The Chronicles of Dating: Installment #9 - Ping Pong, Popcorn, and Pouting

I know I promised this a long time ago, and I'm sorry it took me so long to actually get around to writing it (or anything on this blog, for that matter), but here it is - the dating story of someone who my previous weekly coordination with should probably remain unnamed (but if you're following along with previous posts, you'll totally know who I'm talking about). So it begins with a Halloween party, where I'm sure I dressed as something either terrifying or skanky, but I was probably a bat. Who knows?  Either way, it was the same Halloween party where a saw a former subject of my dating tales in a purple turban.  I was busy admiring some really spot-on Dancing with the Stars costumes, when in swooped new guy with promises of toilet papering.

Oh, and if only we had gone toilet papering.  Instead, a rush of a dating spree was characterized mostly by watching sports on TV.

But that's not where the good stuff is...here is where the good stuff is:

I slightly hate to bag on this, because hey, saving money, creating less waste...but despite all those reasons, it's still kind of hard for me to swallow the fact that he and his family saved movie theater popcorn buckets and sifted through them to find the right one from each theater before heading to the movie and a "free refill."  And don't worry, there was no shame in doing that on a date, which he did on every single movie date we had.  Had his intentions been to decrease waste, I would likely have applauded him for his efforts. The intentions, however were to get something he could have easily afforded for free.

So to think the popcorn thing is cheap is one thing, but when you set up a double-date for you and your friend, and the guys comprise the entire date of free pizza and $1 icecream cones from Dairy Queen, you know cheap is the brightest crayon in the box. And now, don't get me wrong, I find nothing wrong with a free date, but when you spare no creativity to come up with something fun and free, cheap takes the cake.

And then the ping pong...oh the ping pong.  I should have, but didn't, draw the line at playing ping pong nearly every night after such and such sports game ended.  I should have, but didn't, draw the line at being reprimanded for, apparently, being the sole cause of losing a doubles game to his parents, all the while hearing over and over "keep your paddle up!"  I did, however, draw the line at "we'll keep the ball going back and forth for as long as we can, and when you miss, you have to stand against the wall and I get to hit the ball at you as hard as I can."  I later learned that this is called "Sting Pong," and is generally played by shirtless high school boys. It's no surprise that after I said, "no way," and that I got hit really hard in the face by the ping pong ball 10 minutes later anyway.

Skip to like 3 years later - long after I'd give him the heave-ho (though if you ask him, of course it was the other way around, and during the break-up, he said, "don't worry, if people ask me about you, I'll just say 'Andrea's a really nice girl,' and I won't go into any of the other stuff." Uh...) he became my weekly coordinating partner in a Monday night singles' ward organization.

To say things went well would be a folly. His mood swings between charming and insulting were like a pendulum on crack. His insults, that I think were an attempt at being flirtatious (based solely on tone of voice and winking in my direction), consisted of, "hey guys, better get some treats before Andrea eats them all," and "don't get Andrea started, she'll talk your ear off."

This is turning into a long story, but seriously, I'm paraphrasing everything.

A couple months into our weekly coordinating, he broke up with his then (and I think again) girlfriend.  His text conversation with me went something like this:

He: "Hi Andrea, what are you doing?"
I: "Just kickin' it at home. You?"
He: "Just watching some sports game...My life sucks right now."
I: "Uh, why's that?"
He: "I broke up with my girlfriend."
I: "Sorry to hear that. Did she dump you or you her?"
He: "It was mutual...I decided things weren't working, so I told her we needed to break up."
I: "Well if you need anything, I do make good cookies on occassion."
He: "I'm trying to lose weight. But I could use a friend more than anything else."
I: "Okay."
He: "But you have to understand that that's all it's going to be."
I: "Uh..."
He: "I just don't want you to think it's anything else other than friends, no matter what happens."
...
He: "So, do you want to come over?"

Three days later...

He: "Wanna come over tonight?"

Needless to say, my answer was "no," to all of the above questions. I think that was part of the issue, but a couple months later, he threw a temper tantrum when I told him he either needed to do his calling or ask to be released. And then he left the ward.