Image by Mike "Dakinewavamon" Kline via Flickr
Once upon a time, I walked into a bar on the Upper West Side to meet one of my J-day-tay dates (or what you might know as JDate). I was looking forward to meeting this very tall, very handsome stranger. He was from Kentucky, and Jewish. Over the phone, he had a southern twang of some kind. Or so I thought. More on that twang later.
As I made my way through the bar, I saw him sitting at a table that was placed awkwardly close to another table, with two women sitting at it.
These two girls are going to love listening to our first date unfold, I thought as I approached.
But, he was handsome. Five-star handsome. He looked just like his pictures, which is not always common. We were off to a good start.
“Hi! Andy? Darcy.” I extended my hand.
“Well hello Darcy!,” he said as he pulled me in for a hug.
Ho. Ly.
He was the gayest man I’ve ever met.
Well, maybe not as gay as the date who took me to the Indigo Girls concert and held my hand and wanted to skip.
I turned green. That twang wasn’t just southern, it was downright RuPaul.
I glanced at the two girls at the next table, and they glanced back at me. There was something in their look, an awkward disbelief, that I knew I was not alone in thinking this.
I dreaded sitting down and cursed myself for having to play along with his charade. As I always say, I love a gay man. But, if you want to play for my team, you have to wear my uniform. And my uniform doesn’t involve a beard of any kind.
And so, I sat across from Andy. My eyes glazed over and I went into hibernation mode. There may or may not have been a screen saver slowly crawling across my face.
“Darcy, why don’t I go grab us some beers?”
“Okay,” I smiled through my teeth, cursing him for putting me through this.
As soon as he got up, I turned to the two girls, who had had their eyes fixated on us the entire time.
“Hi girls, level with me. Is my date gay?”
“Oh my g-d yes!!!! When we got here we thought he was cute, but then spoke to him and assumed he was gay. Then you showed up. We were wondering if you knew you had a gay boyfriend.”
You know that girl who people look at and think, “doesn’t she know her date is gay?”
Okay. Got it. I’m her. Good times.
“This is our first date. I met him on JDate,” I confided in these complete strangers.
“That is why I won’t try internet dating. I’d rather be alone forever,” one of the girls said as she looked at me with accusing eyes. She might as well have thrown a dart at me. Not that it mattered much at this point. Who was I to judge. I was sitting there waiting for my gay date to return with my draft beer.
“Oh! Here he comes,” she said in a hushed tone, then left me alone to role-play two straight people out on a date on a saturday night. I wondered if someone was handing out playbills.
I watched him walk towards me. So hot. The boys must love him, I thought.
I decided to not fake it. I went for it.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t. Are you… are you gay?”
“What?” He laughed, but didn’t immediately say no.
“I mean, are you?”
“I need to tell my friends that right away,” he said. He took out his phone, and started typing furiously. He showed it to me, a text that read:
“My date thinks I am gay.”
A few moments, later his phone buzzed.
“Aren’t you?”
And suddenly, Family Feud echoed through my head. Survey says… you’re gay.
Sometimes, we want to believe something is good, so we give it a chance. I know I have been guilty of turning a blind eye here or there because I wanted to believe it would be good.
Maybe it’s good on paper, or good when you look across the table. But it’s not good upon further inspection. On the other hand, it’s downright depressing to be on a terrible date that you know is going nowhere. Maybe my approach wasn’t the nicest, but I could not handle another bad date. And I do believe it’s better to be alone than with a bad date.
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how good everything else looks. We just have to cut our losses.
Read more about Darcy’s dates here.