Set-up for disaster

When you are a single and fabulous, 20-something living in the city, there is a good chance that at one time or another one of your friends or (for the purpose of this post) coworkers, will get it into their heads that you would be a perfect match for their “really nice” guy friend with the great personality.

The conversation usual begins with some questions from your coworker about your plans for the evening and ends with some queries into your current dating status. Then, after you have unwittingly confirmed that you are indeed single, the coworker will pounce like a lion on the gazelle. In my experience however, these types of set-ups rarely work, because as well-meaning as your coworker was, they probably didn’t take the time to find out what you are really looking for in a guy or to establish any of your hard-line deal breakers. (For example, one of my major deal breakers would be someone who does not think I am funny or does not agree with me when I say that I am undeniably, ridiculously good-looking.)

Anyway, last night I went out with a coworker and her friends, only to find that one of the people she had invited was (surprise!!!) this guy she thought I would be perfect for. After sitting through his third Michael Jackson-dance impersonation, I knew it probably wasn’t going to work out.

During the scope of our (very brief) conversation, he managed to make as few as three references to women’s breasts before launching into a bizarre story about how, after college, he had saved the business cards from all of the companies that had not hired him. Then, without offering any explanation as to why he had done this, he paused….for what seemed like an eternity. So in an effort to save my sanity, I interjected a quick joke suggesting that (after he had achieved some moderate fame and fortune), he could use those old cards in a clever revenge scheme in partnership with the National Enquirer.

Now admittedly, this was not my best material; but hey, his idea of clever was doing jump kicks from the “Thriller” video in a fairly crowded bar. Either way, he did not think my suggestion was funny, and even went so far as to go off on a lengthy tangent about how he is a good person and good people do not revert to revenge schemes because that would “belittle who they as a person.”

Right dude.