Tonight is Saturday night. Date Night. Being old, fat and married, you tend to forget about Date Night, but Beth and I ventured out tonight and witnessed the mating dance of the Young Los Angeles Hipster. I had forgotten how awkward that dance was. Oy vey. But seeing all the preening and posturing brought back memories, so I thought I’d share one of my few “Player” dating moments with you.

Setting: Los Angeles, circa late 1980’s. I’m 27-ish, out on a blind date with a co-worker’s daughter.

I had been given all the predictable pre-date propaganda: She has a great personality! She’s really intelligent! She’s funny! She’s really nice! Translation: Dog. But the co-worker also said her daughter was “really cute.” Like, surfer-girl cute. So I calculated: Co-worker isn’t too bad looking herself. Has big boobs. Possible potential for a future mother/daughter three-way thing, which would make a great story even if the daughter did turn out to be a hound. All things added up to “Go,” so I went out with the girl. And knock me over with a feather, she turned out to be hotttttt!!!

But.

Being cute — “like, surfer-girl cute” — was the only thing I’d been told about this girl that was true. As for the rest of it… She did not have a great personality. She was not really intelligent. She was not funny. She was not nice. In fact, she was a vapid, dumb, dull, self-involved, unpleasant little bitch. Cute as she was, I disliked her almost before we had made it from her front door to my car, and things only went downhill from there.

I took her to a comedy club, where I don’t think she laughed once. Between sets she would complain about how dumb the comedians were. She was bored. She wanted another drink. Why did I bring her here? I was having such a lousy time with her that one of the comedians onstage made a joke about me looking miserable — and I was. My date with this girl ranks right up there in my Worst Date top 10.

We were seated right up against the stage, and across from us there were two girls seated on the other side. One of them was pretty cute, and she and I started eyeing each other. Aw yeah, she wanted me, boy! Unfortunately, I was on a date with Attend Me Barbie. But then my date went to the ladies room during an intermission between comics. I had my opening! I sauntered over to the girl across the stage and introd–

Wait. Backstory first. I’ve never been a ladies man. Smooth, confident, witty, urbane, etc — none of these are words one would use to describe me where women are concerned. Lame, no game, tongue-tied, shy, nervous, etc — these are the right words. So the fact that I was even thinking of chatting up one girl while on a date with another was so out of character for me that to this day I still wonder if it really happened. And back then, the fact that I was actually doing it… I think I blacked out. Had an out-of-body experience. Was possessed by Rico Suave. Something.

…so I sauntered over to the girl across the stage and introduced myself. I told her I was on the worst date of my life and the only thing keeping me from stabbing myself in the temple with a broken beer bottle was seeing her smile at me from across the stage. I told her I thought I might be able to make it through the night if I knew I’d be taking her out next week. I told her we didn’t have much time because my date would be back any minute– “Next weekend,” I said. “How about it?”

Holy shit. She went for it.

I made it back to my seat with the new girl’s phone number before my Barbie date got back from the ladies room, and I spent the rest of the night locking eyes with my future date across the stage. I felt like a stud.

Still riding that stud vibe, when I took the Barbie date home I decided to fuck with her. She really was a very, very pretty girl. Blonde, surfer-girl cute fer sure-fer sure, nice tight little body — she was a hottie, no question. And because she was a hottie she was used to being an object of desire. I could tell she was expecting me to make a move when I pulled into her driveway. Why she was expecting that, considering how we had had zero chemistry on the date, I don’t know, but it was clear that she did. So I didn’t. And as the minutes ticked by with me making mindless small talk while I waited for her to get the hell out of my car, it started to be clear that she wanted me to make a move.

So I didn’t. Pointedly. I smiled and laughed and made small talk and watched her get more and more uncomfortable that Oh my God, why isn’t this guy trying to kiss me??? I finally cut it off with, “Well, it’s really late, I should get going…” and smiled as she stammered “Yeah, we’ll have to do it again sometime” and looked puzzled that I was just sitting there waiting for her to get out. I was probably the first guy in this girl’s whole life who didn’t try to kiss her goodnight. She was completely flummoxed by it.

A week later I had my date with the across-the-stage girl. I looked forward to it all week long, remembering her smile and her laugh and how cute she was and what a player I was for getting her number while on a date with another girl. I couldn’t wait to see her again.

But here’s the thing about girls you meet in nightclubs: Nightclubs are dark. Really dark. And women you’ve only caught surreptitious glances of from across smokey stages in poorly-lit nightclubs and only talked to in person for a few hurried minutes while casting nervous glances over your shoulder at the ladies room door, well those women don’t tend to hold up well in the harsh, unflattering glare of a well-lighted room. In fact, they sometimes turn out to be, well, pretty damn fugly.

I’m a shallow guy, I’ll admit it. A girl could have a heart of gold, deep down inside might be the perfect girl for me, might be my soulmate if I look deep into her soul — but if I have to look past a chinful of whiskers that makes her look like a fucking billy goat to see it, well, I’m sorry ladies but I just can’t see that far. I don’t have it in me.

So, yeah, I’m shallow: I got hung up on her goatee. It was silky and blonde and glinted prettily in the afternoon sun and looked downy smooth and well-groomed — but there were hairs! On her chin! All over her chin!

That was it for me. I was out, game over, goodnight Irene. I can’t remember anything about the date except those long, long, long billy goat whiskers on her chinny-chin-chin, but I know it was our one and only date. Our romance was over before it began. Looking back, I’m a little ashamed of myself for being so shallow — but only a little. I mean, come on. Hairs? On your chin? Two words, Goat Girl: Twee. Zers.

Sadly, she’s not the only girl I threw over George Costanza-style for an imagined physical deformity. Ask me sometime about the chick with the Aquaman toes that I only noticed after sleeping with her.