Bad Date Stories
Hey Big Spender

So the phone rings at 11 p.m. on a Monday night. I let the machine pick up. No one calls me at 11 p.m. on a Monday night. I hear a Spanish accent so thick it has to be my friend Brent calling me. Brent likes to use fake accents when he calls me. He knows I’m a sucker for the exotically accented man.

So I pick up. But the so-heavy-it’s-got-to-be-fake accent doesn’t stop. For a minute or two, I can’t understand a thing. The only thing I recognize is my own name. I can’t figure out who it is because Brent’s fake accent is terrible, and I always know it’s him.

I start thinking back. This guy definitely knows me. Then it hits me. It’s the professional soccer player from Argentina I met at a party over a year and a half ago. It was the kind of party where all the girls wore something short and tight ­ very Dallas. So I opted to look like a grown-up and wore gray wool trousers, a royal blue silk top, a sleek up-do, and pearls. I carried a pashmina for the chilly air. (By the way, fie on that "pashminas are out" crap. Being cold is never in vogue.) A male guest complimented me on being the most beautifully dressed woman in the room. Gay? Hmm. Should have asked for his number.

The memories of foreign-born, late-calling soccer player came rushing back. He was short, pony-tailed, aggressively touchy-feely, clearly in love with himself and kept saying, "I luh you, baybee." I have no idea why I gave him my card.

He called a couple times, always late. In fact, I distinctly remember him calling me that night after the party. It had to be three or four in the morning, and I recall him asking me where I lived so he could stop by on his way home. He said he wanted to come by for coffee, not to "make sex." Nothing doing, buster.

So here I am on the phone late Monday night with a guy I never even went out with who has somehow re-discovered my charms after a good year, and then some, without seeing or speaking to me in any capacity. He explained that he was moving and had found my business card, with my home number on the back. He said he was calling all his old girlfriends that night. Old girlfriend? I met the guy once. They must move fast in Argentina.

He asked if I had a boyfriend, and I told him about the Englishman who broke my heart. (I can’t not talk about Edward, even to random strangers in the street. At least I don’t cry about it anymore.) So he proceeded to curse the "bastard English" at length and with many four-letter words and to tell me how all English men are jealous of the Argentine men’s virility and male beauty. I appreciate anyone who curses the English in general and Edward in particular, so I didn’t hang up. Also he told me that he was a commentator for the World Cup on Univision because he was so "bewful on television." To his credit, he didn’t try the old "coffee" routine.

No, instead he asked me out for water.

Yes folks, again I got his word as a gentleman that he didn’t want to "make sex" with me, he just wanted to get together and have some water. Not to worry, he intended to take care of the check he told me. "Don’ worry, baybee. You don’ need money with me. I pay for everythin’." What a relief that I wouldn’t have to go Dutch on water.

~by R. Haney
August 2002

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