You’re gorgeous, don’t spoil it by talking

Now that I am testing the waters in the dating ocean, friends are all talking about setting me up with potential mates. My friend Melanie had a friend who went on a date with a so called “great nice guy” but sadly didn’t see it progressing beyond the first date. She then decided to set me up. The guy is an engineer, runs marathons and triathlons, is over 6’-0”, and hails from Nebraska. Yeah, perfect on paper right.

I suggested we meet up at a Wrigleyville bar with a huge stock of board games. A little mild flirting over connect four couldn’t hurt right. Well we scope out the wall of board games trying to pick a selection from all of the choices. Here is how the conversation went:
Me: “hmmm, connect four, sorry, chutes and ladders…”
Him: “oooooh Stratego!!!”
For those who don’t know what Stratego is (including me), it is basically a little boy’s war game of capture the flag. Also known as the geekiest game ever invented. Yep, ever avid dungeons and dragons enthusiasts refer to Stratego players as lesser beings. I thought it was an interesting choice if you were trying to impress a girl.

I didn’t know how to play, but after five minutes of reading the instructions (in a beer soaked bar none-the-less), I figured out it was simple game of capture the flag. He spent two minutes in deep thought for every move like it was an elaborate chess match. I frankly didn’t give a shit and just moved my pieces around at will. After what felt like a hour, he slumped back in his stool and said “crap, I’m out of players…looks like I loose”. Hell yeah! I totally kicked his nerdy ass!

We went back to the game wall and I made the selection since it was my turn. I picked out Guess Who which is rated for 3 year olds. He was new to the game and couldn’t grasp the thought that you are trying to narrow down the selection based on physical appearances. He would ask “is your person wearing a hat”, and when I would affirm the question he would eliminate all the hat people. Um…idiot, a three year old would understand it.

After ten painful minutes of him screwing up, we again revisited the game wall. I wanted to find some game extremely easy because he is obviously not applying to Mensa any time soon. Ah ha, trivial pursuit the Movie Edition. He confessed that he likes movies…this should work right.

Well he was 0-3. Seriously. He landed on the “classic movies” category and here was the question: what movie follows a girl from Kansas and her dog as they are transported by a tornado to a magical land? He was all “umm…classic movie…magical land…must be science fiction…maybe planet of the apes…or I know, Space Odyssey”. Ah ha ha ha sigh.

I ended the night at 9:30pm (after 90 grueling minutes of board games) because I had to get up early for brunch the next day. He wondered why I had to go to sleep so early because brunch usually isn’t until 11am or noon. I blurted out “oh…we are meeting at 8am” which is a lie. I then told him not to expect a kiss because I don’t do that on the first date (lie, lie, lie). At least I don’t think I gave him any false hopes for a second date.