Lecture Man

As promised last time, I finally got off my callipygous little ass and went on a date. I did it for you, really; I did it for ProngTwo. The blog part, not the finding love part. Not one of us thought this date was going to result in real actual Drooling Babbling Incoherent Love, did we? I mean, a guy who ends all of his emails with a condescending "hint" is hardly the type of guy you're going to be swooning over unless he's obscenely good looking and dressed in a suit made entirely of real one hundred dollar bills. And turns out to be that guy who plays Don Draper on Mad Men. And even then... unlikely. So I trundled myself off to this date, knowing full well that it was bound to be good fodder for the blog. A blogfodder date. Is that a term? It is now.

Internet, this guy did not disappoint! And lucky for all of us, this was the kind of date wherein my role was to listen and not speak. For behold, it was a date with Lecture Man!

Lecture Topic One (2 minute mark):

Me: So... tell me about yourself.

Lecture Man: Absolutely. Just broke up with my girlfriend of four years. She kept the house. Mutal breakup. Well, between you and me I think she was cheating on me though I never got total confirmation. We had this house down by blar de blar with a detached wah wah wah and something mind-crushingly boring about getting screwed over via the first-time buyer's laws...

Me: ....

LM: ...more details about a house that I no longer own, blah, blah, blah, that BITCH kept everything.

Me [snapping to attention at the word bitch]: Right. So. Does your family live in Toronto, too?

Which led us to Lecture Topic Two (30 minute mark):

LM: Mom lives in Toronto, she was basically a single parent. I mean, I saw my Dad all the time - he lives in New York. But now we don't speak to each other. Basically, he's a little bit of an asshole. Actually, you know what? He's not just a little bit of an asshole. He's a giant asshole.

Me: ...

LM: A bunch of horrible statements about my Dad that you'd never want to hear ever, let alone on a first date.

Me [pointedly not ordering another drink]: ...

LM [ordering beer number three]: ... and that was when I was... what? Maybe ten or eleven? I mean, what a DOUCHEBAG. And then, the year I was in grade 9...

Me [with a slightly murderous edge to my voice]: Okay. So. Did you get into traveling when you were a kid, or was that when you were older?

Which led us to Lecture Topic Three (one hour mark):

LM: Have you ever been to Europe?

Me: No, but I...

LM: Oh, if you haven't been to Europe, you haven't really traveled. I've been to Italy twice. It's so amazing. You'll have to go someday. Not an option to not go. Since you haven't been, you probably don't know that in Venice, you have to get around in these BOATS called "GONDOLAS". If you get a chance, you could look that up online, but you're never going to get a real sense of the city unless you've been there because...

Me [becoming silently engrossed in the unfolding drama of a birthday party a couple of tables over]: ...

LM: ... called the Sistine Chapel. Have you heard of a painter named Michelangelo? You may have, he's pretty famous, though don't worry if you haven't. You'll probably want to read up on that before you go, though, because he was pretty important...

Me [cursing my decision not to bring a recording device to accurately capture this drivel]: hmmm, yes. I'll have to look him up.

LM: ..waxing poetic about the beauty of this city in Italy called "Rome" wherein they have a place that's part of the Catholic Church that you may not have heard about called the "VATICAN"...

Which led us to Lecture Topic Four (what may as well have been the 14 hour mark):

LM: ... the influence of the Catholic Church, something wildly inaccurate about the Pope, several rabidly anti-Catholic statements, blar de blar... Oh God, you're not CATHOLIC, are you?

Me: Nope.

LM: ... good, because those assholes...

I have no idea how we got to Lecture Topic Five, since my undivided attention was directed at thwarting LM's attempts to order beer number five and instead getting the server to bring the motherfucking CHEQUE for CHRIST'S SAKE (eternity mark):

LM: ... the G20 disaster last month. I mean, I don't vote. What's the point, right? But if I did, you can bet your ass that my vote wouldn't go for any of those corporate goons...

Me [gesturing wildly at anyone who even remotely appeared to be employed by the bar]: ...

LM: ... basically a police state within the next two years. Everyone's too busy being brainwashed by CNN to even NOTICE that....

Me [alternating between the universal sign for cheque and the universal sign for choking]: ...

LM: I'll have another pi...

Me: WE'LL TAKE THE BILL.

LM: Oh. So early? It's only 11:00.

Me: Yeah, well... it's a week night and I have to work tomorrow, so...

LM: Oh, you have one of THOSE kinds of jobs. What do you do anyway?

Me [tossing some cash on the table]: Communications. Okaytakecarenowbye.

LM [shouting after my retreating figure]: This was really fun! Let's do it again sometime soon!

I have not called Lecture Man for date number two. And now aren't we all glad that I didn't give him my phone number? Yes. Yes, we are.