When it all starts to go wrong

There comes a time in every date, every relationship, every association when you know the end is near.  Maybe it's something you said.  Maybe it's something did.  It doesn't really matter.  You just know, that regardless of what you do from that moment on, there is no coming back, there is no "rescuing" it, there is only an ending.  It's a rare moment of clarity that smacks you in the face and you just know it's over.  The best you can hope for is that it's an amicable parting.

I was having drinks with a friend over the weekend and she proceeded to tell me about one of these moments during one particularly disasterous date.  Now, I have to mention here that my friend does a bit of online dating, and it was during one of these online dates when the "moment" took place.

Sometimes breaking up isn't so hard to do

 It seems that during the date when the conversation turned to dating-age preferences.  The date commented that he generally preferred younger women.  To which my friend blurted out, "Oh, then you'll love a friend of mine, she's only 28."  (a note, my friend is in her late 30's)

Ladies, listen up on this one.  It's never, NEVER a good idea to tell your date that he might be interested in a friend of yours, especially if you're still ON the date.  It just sends the wrong message to your potential love-match.  This instance was no different.  It was at that moment, my friend told me, that she knew this date was kaput.

It's not surprising.  You tell a date that you want to set him up with a friend of yours, and chances are he's going to get the idea that you have already deemed him unworthy to date, and the date will probably take a long downward spiral from there.

I've been involved in a few of those "grrrrrr" moments myself.  I've been told I can be picky, too picky sometimes, I tend to disagree.  However, it can get a little Seinfeldian every now and then.  I'm not talkinga bout breaking up with a hottie because she has "man hands" or laughs like a banshee.  I'm talking about some truly awkward, foot-in-mouth moments that push a relationship or potential relationship over the edge and into the smoldering heap abyss.


Listening Works:

Generally, my moments come when I start talking too much.  I was on a date a few years back, I wasn't nervous, I had known this girl for a little while, we met while we were working together on a public relations campaign.  She looked wonderful, I picked her up, we went to a nice restaurant, the conversation was going smoothly.

At least until we started talking about our lifestyles.  Before she had a chance to chime in, I launched into a littany of things I've done, things I like to do, such as drinking, partying, partaking of more, ahem, hedonistic activities.  For some reason this led to my philosphy on religion.  I know, completely unrelated, but for some reason, I felt the need to unload my issues regarding organized religion at that precise moment. 

By the time I was finished, the salads were done, and the main courses were on their way.  I took a deep breath and apologized for dominating the converstaion.  I was about to take the first bite of my chicken when she calmly looked across at me and said simply, "I'm a devout Catholic."

As you can imagine, that struck me as an "uh oh" moment, the moment when I knew this date was going to end poorly.  It's been a while since I've had such an awkward, painful ride home.  Then there's the time when I was going out with a girl I had been dating to meet friends of mine. 

We had been together for about two months and she hadn't meet any of my friends at the time.  This was  years ago when my friends consisted primarily of radio folks.  We used to meet at a bar just a few blocks from the radio studios for long nights of heavy drinking, smoking and telling awful stories.  I had been nervous about exposing my latest "girlfriend" to this band of rowdies, so I had put it off for as long as I could.  We arrived at the bar and met the group.  I started to introduce her to my friends as my girlfriend.  She seemed okay with this.  At one point another friend showed up late and he sauntered up to us, grabbed me around the shoulders and said, "So this is your new woman eh?"

At that moment I looked at her and something had changed.  In that split second, I knew that one statement was going to be enough to ruin whatever unstable relationship we had built over two months.  True to form, we had a big fight later that night and within a week it was over.

It's Gender Neutral:

So often, it's the bachelors who do something stupid during a date or during the early parts of a relationship.  But ladies, you're not immune to acts that lead to impending doom.  For instance, you might wonder why that guy you liked so much on your first date never called you back.  Or why after dating that hunk for a month, he suddenly decided to move to Antarctica.

Perhaps, and no offense intended, it was you.  Ask any bachelor and they'll all have some true horror stories where the woman wouldn't shut up about their previous boyfriends, or talk about wanting to have six children, and all of this ten minutes into the first date. 

