Face It

The Journalist and I met on a blind date. We emailed and text messaged back and forth ahead of time. He seemed fun enough. If only I had known that electronic conversations can be worlds apart from real ones...

The Journalist was hard to read and awkward. Should we have been on the phone, I could have been folding laundry or flipping through channels to keep me interested. Instead, it was a painful. PAINFUL, like having a staring contest with someone with Tourette's (I should mention here that the Journalist does not, indeed have Tourette's).

When the awkward conversation had nowhere to go, he began to tell me that he was a swimmer. "Those were the days when, you know, when I shaved my legs and wore pantyhose..."

Wait. A. Minute.

"I'm sorry. I thought you just said that you wore pantyhose." He looked at me funny.

"I did just say that." His expression told me I was stupid...or that he's farsighted.

Now I have heard of male swimmers shaving their legs (which to be honest, weirds me out enough). But never, never have I heard of male swimmers cross-dressing!

I tried to locate the charming banter we had via electronic communication,

"Well, to not wear pantyhose is just unladylike!" Again, he gives me an awkward expression. I'd say it was deadpan, but there was this creepy twitchy look. He squinted his eyes and gave me a forced, rather creepy psycho killer smile. Perhaps he was leering. What makes a leer a leer? Is a leer favorable? I couldn't tell if he thought I was funny. Or bitchy. Or anything.

"You're giving me a weird look," I said.

"I hear that a lot. I'm not, though." Huh...so WTF is with your face?!

Pucker up.