My date with Mr. Entomologist

Or as I called him, “the bug guy.” I used to work for a natural history museum, one of those with a large collection of dead mammals, dead birds, and of course, dead bugs. The entomologists who researched these bugs would display their drawerfuls of colorful beetles, many legged centipedes, and rare stick insects with pride and excitement as they talked about what makes the study of insects just so fascinating.

So one Friday evening, as people from around the museum came together and drank their way into the weekend, I started chatting up one of the guys who worked in the insect collections. I had noticed him before, knew he was a bit older, but thought he had some sort of Clooney-esque charm to him. He was not terribly interesting to begin with, but I hadn’t been on a date in awhile—since I had gotten out of my last long-term relationship—and I thought I could use the practice. He asked for my number and we planned to have dinner the following week.

The evening of the date, I got ready, feeling happy about the simple fact that I was going out on a date. I wasn’t desperate, it had just been a few months, and it felt good to be, well, normal. We met for dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant, talked about our lives, and it seemed to be going okay.

Until he pulled out his favorite bug. Seriously.

I think he felt like things were going well enough that I could be trusted to appreciate the things that made him tick (no pun intended). He told me that this small beetle, encased in its little resin cube, was the reason that he got into his field, the thing that really inspired him about entomology. Blah, blah, blah.

Now, picture me on the other side of the table, mouth somewhat agape and a million things running through my mind: What do I say? Why didn’t I foresee this? I guess it’s nice that he feels inspired, but by that? I don’t even like bugs. How do I get out of this?

After (what felt like) a few minutes I pulled myself together and tried to change the subject. By the end of dinner I was feigning tiredness and trying to play up the whole “I have to be at work early tomorrow” thing. He tried pushing for another drink, but I managed to cut it short.

So you’d think I could put the date behind me, right? Not quite.

By 9am the next morning I had an email waiting for me from Mr. Bug Guy. “I really enjoyed our time last night. You’re smart and sexy and I’d like to go out again. What are you doing this weekend?”

Bad form, dude. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s not cool to contact the girl within the first 12 hours after the date, especially when it was clear that she wasn’t that into you? Wanting to nip the situation in the bud, I quickly wrote him back and said maybe we could be friends, but I didn’t really think we were “relationship material.” Then came a flurry of emails over the next few days, all saying about the same thing: “Maybe I came on too strong. Give me another chance. Won’t you just have one more drink with me?”

After awhile I stopped trying to spare his feelings and just didn’t write back. The next week he began apologizing for the previous emails, saying that he felt like he was digging himself into a hole and he didn’t know what to do. Unfortunately I didn’t know what to tell him. There was certainly a hole, and I wasn’t going to help him out of it.

By then it was comical—I started sharing Bug Guy’s ridiculous messages with my friends, who looked at me with that I-told-you-so look. As in, they told me not to date someone from work. Especially someone from bugs. What was I thinking? In the following months I avoided him as best I could, and tried to seem friendly, but his complete and utter inability to act in a normal social manner made it difficult to overcome what was, possibly, the worst date I’ve ever been on. Since then I’ve made sure that future dates have passed a serious screening and reference process, including a “pocket check” to ensure that there aren’t any unwanted creatures joining us for dinner.

Check out other people’s bad dates at Dating Tales.