When Your OkCupid Date to the Museum Shows Up Totally Wasted

When Your OkCupid Date to the Museum Shows Up Totally Wasted

by Matthew J.X. Malady

People drop things on the Internet and run all the time. So we have to ask. In this edition, writer Colette Shade tells us more about what happens when your OkCupid date arrives at the museum completely drunk.

#Protip for #men on #OkCupid: Don’t show up drunk for your 2 p.m. date at a museum.

— Colette Shade (@MsShade) December 20, 2014

Colette! So what happened here?

I met a guy on OkCupid, and we started chatting and texting. He was cute, and we had overlapping taste in music and politics. He read Jacobin, and he liked Jonathan Richman, Crass, and Stiff Little Fingers. He even made a Cab Calloway reference, and we talked about how one of Cab’s zoot suits is in City Hall here in Baltimore. He asked if I wanted to meet up at the Walters Museum at 2:00 the next day.

He was sitting in the lobby of the museum wearing all black. Something seemed off. He smelled like cigarettes, which is not a problem for me, as I have been an on-again, off-again smoker for the past decade (sorry, mom).

“Are you ____?” I asked.

“Yeah. Are you . . . Colette?”

The way he spoke was unusual. His pronunciation was almost British, even though he grew up in Baltimore. And he was sort of slurring his speech. I assumed he had a speech disorder. As we walked toward the elevator, I noticed that he wasn’t walking in a straight line. I have been described as possessing “an odd gait,” and thought it unfair to pass judgment. Inside the gallery, he behaved in a really inappropriate manner. He was talking loudly and practically touching the artwork. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing at jeweled Lalique brooches and chinoiserie tortoiseshell bowls.

“You know, if you read that plaque, it tells you,” I replied coldly.

As I stared at a Flemish still life, I tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with this guy. Suddenly, the pieces fell into place: He had showed up to the date completely hammered.

“No, it can’t be,” I thought. “That is just too comically bad to actually be real.”

But it was the only explanation for the slurred speech, the odd gait, the inappropriate behavior. And the smell. Beneath the scent of stale tobacco, he definitely reeked of booze. How had I not noticed before? I felt angry and humiliated as he loped into the ceramics wing. Even worse, his affect screamed “artistic high school senior.” Despite graduating approximately twenty years ago, he complained about not fitting in with the lacrosse players because he made art and he was “punk rock,” whatever that means. I left high school in 2006, and I think of my time there as barely a footnote in my life. “One of my major influences as a painter is Monet, not Manet,” he sniffed at one point.

The nadir of the date was probably when he pointed at a baroque chest of drawers and proclaimed, “This is so bourgeois.”

“Well, this is a museum,” I replied, though what I wanted to say was, “It’s a fucking museum! Of course it’s bourgeois!”

I played the whole thing with cold ignorance. I wondered if and when I should tell him that the jig was up, that I knew he was drunk and I was mad. But I never did. I think I stuck around because I had trouble believing that what was happening was real. How could someone show up to an afternoon museum date completely inebriated? But, more than that, I wanted to see what happened. I had never been on a date that was bad enough to turn comical.

So how did things end up with this guy? And will this date impact your willingness to use OkCupid or other online dating sites going forward?

After strolling through two floors of the museum, I told him I had to go. I walked to Penn Station to catch a cab home, which cost over twenty dollars but was completely worth it. I deleted my OkCupid account about thirty minutes after getting home. Fortunately, he has not contacted me since. I think he got the idea.

I find dating in general to be very uncomfortable. I’m not one of those people who likes to “go on dates.” I hate sitting at a wine bar and selling my life story to a stranger. I’m interested in talking about A Confederacy of Dunces and the kyriarchy and the history of calypso music. If there is an attraction, then things will go that way, but in my ideal scenario, there is no pressure. I hate having to decide immediately if I am attracted to a stranger I met on the Internet. Sometimes these feelings develop over time. Despite my apprehension, I probably will set up another OkCupid account. Maybe I’ll do it next weekend.

Lesson learned (if any)?

Some experiences are worth enduring for the story. Also, you can’t smell alcohol through the Internet.

Just one more thing.

On my OkCupid profile, I said that you should message me if you want to eat Ethiopian food and talk about neoliberalism. This still stands. Just don’t show up drunk.

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