Note from Sarah: Alexis is my upstairs neighbor. She has an awesome boyfriend now who is also my upstairs neighbor, but before she met him she was in the same boat as Tara and I. Isn’t it nice to know that some things like online dating never change and will always remain awful?
WHO: Teriyaki guy
WHAT: OkCupid date
WHEN: 2009? I was 20… or maybe 19
WHERE: Bellevue/Redmond WA
WHY: I was lonely and wanted “experience”
THE DATE
Disclaimer: I love food.
I guess you could call me a closet foodie. I am a fat kid on the inside and I love flavorful food. Since 2008 I’ve become a hobby baker and an experienced home cook. I once made 100 dozen cookies for a Christmas party for my mom, which made me realize how much I LOVE baking and that I am damn good at it. Yep. I make and eat lots of good, high-quality food.
So, I met this guy on OkCupid. I had been on a few dates from this website and had gotten the idea that dudes only use it for sex. I had only been sexually active for a few years, so I was still exploring. Several times I’d been shut down for trying to take my OkCupid dates to the next relationship level.
How naive.
So I finally decided I was no longer opposed to using the site the way guys were.
Teriyaki guy was hot and I definitely wanted to used him for ‘experience.’ He immediately asked for my phone number and I gave it to him. We’d talked from 11-1am multiple nights in a row. I loved that he just wanted to spend time talking to me, that he made me laugh very hard, and I felt like we really got each other.
I suggested we meet each other, but he lived all the way on the East side. He worked at the Costco over there and not at corporate, which should have been a tip off. Costco pays well and has great benefits, but it’s a meh job and he seemed pretty content. No interest in moving on eventually.
Regardless, whatever he did sounded boring. I’ve always been ambitious, even if I fail and make a fool of myself in the process. I keep my expectations high and always strive to be better.
I felt pretty comfortable with Teriyaki guy, so we decided to meet at his place in Bellevue, 30 minutes away from my house.
Really smart, I know.
I showed up at his place and he immediately led me to his “room,” which was more like a converted living room with French doors separating it from the rest of the house. He only had two pieces of furniture: a mattress on the floor and a dresser. He said he had just been burned badly from a girl he met online. He said things had moved too fast with her, so he just wanted to take things slow with me.
Well I didn’t want slow. He was hotter in person than in his photos, and he was ripped. I wanted to make out.
But I was also really hungry. He suggested we go get food since he only had Pop-Tarts, and he wanted to save those for breakfast. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted a Pop-Tart, but I was more excited to leave his house. I was also really excited to go to a sit-down restaurant and do the date thing.
But instead he drove us to a nearby teriyaki place.
Ok, totally not what I was wanting, but he was really bossy and insistent about it. I ordered first and got regular teriyaki (duh) and paid for myself.
This guy ordered teriyaki WITHOUT THE SAUCE.
In case you are not aware, you cannot order teriyaki without the sauce as the sauce is the only thing that is teriyaki. Without the teriyaki, you are just ordering plain dry meat.
But naive Alexis plowed on. We grabbed the food and went back to his house. On the way I asked about the no sauce thing, and he said that’s the way he likes it. He told me he didn’t really care about food and if he didn’t have to eat again in his entire life he wouldn’t mind. He said he sees eating as a chore and a waste of his time.
WTF.
We ate on his floor bed and had a good makeout session, despite his comments about food. Shortly after that he said he “didn’t feel the chemistry,” and since he was obviously still butt hurt about the last online chick I left. He said we should hang out again and maybe go bowling because it would be a good “friend activity.”
I said ok and thankfully never talked to him again, even though I still don’t understand how he didn’t feel the chemistry between us. Looking back, maybe he was just using me because he was lonely too and needed someone to talk him to sleep at night.
But in the end, who cares? HE EATS HIS TERIYAKI PLAIN.
Never Compromise on Tallness or Baby Hands 