Toilets are not Accessories

I think that I will return my friendship profile series eventually, but today I feel like reflecting on some of the ridiculous experiences that I had when I was a single girl, and dating. As I have mentioned before, I am typically in a relationship, but when I did find myself single, I would pretty much throw myself into the dating scene – whatever that might be, within a matter of hours. I’m not saying it was smart or healthy, but it was fun. And fun, whether or not it is smart or healthy, ranks pretty high on my priority list, in that I feel that I should be having it whenever possible, and sometimes even when it isn’t possible.

I would find guys to date in a variety of places, including, but not limited to bars and grocery stores. I also took advantage of charitable married friends, who felt, by virtue of being married, that they were qualified match makers.  I have even scrolled through my Facebook friends, dating a few of them. And, of course whenever I got more serious about finding a boyfriend, I’d set up a dating profile online.

Just kidding, that would actually happen when I got drunk and sad. In fact I’ve never put together an online profile while both eyes are still functioning together – I one-eye typed up all 3 of them.  The first time I set up an account on Plenty of Fish, I had forgotten about the whole thing, until I checked my email in the morning, and was greeted by a bunch of emails from the site, notifying me that I had mail.

What I’m trying to say is that I have quite a few resources to for my dating stories. I’ll start with my favourite…

So, JPEG and I headed out for drinks on a random Thursday night. While we were having our cocktails, some nice looking fellows struck up a conversation with us. The one who was talking to me was actually really cute.  He was articulate, wore glasses, and had the lanky look that I was into at the time. So, early in the evening, I agreed to head out on a date with him at some point in the near future. But, because JPEG and I were apparently feeling particularly reckless that day, we decided it would be smart to head back to this dude’s house for a night cap. Looking back, this is a horrifyingly unsafe thing to do, and if my mother knew about it, she would be shocked and disappointed.

As the night progressed, my initial feelings of attraction began to fade. On the cab ride over, he mentioned that he votes Conservative. That was a huge blow, but at the time, I didn’t necessarily see it as a red flag. It wasn’t until I used his bathroom that I knew that our love could never be.

It wasn’t dirty. It was pretty clean, actually. But, there was something in his bathroom that clearly revealed he was pretentious, insincere and insecure.  There, on the back of his toilet, was a copy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “The Social Contract”. Seriously. Rousseau? A primary text that second year politics students read… once, only to be stored on a dusty bookshelf with your other university course readers.  He honestly had an 18^th century text book in his powder room– the bathroom right by the front door. The one that guests use.

It isn’t that I take issue with people who read in the bathroom. If I saw a newspaper, an ‘Auto-trader’, a magazine, a novel or even some empty shampoo bottles (the ingredients and instructions make for a nice quick, light read), I would not judge. Even if he had contemporary pretentious reads like something by Noam Chomsky, I would have reconciled it somehow. But, this combined with what I saw as his “bad politics” was too much.

I saw this as what sociologists would call an “identity announcement”. This man was attempting to tell house guests something about himself by using this prop in his powder room. Except, I think that there was a discrepancy between the message he want to send, and the message he actually sends…

Desired Impact: I am smart and deep. So smart and deep, in fact that I read social theory while I poop. While I poop!!! Imagine what I read when I’m not distracted by manipulating my sphincter! Imagine the places I go! Have sex with me.

Actual Impact: This guy is shallow, has never read Rousseau (maybe just his wiki), and randomly pulled one of his old text books off the shelf to cover his insecurities.  Up next? “The Communist Manifesto”… at least it is a short read.

We never made it to our date, as I promptly cancelled it a respectful 2 days before the event. Maybe I find it pleasantly ironic that on some level he actually broke an implicit “social contract”… the one where you don’t look desperate to appear smart.