**He was a waste of my red heels**

Once upon a year or so ago, I was momentarily single (long story, happy ending) and on the receiving end of an invitation to dinner. On the opposite end of the invite was a guy I'd met only once before, a friend-of-a-friend whose acquaintance I'd made while helping said friend move. We shall call him "M"; everyone say, hello to M. (Hi, M! Now go sit down, this isn't your story.)

Upon hearing of my newly bestowed single-dom, M asked if I'd like to join him for dinner. Pros and cons were heavily weighed in preparation for accepting this proposition—the major con being that, on the single occasion we'd met, M didn't seem so good at that "humor" bit. True story: I don't do well without witty banter. I'm a big fan of verbal tennis; either you're on the other side of the net and participating in the exchange, or I'm taking my racket & leaving you to stand there on the court all alone. The end.
Conversely, the pros—being as I am an eternal optimist—included (1) the possibility that M had fallen into a puddle of humor & wit sometime between that very moment and the last time we met, and therefore may have become awesome as a result; (2) the pure fact it was a date, and I haven't exactly done many of those; and (3) there would be steak involved.
Thus, I accepted.

I wore glossy red heels with my jeans. M's only preparations, apparently, seemed to involve rolling around in fail.

The first indicant things were off to a bad start? He knocked on my garage door when he arrived. Not the large, aluminum door that rolls up to facilitate parking, mind you; the actual door next to it through which things that are not cars enter (see: me, other garage visitors, sometimes the lawn mower)... which looks nothing like a front door. Especially in comparison to, oh, I don't know, maybe the part of the house with an enclosed porch, a house number and an actual front door in it.
From there, things proceeded to tumble effortlessly downhill. During the course of our ten-minute drive to dinner, I quickly realized M had successfully evaded the humor & wit puddle, and was just as dull and conversation-inept as he'd ever been. Not only that, but his idea of holding open the door for me upon our arrival at the restaurant consisted of him giving the door an extra-hard push while he barreled through like a man on a mission.
Oh, yes. You know you've snagged a winner when he lets gravity hold the door for you.

And it only kept getting better after we'd sat down inside.

Not only did he complain about the fact sweet tea wasn't served when we placed our drink order, he carried his displeasure straight into the main event; the bread was too "thick and dough-y," the steak "wasn't cooked exactly right," the butter was "weird," his sweet-tea-stand-in, lemonade, was "too sour."
My heels were both shocked and alarmed that I would subject them to such nonsense, and requested we travel home. I silenced them by consuming my steak with a vengeance (and taking it for a leisurely swim in A-1), enjoying my icy cold water and doing that awkward under-the-table-foot-tapping dance that only can be performed in desperate situations.

Prior to the date of epic fail, the friend through whom I'd met M had mentioned that she and her new-ish boyfriend were going bowling later that night, and if things went well with M, that we should join them. Despite the utter lack of "well" that was occurring—and to make the evening worthy of wearing my red heels out, if nothing else—I mentioned this invitation to M post-dinner, who enthusiastically accepted.
And so off we set toward the bowling alley, with my new BFF gravity kindly holding the door for me, yet again. Thanks, yo.

If dinner (and the lack of conversation, the failure to hold open doors, the fact he sucked at maintaining an interesting conversation AND his inability to play verbal tennis) hadn't already sealed M's fate, bowling tied it up nicely.
It wasn't just that he made me pay for both of our games—which, admittedly, I offered to do just to be nice, never thinking he'd commit a First Date Sin and actually take me up on it—it was also that he (1) offered to buy me M&Ms when I bemoaned the bowling alley's lack of quarter machines, then whined because I wanted the plain kind, not peanut; (2) expressed his excitement about the two strikes and one spare he bowled by throwing horns (because he's obviously so punk rock or similar); and, the final straw, he (3) talked with my friend's boyfriend about playing another game, then didn't even offer to chip in when the purchasing of said game ensued.

You know it's a bad date when you text your ex during it just to tell them how bad it is.
Oh yes, I did. (He still likes to bring it up to this day. It's like one of his Top Ten Best Life Moments.)
In the end—after being driven home, and forced to hold M's gigantic drink from the bowling alley the entire way because he didn't have a cup holder—I felt I owed my red heels a redeeming night out. You know, to compensate for wasting their glossy glamour on a boy who didn't even own a verbal tennis racquet, let alone know how to find the court.
The one redeeming value in this entire evening of fail? I managed to pack years worth of bad dates into one epic evening.
That's straight-up productivity right there; and I did it all in heels.

~A