The Funniest Date EVER

In honor of the Sex and the City movie coming out this week, I thought I’d share one of my most outrageous dating stories.

I’ve usually refrained from writing anything about my personal life when it comes to dating. However, this story is just too good to pass up, and I swear, every word of it is true and unexaggerated.

It was early 2001. I had just left behind seven years as a Roman Catholic seminarian and had moved to the big city of Chicago. I was this newbie 41-year-old guy who hadn't dated anyone in seven years and it was the year two-THOUSAND!

So, I went "online" which was wayyy new for me. The only online activity I had done previous to this was to tap in to the theological library at the University of Toronto for crying out loud. Really. (I’m not making this up).

So, I hooked up with what seemed like this nice guy online. He was of Italian background, about my age, we traded nice pictures and arranged a date to meet.

I wouldn't want to divulge his name, for that would really be indiscreet. . .

. . . Tony and I agreed to meet at an EL station near his apartment in the western suburb of Berwyn and go to a nearby Chinese buffet that he liked. Friday came along and I headed out to the Berwyn station after work on Friday, all excited about my date.

Tony was there. He looked like his picture; nice normal guy. Five minutes later, we entered this Chinese Buffet From Hell. . . . . .

He took me to this place where every person with an eating disorder goes to die. On Friday night.

The place is packed with people; huge people with their butts spilling out all over their chairs. There was a group of people clamoring for tables.

There was nothing on the buffet line but fried food along with a haze of grease hanging in the air.

“This is not good,” I thought to myself.

He spotted a table that was about to be cleared by a bus-boy and motioned me near it. While the bus boy approached, Tony spotted several fried shrimp left behind by the previous diners on their plates . . . . . . . and he began to pick them up and wolf them down!

I'm thinking, “This is not good.”

And isn't this a buffet? Aren't we about to go shovel up all the fried shrimp we can eat?

Not only that, but he dipped them into the sweet-n-sour sauce left behind on their plates. Can you imagine?

Now, I'm really freaking. I'm trying to think of something to say, something like, "I'm really not comfortable here. . . "

But the situation quickly got worse. . . It turns out that the previous diners who'd left the fried shrimp had not actually left. They were only at the buffet table refilling their plates and they were heading back -- To the table where Tony was wolfing down their shrimp -- along with their sweet & sour sauce that they'd left behind.

As they headed back, I bolted for the men's room. I left Tony to deal with them. I don't know what happened. By the time I returned, he'd found another table.

But wait! It gets worse. . . he returned to the table with a plate PILED high with food. I mean, his plate was a huge pyramid of Chinese food.

While I sat there gazing at his plate, he kept picking up bits of food from his plate and poking onto mine.

"Hey, try this! Oh, this is good! mff. nnff."

The thing was, it wasn't bits of fried food like shrimp puffs or crab rangoon that he was fingering onto my plate. It was bits of moo goo gai pan and other saucy things that he was pawing away toward me. And I have this “thing” about seeing anyone eat with their fingers, much less putting that food on my plate. . . .

"mff. nnff!"

While this was going on, the entire conversation was dominated with his tales of woe. Apparently, his entire life had gone downhill ever since his two-year-old brother fell out of a three-story window when Tony was six years old and his parents blamed him for it.

Meanwhile, more moo-goo was continually pawed onto my plate.

"mff. nnff! mmff!"

Finally, I said something like, "You know, I should get back to the train while it's running every twenty minutes."

That was my exit line. That was eight years ago. . . .

Believe it or not, I have been on blind dates since. It’s always nice to begin from a low point.

I’m really looking forward to the Sex and the City movie. If I ever find myself in a position like this, I'll just think of what Miranda would do and do that. Miranda's always my go-to gal.

But I don’t think any of the characters have ever had it this bad.