incompatible

So I was in a large bookshop the other day just rummaging around in the travel section and reading up on vacation spots around the world when I see a former date over in the romance novels isle.  I didn’t exactly hide but neither did I go up to her.  She was not the worst date ever but we had definite compatibility issues.

Back in 2005 a mutual acquaintance introduced me to Betty (not her real name of course).  She was 20 at the time and was in college and seemed fairly bright and mature.  So I finally got round to asking her out and gave her the choice of where to go.  She picked this “Chinese” restaurant where the food was microwaved and the decor came out of a Pier One catalog.  Midway through dinner she mentioned that she had promised to meet up with her friends at a club and wouldn’t it be fun to do that?

So off to the club we went.  It was called polly esthers.  A 70s style disco where the 20something crowd hung out and danced.

This was ironic for two reasons, One, none of them had even been alive in the 70s, and two, the club had given up on disco and was mostly playing modern stuff.

So we get to the club and her friends turn out to be mostly younger guys.  I made a valiant effort to dance but I’m just not a dancer so I quickly desisted and hung out at the bar while Betty was on the dance floor with her friends doing shots and boogieing down.  After a while I decided this wasn’t for me and told her I was taking off.  She said she was going to stay and grab a ride home with her friends.

Couple weeks pass and she calls me up and says she wants to make it up for the dance club and wants to go out again.  So we settle on dinner and a movie.  I took her to one of the better Vietnamese restaurants so she could sample real Asian cuisine and she didn’t like that.  Something bout too spicy.

I tried to come up with some topics of mutual interest but I was coming up with little to nothing at all to talk about.  Her interests mainly centered around contemporary music, TV, and celebrities.

Then we headed off to the movie that she picked.  This was one of those Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy movies (Ok we get it Jennifer, your marriage sucked).  We settled in and the previews came on.  One of the previews was for the 20th anniversary of “Back to the future“.

I commented “Wow, I was a kid when this came out”, she commented “Wow, I wasn’t even born back then”  and that’s when I realized I had made a horrible mistake.

Betty was cute enough but there wasn’t really all that much common ground there between us and the age difference didn’t help things.  So after the movie we ended the night on a fairly muted note.

Luckily she started dating some other guy and that was the end of my involvement with her.  I was honestly happy for her and for myself.  We could have continued dating but I don’t think anything positive would have come of it.

Back in the present she picked out some romance novel and headed off to pay for it without noticing me.  I buried my nose in a travel guide for New Zealand.