DATING AND OTHER DISASTERS, PART DEUX

Oh how I would like to say that all it took was to see a grown man reduced to tears over a football game for me to give up, but I was feeling more magnanimous than I thought because I saw a lot more of Frodo than I care to admit.

There was something about his blatant adoration and the fact that I felt like I could unleash my inner bitch on him without repercussions that made him attractive to me. I had a new-found power over men I didn’t have before back at home, the “hot latina” thing . Back at home I am just another short brunette with more curves than the ones needed, but apparently Hispanic guys were right, the fact that I could dance like Shakira (I really can’t but they don’t need to know that) and that I have naturally brown skin and have an accent when I speak makes me a hot commodity.

The same thing that made me think of myself more desirable than mere mortals though, was the same thing that was driving me up the wall every time Frodo talked about it. It was like he didn’t want to date me, just the idea of me.

He actually asked me to dance for him not with him when we were at a club. Expecting me to kind of perform for him while he sat around just looking at me. Creepy asshole. He was actually disappointed that my name was a regular name instead of Magdalena, or Maria del Valle, or Soledad or some other stereotypical Hispanic name (which amazingly is also a problem to my now husband). He was even more disappointed when I told him I didn’t ever want to have children!

“What do you mean you don’t want children?” He asked me once when we were having dinner. “I don’t like children” I answered, wondering if this was appropriate third date conversation. “But you are Hispanic” He wailed at me. Giving me a wild look. “I know I am, you don’t let me forget it” I complained. “But you are supposed to want plenty of children, you are supposed to be warm, and nice and accommodating and to like to bake and cook, and to get married in white and pray to the virgin and all that”

I guess the fact that I wouldn’t dance like Shakira, the fact that I wouldn’t dye my hair blond like Shakira, the fact that I didn’t have a name he liked, the fact that I didn’t have a stronger accent and the fact that I was not willing to sleep with him and bear his children on our third date was a little too much for him to stand.

He got up, threw his napkin on the table, gave me a withering look and left me, right there, on the bar, on the table. Just stormed off and left. Like literally left me there, alone, with the bill, with two plates and two drinks and the entire restaurant looking at me like I had suddenly developed a case of leprosy!!

I sighed and called my roommate Erin. “I need you to come rescue me” “What happened?” She asked nervously thinking probably that I was in some dark ditch after being attacked. "Did something happened?"

“Apparently I am a disgrace to my race” I explained before hanging up.