Dating: The Egotiste

Let’s call her Catherine of Arrogance

Today’s story begins with me being invited out to dinner by a person I met through a social group I’d joined online. She turns out to be the rudest, most pretentious and condescending person I’ve ever shared a meal with. But of course, I don’t know that when I agree to meet her and her “hottie” friends for dinner.

So there she sits, waiting -- or should I say holding court -- at her table. Kind of funny-looking, bleached yellow spiky hair, tan-in-a-can, dressed like a cheap hooker. I guess some people might find that attractive but to me it registers as “phony” and “over-compensating.” Still, I want to give her a chance and keep an open mind. Maybe my first impression is wrong. Let’s see.

She begins by immediately putting me on the spot.

“Sit down. Tell us about yourself.” She haughtily commands, as though it were a job interview.

I ask her if she thinks this is a job interview. She smirks and waves a hand full of gaudy jewelry. I tell her and her friends that I’m happy to answer their questions but I’m not applying for any positions at the moment. Her two friends laugh pleasantly enough and they at least seem genuine. She laughs as well but her laughter is grotesquely fake.

After a few cursory questions (“What’s your favourite colour” is about as deep as it gets) she becomes bored with me and launches into her own biography.

First, she puts on airs about her job (“Oooh, I don’t know if I’ve revealed this yet, but I’m actually an interior designer”) Ooooh, whoopee shit for you. She seems to expect me to become giddy over this fresh factoid but I don’t because I actually couldn’t care less.

She also won’t stop talking about some sweaty yoga thing she does and how meditation has made her a perfect spiritual being. She tells me that every day she spends 90 minutes just staring at her own reflection in the mirror. “I have fallen in love with myself,” she purrs with a beatific smile. I clamp my napkin over my mouth, smothering my snicker-reflex.

Thankfully the waiter comes over at this point, to take my order. But silly him, he takes too long with me and this serves to piss off Madame. “When you finish your little chit-chat,” she snarks at him (and me too, I guess) all unamused and prickly-like. Yes, the Imperial Princess is wound so tight, I can practically hear her anus snapping shut.

The meal continues apace. She says she’s a vegetarian but that doesn’t stop her from wearing the most ridiculous pair of leather pants imaginable. On this particular evening, it must be about 15 below with the wind chill. Her pants are basically two leather flaps with huge gaps on the sides, which are then laced up. The effect is bizarre and she looks like a giant S/M sausage.

You know, I don’t have anything against leather. I actually like it. I have a leather jacket myself. But leather pants? Well, there are few people who really look good wearing leather pants. And when it’s the middle of winter and freezing cold out and your pants are all open at the sides, well, leather pants just look stupid. Still, wear them she does, preening and strutting down Church Street like some kind of demented leather peacock.

I follow a few paces back, arm-in-arm with one of the other dinner guests, who is much nicer and much more interesting and who it turns out is the ex-girlfriend of – you guessed it – Mme. Leather Pants. Later on, we all say goodnight and I get a nice warm hug from the ex-girlfriend and an icy stare from Leather Pants.

I later get an e-mail warning me to back off the ex. “She needs to fly solo for awhile,” Leather Pants rhapsodizes, apparently channeling the narrator from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. “She needs to heal and grow.” Heal and grow? Like a eucalyptus plant? Like aloe vera? I’m not really all that interested in the ex but I’m left with a warm, pleasant glow and a certain sense of accomplishment for having pissed off the control freak. Good lord woman, pull down those icky pants, bend over and yank out the pickle. Meditate on that, o holy one.