I make it a rule to never go to older male doctors. I learned long ago that most older male doctors, particularly docs who are 10 to 20 years older, lack the ability and/or willingness to listen to patients, or at least to me. I always choose female doctors, because I've found it much more likely to get a doctor who will listen. And over the years, I've seen this same inability or unwillingness to listen in some older male coworkers, who take my work-related questions as an opportunity to subject me to long, unwelcome monologues of whatever wisdom they think I presumably lack, delivered as always with benign condescension. I don't know why I didn't apply this same rule to online dating, which is why I got stuck on a four-hour first date with one of those kind of men this past weekend.
A couple weeks ago, I agreed to a first date with a guy 10 years older than me, the father of two teenage kids. Even though he is older than I prefer, I liked the no-bullshit attitude in his profile, his love of camping and the outdoors, and the fact that he grew up in Montana. And he had been learning how to two-step and swing dance this past year. Promising. So, without much emailing back and forth, I agreed to see standup comedy with "Montana" a couple weekends later, the first night we were both available for a date.
We met at a bar for a drink before the show, and the first thing Montana opened with was a five-minute monologue on how his maternal ancestors kept trying and failing at homesteading, which pushed them from the midwest to the plains states and finally to the west. Trust me, it wasn't as exciting and sexy as I just made it sound. Then he moved on to his career as a scientist at JPL and a well known defense contractor, followed by a lengthy explanation of why he was getting an MBA on the side. I tried to interject with questions and comments, but found it really difficult to get a word in edgewise. He just kept on going and going, so after 30 minutes of conversational rebuffs, I gave up trying and just thought, 'F*ckit. I'm stuck in a boring lecture. Maybe he'll take questions at the end.'
He talked about his kids and his impending divorce, which hasn't happened yet, although they've been separated for many years of their 20-year marriage. Even though he knows from my dating profile that I have a kid and I'm divorced, he didn't ask me any questions about my situation. Even when we had something in common, he wasn't interested enough to ask me about it. Somehow he rambled on to the topic of petroleum economics, which is something I know a little about, since I once worked for an oil and gas consulting firm. Every time I tried to add something relevant to his lecture on the current state of gas prices, he would stop for a few seconds and stare at me in the same uncomprehending way my dog does when I talk to her. The whole evening was a chance for him to display his admittedly considerable knowledge. Awesome. I just love to sit mutely and not share my own opinions. WTF?!
Two-and-a-half hours into the date, he finally asked ME a question -- the first of the night -- just as we were about to be seated for the show. And it wasn't even the standard "What do you do for a living?" question, which is usually number one or number two on a first date. "What do you write about?" he asked. I wish I had had the audacity to say I write a bitchy blog about comically bad first dates like this one, but I didn't. I'm much too polite, a character flaw I blame on my smalltown midwestern upbringing.
The standup comedy was nothing great, although I did have some fun when the host asked the audience if anyone was celebrating a birthday or anniversary. I raised my hand and pointed to Montana and said, "He is. He just had his 20th wedding anniversary a couple days ago." The host looked confused, so I elaborated, "But not me. I'm not married. We're on a first date." To Montana's credit, he laughed and seemed delighted by my comments.
Maybe this, along with my damned politeness, is why Montana asked me out again in a way that assumed I would be totally onboard with it. I nearly spat out my coffee when he texted me to ask what I did for a living -- three days after our Titanic of a first date. I would like to think the question finally popped into his mind after he was talking about me to a coworker and when the coworker asked him about my job, it suddenly dawned on him that he didn't know, even after spending four hours with me on a first date.
To sum up: avoid older male doctors, don't start a date off with a boring narrative about your failed homesteading ancestors, and always buy online-dating bail insurance (insist on the standard first date at Starbucks, so you can politely bail after an hour of misery).
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