Oh, but beggars CAN be choosers after all...

Don't believe the old adage. I am living disproof of it.

Saturday night we had our company's annual "Spring Fling Party" The theme was Casino Night. Yippy skippy...I am really not much into gambling. So I was content to just graze and drink and sit with my work friends. HOWEVER...I got a ride to the fete with my sister and bro-in-law (he works for the same co. as me...dunno if I've mentioned that before. He's in a totally different dept...making 3 or 4 X my salary -that's my guesstimate though, not fact) So I felt like I should make an effort to divide my time between my coworker homies & my sister. It seemed like it would be sorta rude to be all "Thanks for the ride, suckaaaaz. I will now ignore you for the entire evening, but PLEASE notify me when my return ride is soon to depart, a'ight??" So it seems like common courtesy, right? Well I should have thrown common courtesy right out the f-ing window because Laura's fun...not always my idea of fun...this is especially true when she is buzzing. She was really into blackjack on Sat night so I played for quite a while...just to humor her. What does humoring her get me? It gets me hit on by the ickiest, sleaziest rent-a-croupier on the planet.


He could have been a professional croupier for all I know...I had wondered where they got all the gaming people for the shindig but I certainly wasn't going to ask him. I pointedly refrained from asking the dude any personal questions and yet somehow was subjected to info on his life philosophy, favorite restaurants, hobbies, his likes, his dislikes, his goddamn medical history, and blah dee blah dee BLAAAH ad infinitum...the guy would NOT shut up. The self-centered
loquaciousness would have even been forgiveable if he hadn't been such a shameless HOGGER. I mean, when I first sat down to the table, I made some crack about Uno being more my game and he's like "Huh.Uno??THAT'S one I haven't heard before but..." and then he pauses, he shrugs in a way that perfectly implies "to each his own" but, after a beat, continues to talk and I'm expecting at this juncture that he is, yes, actually going to say "to each his own" or something to that effect but he says "Hey-- WE ALL MASTURBATE"
HUH?? How did we segue to that? And even if it was remotely pertinent to the topic at hand...that..that is just IMPROPER conversation for mixed company!! I know, I know that makes me sound like a mega-prude. But really!! There was this older lady at the table who I feel certain was somebody's grandma!! Well ok, maybe, said old lady didn't so much as bat an eyelash over it, but I think that was probably due to her being in a gambling addict trance (she looked to be pretty hardcore...she had beau coup chips) more so than her being ok with that sort of talk. So... right at the outset: HORRENDOUS first impression.

OOOoooh, but the hits just kept on coming.... Eddie (he did have a name...an accordingly sleazy name) proved to be a master of the lameass innuendo. For instance.... gamblinggranny was conversing with my sis about something (I was barely paying attention... wondering how many swigs I had left in my Mich Lite before I could bolt for the bar) and --in innocent conversation-- said the phrase "tied down" Can see it from a mile away, no? Eddie :" Yeah, I don't like to be tied down either.....except maybe later with you " (points at mortified ME).
That's just a sampling (there must have been at least a dozen of these uninspired bon mots ... all aimed toward a queasy yours truly) but that pretty well sums up this character-- all the subtlety of Andrew Dice Clay and not half so clever. (OHH! ) In retrospect, I wish I wasn't as well-mannered as I am...and had just said "Oh, PISS OFF" But, in my defence, I don't think my responses were all that encouraging... at one point said "Oy. Well I saw THAT coming from a few miles away" but mostly I kept it non-verbal.. rolling my eyes as I sipped my beer or a couple times I just up and walked away.

But DAMN my sister and the authoritative hold she has on me. I would periodically come back from my table of amigos and check on her. And she would coerce me into playing some more blackjack. She was just picking up the game and soo pleased with herself but Greg had abandoned her and if I didn’t play with her she would be alone and friendless (sniff! Sob!) And she just wouldn’t budge from that table because Eddie was imparting to her all of his great blackjack know-how. Additionally—inexplicably—she thought he was funny. UGH. But I would sit and play for a while, for poor, friendless Laura’s sake. Y’know, in the Sweet & Obliging Sister event, I know I’m placing—maybe a silver medal, but honestly I will be STUNNED if I don’t take home the gold.

