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| Talk With Your Hands. |
Since the age of ten, beginning with AOL's Instant Messenger (take note kids, aim stands for something), I have honed the craft of online chatting. Additionally, let’s recount the countless hours in chat rooms asking strangers their a/s/l never really concerned or phased by the potential of talking to a sex predator.
AOL had me well poised when texting rolled out. I still remember my first text. It was from a boy and it literally blew my mind. I stared at my Nokia phone with my bumble bee colored plate with pure amazement. How did my crush get little letters to show up on my phone. Magic!
Why is this relevant? Because most dating websites, if not all, have their own instant messaging systems. Which is a totally different ball game than email messages. Bring on the OKCupid chats. We'll name this subject Frank. Frank, sent me a message and we were off to the races. Witty banter. Playful flirtation. Sassy quips. We talked about a range of bull shit topics seeing if the other could keep pace. We had so much fun we exchanged numbers right away. We transitioned to texting seamlessly. After a mere week of this we decided to meet for a drink.
I prepped myself beforehand. Could I keep up the persona when we met?
Turns out Frank, couldn't. Did I care? No. I was determined to live up to my texting/chatting persona. Damned if he couldn't.
To be fair to Frank I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he didn't give himself the pep talk he needed post work exhaustion. Frank did talk though. He talked a lot in fact. We mostly talked about him. And I was fine with that. He mostly had interesting things to say. Just wasn’t witty, playful nor sassy.
Things really took a turn when it came to paying the bill. The bartender quickly took his card and before I could chime in to offer to split he closed us out. We had racked up a $45 bill. I had $5 cash with me. I offered it as partial tip money. He took it.
Frank starred at the bill for a good minute. That minute felt like eternity.
After paying the bill he excused himself to the restroom. I frantically looked around to see if there was an ATM. His body language put me into a tizzy. No ATM. I told myself to relax and we resumed the date. The fact that we talked for another half an hour lead me to believe that I was being silly to think he was upset about the bill.
That night on the way home I texted him thank you and the next round was on me. I felt some pressure relieved by sending that. Although, I've circulated this story in the last week since the incident and everyone has reminded me the guy knows the score when it comes to paying the bill.
He didn’t respond until 3pm the next day. Note: if you consistently respond to text messages immediately you have set a bar. It was clear to me something was amiss.
The response, “No prob. You’re welcome for drinks. I accept pay pal though.” Was that witty, playful or sassy? I crafted what I think to be the perfect response, please feel free to tell me what you would’ve said. I playfully said, “Pay pal, that’s a first.”
Frank never replied. Communication meltdown.