8/26/2011

Boys Will Be Girls

Story Sent in by Melinda:

Larry messaged me online, and we had planned to go out for dinner and walk through town, but on the day of our date, it rained all day. He asked me, "Want to bring our walk inside? We can go to the mall." I felt like a teenager, but quality time was quality time, and so I told him that I'd be up for it.

Before dinner, we walked all around the mall. When we neared a toy store, he made a bee line into it. I followed him in, all the way to the girls' aisle. He froze as if he was beholding El Dorado.

He said, "When I was younger, I always wanted to go into this aisle. Now, I can!"

He strode boldly into the land of Barbies, doll houses, and plastic fashion accessories. "Holy crap," he said, swiveling his head in every direction, "This is awesome."

I accompanied him up and down the aisle until he stopped at a small jewelry box set. He grabbed it off the shelf and looked around, as if a mob of people hoped to fight him for the prize.

"Jewels!" he said, "Do you know how hard it is to find jewels in a boys' section?"

"I'd imagine it as pretty hard," I agreed, "You going to get that?"

He nodded as if to say, "Well, duh." He looked at the shelf above and grabbed another manufacturer's jewelry box set, and carried that one with him, too. After walking up and down the aisle a few more times, he led me to the cashier, where he paid for his gems and jewelry. He was so very happy.

When we left the store, I asked him, "Ready for dinner?"

He said, "Oh yeah. Dinner. I think I don't have much money left."

"We can stop at an ATM."

"I don't pay ATM fees."

"That's a problem."

"Yeah."

There was no way I was going to offer to spot him. I suggested, "You can take a ride out to your bank, grab some cash, and meet me back here. I'll wait," and I would have.

He said, "I need to bring these back to my car. Come with?"

I followed him to his car. He packed his jewels within, and told me, "Let's raincheck dinner. That okay?"

"Uh… sure."

"Okay!" he said a bit too excitedly, then kissed my cheek, hopped into his car, made a hand motion as if to say, "call me," and drove off.

I was in no hurry to leave, so I returned to the stores to walk around a bit more. A good friend of mine had a daughter whose birthday was in the following month, so I figured that it was as good a time as any to pick up her present. I returned to the toy store to browse.

Not too long after I arrived there, Larry himself returned with his boxes of jewels. He didn't see me, but I saw him return both sets and leave the store.

I didn't call him, although he texted me a couple of times during the following week.

14 comments:

  1. "He packed his jewels within"

    Ah.

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  2. It's possible he was just messing with her or desperate for a free meal. But there really are guys who think women will like them if they act effeminate. Yeah, I don't get it either, but it happens.

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  3. ...What? Who lives on cash these days? This problem is a non-starter: if it's that he doesn't want to pay ATM fees, he can pay at the restaurant register with his debit card, and if it's that his bank account is too low, he shouldn't have been making impulse purchases anyway.

    CLEARLY he was just trying to ditch the OP, and that's why he snuck back to return the boxes.

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  4. I don't think he was trying to ditch, I think he was trying to get a free meal.

    "Oh, I'm sorry, I don't think I have enough money for dinner after buying these plastic toys I'm going to return later."

    If the guy was smart, he would have gone to dinner, then acted like he just remembered how low his account was. Chances are she would have at least paid for her half if not the whole thing. Of course, if you were actually interested in this girl, showing off your lack of funds is not the way to do it.

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  5. I agree with the people saying he wanted a free dinner. Pretty dumb way to get it, though.

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  6. If Larry had been trying to get a free meal, HE would have been the one to ask about dinner. Instead, it was the OP who brought it up, and he kept trying to find pretexts to avoid it. To me, it seems fairly clear that the OP was unattractive to him, and he wanted to end the date ASAP.

    As for why he texted her, it's cause he was a narcissistic attention whore who got off on having a girl who was really attracted to him, as the OP clearly was. ("You can take a ride up to your bank. I'll wait," and I would have.) It's a personality type you see from time to time in the online dating community. If she had returned his texts he would have strung her along perpetually but never committed to another date.

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  7. If she was super attracted to him, I think she would have offered to pay for his meal. I mean, the bank thing seems too far for me, but I know people who would call her a bitch if she wasn't willing to do that.

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  8. ^ OK, you've got a point there. But notice that at no stage of the conversation did he express an interest in having dinner in ANY capacity. If he had been interested in getting the meal, he would have said something like "I don't have any cash, can you spot me?" Instead, his responses were flat out negations. When you combine that with how happy he was to raincheck dinner, it all paints a picture of him not being interested.

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  9. He must have found out the jewels weren't real

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  10. Am I the only one who thinks she was being a bitch for not at least offering to buy dinner? Yeah, it's obvious in retrospect that he was ditching her, but at the time, I think it sounds more desperate to say, "You drive to your bank, which could be super far away, and take out money, and I'll wait here for you" than to say, "Ok, let's hit up the food court" and just get a damn Happy Meal or something.

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  11. ^^ See? Not going above and beyond brings out the bitch label and doing it means you're desperate.

    But anyway, it's not like he spent his cash on parking or movie tickets or something. He knew how much he had and he decided to spend it on toys and then refused to accept an ATM fee. I wouldn't enable such childish decision making even if dinner was only five bucks.

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  12. FFS, he spends his money on crap, why should you buy him dinner?

    Also, if anyone says 'i dont pay ATM fees' just dump them, right then and there, because they are tight losers.

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  13. @Clikki

    Why would she want to buy some super unimpressive guy dinner after she wasted his money on plastic, girl toys?

    @Jason

    I don't pay ATM fees either, but I don't consider myself a "tight loser". I plan ahead if I need cash and take it out at my bank to avoid paying $3+ to take out a twenty.

    Also, I'm pretty sure most restaurants take debit now. Honestly, I never carry cash unless I'm going somewhere I know doesn't accept anything but.

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  14. I operate mostly in cash. It's more convenient from a money management point of view, as there's no possibility of going overdrawn and it usually prevents impulse purchases like boxes of jewels. Perhaps if I had more money to spare I'd use my debit card more often.

    My first thought was that the guy wanted to ditch OP and was going about it in an incompetent way. But in that case he could have just bailed when it started to rain, instead of trying to prolong the date. And eventually he asked if they could postpone dinner - wouldn't he have just done that earlier?

    My guess is that he wanted to appear whimsical and in touch with his feminine side, and then either genuinely overspent or hoped that OP would have fallen for him enough to foot the bill.

    Or what Ashley said.

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