A Date With Michael Bay, Part 1

Lemme tell you about a really great date I had, resulting in my brain imploding in anger, followed by the worst summer of my life.
It's a good story, and also totally Tom's fault. Tom is my best friend, and I have no reason to create a pseudonym for him, considering I only have one dude best friend, and it's not so much a mystery.
I met Tom at community college when we were cast as a couple in The Nerd. I was really excited, because I had never had a stage kiss, and this was going to be it. Fantastic love affair with co star! Instead, he and the other guys in the cast threw as much shit at me as possible, called me a transvestite and I became one of the guys. (Not...literally...)From then on, we were pretty close. Except for that one time he got a girlfriend and ignored me for two years. We female friends, we get the shaft. In the not positive way. In any case, we are friends still, he is single, I am single, and I love to say 'I told you so.'
I love when things are Tom's fault, because then I can hold it over his head forever, and whenever he gives me shit, I can just say, "Hey, remember that one time, you introduced me to Mr. Military?"
Mr. Military
Tom and I had just graduated from college and in the tradition of all broke ass graduates, having a grad party. Mine was kind of a bust, really rainy and hard to play bocce ball. But lots of money that I promptly spent at Target, so that was nice.
Tom's party was at his mom's house. It was a lovely sunny day, and I was ready to get drunk and make fun of Tom with his family. I walk in with my posse and here is some stranger with aviators.
Don't even get me started on aviators. They are an insta-hot camouflage for anyone. Not coincidentally, he knew something about camo, having just come back from Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or somewhere hot where they shot at him.
"Hey, would you like a ride on my motorcycle?"
I can pretty much pin point the moment I was totally hooked on this person that was totally wrong for me, and it is the motorcycle.
Being brought up as a super bleeding heart feminist liberal has been really wonderful for me in some ways. I enjoy and am knowledgeable about my rights, have a sassy retort for misogynistic assholes, and can hold my own in a debate on gun ownership.
But I'm still a total sucker for a guy with a motorcycle and aviators.
And then he picked me up and spun me around in a circle (eeeeeeeeeee!) at the end of the night and I was all like, "Feminism? I hate pants!"
It was bad.
Can I just say though, that he was a really nice guy? He was not an asshole, and was in fact the perfect gentleman. In hindsight, that was probably the biggest warning sign.
Enough foreshadowing! I told Tom to give him my number. He called me.

The Date
He called me the morning of our day date (people still do apparently, have dates during the day) to ask me how I liked my eggs.
I did not say fertilized.
He was making me breakfast! Who does that?!
I arrive at his house he shared with two other military guys expecting a total shit hole, and instead arrive at a lovely duplex. It's clean. With a puppy. (A puppy!) And breakfast.
Do you see now friends, how I had no chance? No chance whatsoever?
I hope my parents do not read this blog for many, many reason, but the main reason right now, is that I really do not want them to read about what we did on this date, because my mother will KILL me and then my father will hide the body and pretend they never had a daughter.
We went shooting.
YES. I know. He dared me to come with him shooting and see if I liked it, I said I would never like it. So to prove him wrong, (Yeah I am not always this dumb) I went shooting.
It hurt a lot. And I did not like it. Because guns kill people and I don't take any joy in hitting targets knowing that the targets symbolize people.
But I liked him. And his dog tags.
Also, I was completely terrified and out of my element, like a scared puppy at the 4th of July. You ever want a girl to like you, just scare the shit out of her. That's why they invented scary movies, so the chick is too scared to walk home by herself.
Skip ahead to the park. The rose garden. The hand holding ("I LET HIM HOLD MY HAND." This will become my constant refrain to Tom later when I am screaming obscenities about Military Man). the talk about how he really hates the mentality of the military but he wants to make a difference and be a military pastor...
Yes. He wants to be a pastor. Now you may be able to guess what is going to go wrong in this scenario.

