When I started writing about my online dates, I made it a rule to only discuss my very first date with each guy, and none after that. Partially because of that overused ’90s movie plot in which a girl finds out about a secret condition to her relationship, like the guy placed a bet on her or was paid off to take her out. If I ended up actually liking any of these guys, I’d rather not live out the tail end of these cinematic treasures and run after anyone yelling “but it was just an article!” Until this point, it has been particularly easy to stick to my guns because I just wasn’t getting any callbacks for a second date.

Having explained my good intentions, I will proceed to discuss my first second-date for the sole reason that I hope to never see him again. If you’ve been a devoted fan of my tactless retellings of dates good and bad, you might remember “The Canadian,” better described as the hot high-fiver (Observer Issue 9). If you managed to fall upon this article by chance on your way over to the sports section, then I will catch you up by saying it was an awkward, platonic-feeling date that ended with a little more chemistry than it began with.

Texting me the day after our first meeting, he told me that he had a “good time”. This defies everything I’ve been told about “waiting a few days” and playing hard-to-get, but I’ll give the guy ten points for skipping the bullshit. We make plans for the upcoming weekend, and I pick a lounge-y Thai place with ten different types of mojitos. We arrange to meet at 9, and I have shamelessly double-booked myself to meet friends later in the night, so I hope he’s not feeling extra chatty.

I get to the bar a little early to scope out the terrain. In my dating adventures I have found that it’s always preferable to have home field advantage. On a first date you want to avoid that awful deer-in-headlights moment where you scan the room for someone that looks vaguely like their photo, maybe without the red cup in his hand or the drooping eyelids. Even on a second date I found myself second-guessing my memory of the Canadian and begin staring down every male that walks into the bar. 9 a.m. passes without him. I had set my purse down on the next bar stool to save my date a seat, but as I look down now it’s just mocking me. 10 a.m. comes and the bartender starts eyeing my drink, which I’ve been nursing since I got there, as I try to stretch the last few gulps into tiny sips until he arrives.

At 10:30 he walks in. “Sorry, my thing I had, it ran late.” That’s it? You weren’t resuscitating an old woman that collapsed on the sidewalk en route to our date? You weren’t signaled by Gotham officials to fight villains as your alter ego, Batman?

Nope, just a nondescript “thing” that he “had”, well you know, it just “ran late.” For some reason I am feeling merciful, so I restrain myself from giving him an earful of my well-practiced profanity and accept his offer to buy me a drink as a step towards rectifying his first rate screw-up. This mysterious “thing” he spoke of, must have involved physical activity because he is famished and orders an appetizer at the bar. I am not particularly hungry, but the Canadian raves about his food and says, “you have to try this,” as he loads up a fork. I open my mouth to receive the spicy Thai goodness and instead taste…nothing? He put the fork in his own mouth and it is clear that he had no intention of feeding me a bite of his food. He does, however glance over at me just in time to catch me with my mouth hanging open. Ouch.

Our conversation never makes it past polite chit-chat and I reach for some standard night-ending lines. “Oh man, it’s getting late” is hard to pull off at 11:30, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try. He doesn’t seem to get the hint, and instead gets us another round. Great, he’s bribing me into hanging out with him. He’s attractive and loose with his wallet, but I’m not into him. I take a few sips of the drink while I plan my escape route, and he says, “I bet that I can finish my drink faster than you can,” and I look around wondering when this place turned into a frat house. Did I just get challenged to a chugging contest? And just like that, I have reached my douchebag threshold. I push my drink away and explain to him my elaborate excuse for ending this water-boarding session of a date: “Sorry but I’ve got this thing I need to get to.”