I remember being on a date with a woman I didn't know very well.  I had met her while covering a story, she worked for an opposing television station.  We met for our first date at a nice restaurant.  Within the first ten minutes, she managed to tell me over ten times how much she wanted to be married.  She even described her wedding dress, the dresses of her bridesmaids even the kind of cake she wanted.  I guess you don't have to be a genius to know that date ended quickly, like before dinner started quickly.

Of course, then there's the whopper.  Again, I was going out with a woman who worked at a rival television station.  We met on second base during a softball game.  She was cute, perky, brunette.  I asked her out.  We went out three times and seemed to be really hitting it off.  That is, until our fourth date when, during dinner, she threw this doozy out at me.  "I'm just so glad you're not hung up on the fact that I'm married."

WHAT?!?!  I had no idea.  Apparently, she said, she thought she had mentioned it earlier.  She didn't wear a ring, never said anything about it when I asked her out.  So, no, I was not aware of this fact until that very moment.  I made her pay for her half of the dinner and didn't see her again until months later at a local TV news Emmy Awards event.  She was there with her husband.  I was pissed and embarrassed.  Although lesson learned, at least I make sure to find out those important facts before actually, you know, going out on dates now.

You see, those moments can come at completely unexpected times, completely out of blue.  Most of the times you never see it coming.  And the signs are there, even if they're not verbal.  They can be as overt as your date simply telling you, "You are an awful human being" or as subtle as a glance or their body language.

The point is, it's a minefield out there.  Everything you do or say can be taken wrong or misconstrued by your date or significant other and then, BAM, it's all over.  And there's nothing you can do to make it right.  In these instances, it's best to just cut your losses and move on.

Bachelors have to navigate this minefield every day, each time they head out on a date, whenever they meet a new potential partner.  I know some bachelors who try to put on a persona when dealing with single women.  This works fine when looking for a one time score and done, I mean, as I said previously, I've been a pilot in order to pick up a woman.  This works because the woman will probably never know you well enough to learn the truth. 

But when a bachelor meets someone they're interested enough in to try to schedule a second date, suddenly the landmines become these shadowy, menacing relationship-killers to be avoided at all costs.  The problem is, when bachelors start worrying about the landmines, we stop being the carefree souls women find so darn attractive.

The "Other" uh-oh Moment:

There's one final "uh oh" moment that must be addressed here and it's not a pretty one, but we can't avoid it, we HAVE to discuss it; for the betterment of us all.

I'm talking about the moment when you realize that this isn't just a fling.  It's that morning where you wake up and the first thing on your mind isn't your first cup of coffee, or on the project at work, it's of her.  You break into tiny beads of sweat and start thinking of all the other important issues in your life, like your NCAA bracket, The Masters Tournament, movie explosions.

This might work for a few moments until you realize, in horror, that the last thing you thought about before drifting off to sleep the night before.  At that point, you realize your bachelor status could be in serious trouble.  The tiny beads of sweat turn into a torrent, fear starts to sieze your very soul, a cold chill runs through your entire body.

Just like when you have that "moment" of impending doom, the moment of impending romance can be just as bad.  You just KNOW it's going to involve a lot of frustration, panick, maybe even pain.  And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.  Just like the landmines that lead to the end of all things, the "uh oh" moment of romance comes out of the blue, it strikes like lightning it sideswipes you like a car running down a pedestrian in the middle of a police chase.

The funny part is, the moment of doom is much easier to take for most bachelors.  Because we know who we are.  We just KNOW that at some point we're going to do something so unbelievably stupid that we're destined to drive off whatever woman we're with at some point.  We've come to expect that, to just write if off to being a bachelor.  We have contingency plans in place, a method for dealing with the ruination, a plan for moving forward. 

But with the other uh oh moment, we're clueless.  We never expect it, we're not looking for it.  Bachelors have no natural defense mechanism for falling in love.  We can try, but we're doomed once the heart takes on a life of its own. 

And that, my friends is when it really all starts to go wrong.