Did he just say that?

“You have great T-Shirt Potatoes”.

Has anyone ever stared at your chest and said that? Didn’t think so. It was horrible. It was humiliating. In hindsight, it was effing hilarious. I think I need to tell this story because it is the kind of thing that happens to me a lot and looking back at it now, I learned a lot once again.

A couple of weekends ago, the preppy friends and I gathered together on a super hot day for dinner. Where do you go for dinner when it gets even remotely sunny in Seattle? Anywhere with outside seating. It is like an automatic response. So, we headed to lake union and ended up at BluWater Bistro. I look down at the bar and this very cute, very preppy guy is STARING straight at me. He grabs his beer and walks right over and before you know it, I have effectively ditched my friends and am SHAMELESSLY flirting with this guy and CANNOT even stop myself. How could I? He was adorable. He even threw out the Christian card. (Actually this is also a very funny story in hindsight. The guy noticed I was wearing a cross necklace and proceeded to tell me that he was a born again virgin. WTF! WHO SAYS THAT! A guy who would stop at nothing to take a gullible girl like me home that’s who…) Moving on. At the time, I was starry eyed. I had not felt an instant connection in a long time and I was practically jumping out of my shoes.

Then his friend walks up. He takes one look at my face, next look is at my chest, and, without even diverting his eyes tells me I have “great t-shirt potatoes”. I had an instantly sick feeling in my stomach. Every red flag that I had been ignoring for the last 20 minutes flew up in front of my face. My eyes were probably the size of the MOON when I shot a look at my preppy crush that said “are you going to let your friend say that to me?” Do you know what my preppy crush did? He laughed. I felt like I was slapped in the face. I think I made some “stand-up for myself comment” that got pushed aside and soon after I made my exit to go sit with my friends finally.

When I made it back to the table I felt gross. You would think that I would be done with this guy, but I wasn’t. I held on to whatever glimmer of hope that there was an ounce of quality inside that good-looking fellow. He waved me over to where he was sitting a little while later. He bought a great bottle of red wine and flirted like he meant it. He made plans with me to eat lunch, to cook dinner, and to date me right. Because he said he wanted to. No, I’m not kidding. He said, “I am going to date you right. And we are going to have the best time ever.” I fully believed him. He walked me back to my car and as hard as I tried to dodge his face coming at mine I eventually gave in and kissed him. Not a long kiss, just a kiss. He called me as I was driving away and said he was so glad to have met me.

I never heard from him again…

That night, before I knew that he wasn’t going to call I wrote this in my journal. “Dear Lord, I met a great guy tonight. Or is he great? Lord he makes me feel uneasy. I pray if he is not someone you want me to be with, that he does not call. Protect my heart…”

Notes to self:

1. Dear self, you tend to be too trusting and give my heart away too easily on the wrong people. What gives?

2. Dear self, a guy is sometimes only as good as the friends he keeps. Your really cute, really preppy new crush, had low quality friends (seriously, who says t-shirt potatoes?) and true to form, he turned out to be a really low quality guy.

Next.