But now, a confession that may show me in a disparaging light (no, no, no, nothing HAPPENED. Calm yourself. Gawd!!) In the interest of providing a fair & balanced reporting of the episode I must tell you—if this guy had looked like Clive Owen (Clive springs to mind because his first big movie role was as a croupier in an indie flick called…Croupier. Mmmm..Cliiiive) I woulda gone out with him…with all these same behavioral flaws in place , I woulda gone out with him. I am overstating the case actually, if he had been just regular good looking (not necessarily "Clive-caliber") I woulda gone out with him. That makes me cruel and vain I realize, but there you have it. However, if he had shown himself to be of decent character, I do believe that I would have overlooked any external shortcomings and gone out with him. Probably. See, I am not a total lost cause—soullistically speaking.

So yeah, as it happens, he did ask me out, he was NOT good looking (& at least 40 years old—agh!) and as I’ve said, he'd behaved repugnantly. Hence, my answer was “NO”. But not a simple “no”--a stammered and terribly awkward “no”. Here’s how it went down (why be concise now , right?)—

Due to Laura’s cursed blackjack fever, we were at the gambling table when the party wrapped at 10pm. The other players had suddenly, alarmingly, GONE. He pivoted and pointed himself directly at me…I could sense dark clouds gathering before he even opened up his dumb yapper. And then :“Since you’re so INTRIGUING, I’d like to take you out sometime…” I WISH he hadn’t asked like that. I would rather he had said “So Sugartits—wanna go out sometime?” That would've been easy to answer ...in the bluntly brutal negative. But opening with a nice compliment—and that particular compliment (y’know, it just so happens that I endeavor to be intriguing) I gotta give credit where credit’s due—that was well played. But flattery—although I am a big fan of it—will NOT get you everywhere. Another adage debunked. So my rejection is all queued up, but the flattery has softened me..got me all sympathetic and, as I’m suddenly wary of crushing this poor schlub’s spirit, it becomes necessary to concoct an impromptu lie. And I am utter CRAP at lying. No, lemme amend that—I am crap at lying in person. I actually do a very artful phone fib (it’s my job, after all). But face-to-face? And on the spot? SOO not my strong suit!! This is the gibberish that fell from my mouth (approximately verbatim) –
“Ohhhhh. Ah. No. No thanks. I just-ahh- got out of, of, a baaad relationship and I’m… I’m not.. I’M ON HIATUS. So, no thanks.” To which he replied “OK. Have fun!” in a kinda glib, non-genuine way, though I couldn’t tell if it was an embittered“I-can-see-through-your-blatant-lie” glibness or a puzzled “not-quite-sure-what-hiatus-means” glibness. Might’ve been both.

The simplest lie might’ve been the way to go. “I’m sorry. NO. I have a boyfriend.” Well…colossal brain fart…it never even occurred to me to say that! That might have easily backfired on me though. Laura was right there…and I really believe she might have followed that line with a snort or a loud “Puh!” Or simply “HAA!”

Anita from HR wanted to know why I fled the building without waiting for Greg or Laura. I was about to say “I needed some air” (more fibs) when Greg came out the door bellowing “THAT made my night!!!” Apparently he had been nearby to witness Eddie’s pitch and my less-than-suave deflection. So before I could open my mouth to protest, Laura & Greg had the whole story out. Yeah. To my immense dismay, it was a hot conversation topic as we traversed the parking lot. My TRAITOR of a sister was unbelievably scolding me for turning him down. “There was nothing wrong with him! You should have gone out with him!” She actually said that. She must have been COMPLETELY delusional. Thankfully, I got some support from the menfolk. Greg sided with me, saying (to Laura)“I gotta go with your sister on this…that guy was a CREEP!!” And Tom (Anita’s hubby) was indignant on my behalf “ I can’t believe your sister was ready to sell you down the river for a stack of plastic chips that can’t even be reimbursed for real money!! That’s LOW”

But Laura was insistent that I made a mistake. She said she really didn’t think he was that bad. You've heard of beer goggles, I presume? Well apparently, pinot grigio googles are considerably more distorting. I HAVE to believe that or I have to disown my sister. It's as simple as that. I cannot believe that she saw this Eddie as he ACTUALLY was and still thought it would behoove me to go out with him. That would mean she thinks I am the very paragon of "HARD UP". She said "I know he's not like, the catch of your life, but you should've said yes. You would've gotten a date...free dinner...y'know..." So, this I interpret to mean--in addition to being extremely hard up in the dating dept., I complicate things with my impossibly high standards.
But I don't think my standards are crrrrazy high. Despite what Laura thinks, I would not turn somebody down on the grounds of them not being "the catch of my life". On the other hand, I think it's wrong to accept a date just for the sake of obtaining a date...especially wrong if that means accepting a date with someone whose entire appearance and manner thoroughly repels you. Am I wrong here? Are the rules so drastically different for the legions of the "extremely hard-up??"