unbuckles his seatbelt.  OH HELL NO.  This was the point where I quickly do the awkward head-down quick hug and jump the fuck out of the car so he couldn't try to make a move.  I couldn't think of anything to say, since I didn't want to see him again and I didn't have fun, so I just said "Say hi to the boys for me..."

Sweet Jesus.