Blind Date

My first, and hopefully last, blind date was arranged in cyberspace. Yes, by me.

It was about a month after my divorce and my only excuse can be, "What the hell was I thinking?"

I got into an instant messaging blizzard during a snowstorm that found me trapped at home. The "I'M'ing" was pleasant and seemed harmless enough.

We made plans to meet the next Friday night in the cafeteria of the local hospital. I figured if he was trouble and tried to ... let's say ... stab me, I was only a few yards from the emergency room.

Seriously, it didn't seem a terribly far fetched place to meet. He was in the health care profession and had formerly worked in that hospital (or so he said). I knew that he had been married once, had a couple of grown kids, and had lived with a woman for quite a while before her death. The picture that he showed on line of himself was of a reasonably good looking man. As for the age of the photo, my friend opined that I should have noticed he was wearing a Bicentennial tee shirt.

He was the only unaccompanied man in the cafeteria when I arrived so by the powers of deduction I assumed he was my date. He didn't stand when I approached and we acknowledged we were the people we were looking for. No brownie points for him there.

I sat.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Well, you can get one over there," he pointed with his forehead towards one end of the room. "Or there." He indicated the other end of the room with his skull.

"Oh." I got up and got my own cup of hospital coffee. So far he had not impressed me with his chivalrous behavior.

We talked for about half an hour. It seemed like an eternity, like having root canal which would have been less painful.

He seemed to be permanently exhausted. I inquired gently about the deceased girlfriend, but he didn't have much to offer, only that her death had left him the guardian of her pets.

Thirty minutes was all I could tolerate. We really had nothing in common; nothing to say. I looked at my watch, fabricated an excuse about having to pick up my son, and bolted.

I took a non-direct route to my car in case he was following me, although he didn't seem to be able to generate enough energy to care to follow me if I had been a dancing thousand dollar bill.

A friend of mine did some research and came across some information about my blind date. His dead girlfriend had been shot in their home by her former boyfriend (against whom she had a restraining order) who then killed himself. This was the sight my date had come home to: carnage in the living room with the myriad pets trying to arouse their mistress.

Consider yourself warned. The person you hook up with on the internet may not be the precipitator of a heinous crime, but might actually be the victim of one. Either alternative precludes a delightful evening at the hospital.