Sidebar:
Let's talk about Jesus. Now, I don't know about you (Five people that read my blog), but I love Jesus. More specifically, God. People usually assume that I am not religious (For a number of reasons I'm sure, but probably my propensity for swearing like a sailor) but I am.
I am Episcopalian, which I like to refer to as "Catholic Light." We drink, we smoke, we use birth control and sing traditional hymns, and love the big G (That is the first and only time I will ever refer to God as the big G. It was a mistake and I apologize). I personally find my religion kind of bad ass; I love God and science, I'm not a bigot and I'm not a douche bag on an acoustic guitar. So now you know: I like to go to church and I love tradition. I like to wear hats to church and I believe in the existence of a higher being that created the earth using evolution as a tool! Surprise!
Apparently that is too much, (or not enough) for some people.

I googled "cool Jesus" and this was the first thing

to come up... If I get this as a tattoo, is that too

redundant?

Mr. Polite

There's almost no point to writing about Mr. Polite, except for the fact this blog is about dating, and even the incredibly mediocre boring dates get a nod.
First date: 
Awesome, went to an improv show. Good times. Kind of a perfect first date; totally silly, really funny and a good way to gauge how your date does under pressure. Also theater, which is a given. Mr. Polite is a shorter, blonde, blue eyed guy. He has a nice smile and glasses, which I dig. He is not dressed like an idiot, which is a bonus.
Mentioned I did not have plans for the 4th of July. He immediately suggests I come with him and a couple of friends to their beach house. I demur, though inside I am pretty excited; he likes me! No one in their right mind would invite someone they were not interested in to spend a whole weekend with him!
Really, in hindsight, no one should ask someone on their first date to come on a weekend vacation with them, unless it's going AMAZING. (Which it was not. It was going pretty okay!) 
We end up at my car. He says:
"So... what do we do, do we shake hands, hug, make out? Ha ha... ha..." I pause and stare at him for a long second.
"If you have to ask, probably not."
We part ways with a kiss on the cheek, but I am optimistic.
Second Date
Mr. Polite invites me to accompany him to a show his friend has written at The Odd Duck on Capital Hill. We meet with his friends, and I oddly find myself more attracted to them then him. They are all really awesome people that immediately buy me a drink and offer me bites of their delicious dinner. His friend foots the bill. Can I date someone just for his friends?
We are seeing a play called "Vitriol", about a newspaper in Germany that resisted Hitler when he first came into power. It was not a happy story. Mr. Polite tries to hold my hand while people are being sent to internment camps. I laugh and then immediately regret my reaction. I think about it for the next five minutes, debating whether I should try and hold his hand again, but the moment has passed.
We are at my car again.
"No awkward kiss on the cheek this time I promise! Ha ha...ha..."
We part ways with no kiss at all. I am suspicious and enraged.
Date Three
I know. Why is there even a date three. I have no fucking clue. He asked if I would like to go to a movie, he has free tickets. He is insistent I meet him in Northgate, because that is right next to his work. He offers to buy dinner in exchange for my driving such a long way.
I would like to see Cowboys and Aliens. The title itself is delightful and Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are dreamy.
He says the reviews are bad, how about Planet of the Apes?
 I'm not going to type this out, but this conversation goes back and forth for about five minutes, in the ticket line, both of us saying we don't care which one we go see EXCEPT he really does care, obviously, because why would he suggest-
It is just as irritating in person as it is to read it on the internet!
We see Planet of the Apes.
I would rather be outside. I hate seeing movies during the day.
We go to dinner and he talks about himself the entire time, and while paying the bill mentions how much he hates paying for things. I ask a question and he replies with distracted nod while gazing over my head. I accusingly jokingly mention that he's not a very good listener.
"What'd you say?"
Mr. Polite has turned out not to be very polite. What I thought was politeness was really just self absorption. 
We leave. I am inside my car at lightening speed, leaving no time for any weird goodbyes.
I sing along to the radio but change the words.
"Soooooo not wortthhhh thissss drriiivvveeeeeee."

You tell me at what point this was destined to not work out. When I refused to let someone ask to kiss me,  when I laughed when he tried to hold my hand, when his friend payed for my drink, or when he did not give a shit which movie I wanted to go to, or what I had to say. So many to choose from.