Ditch Day

Dating Tip: Long sips of coffee give a girl time to plan her escape.

This story is from Jules, a 21-year-old student from Chicago, as told to Raz: 

It was my first time on OkCupid, and I met this guy named Alex. He was pretty cute in his photos, and he was hilarious in his emails. We had chemistry right away. I couldn’t wait to meet him.

On my first day back at school, I had an hour-long break from classes, so we planned a coffee date. Although it wasn’t as much time as I wanted, it was all I had. And it turned out to be more than enough…

I got to Starbucks a little early, ordered a coffee and found an empty couch, eagerly awaiting his arrival. A guy walked in who looked like he could be Alex—if he’d lost 40 pounds and had a killer bee attack to the face. Upon closer inspection, it was definitely him. And there were no killer bees, just really really bad acne. Seriously, props to whoever took the time to photoshop all his photos.

Maybe his personality will save him, I thought.

First words out of his mouth: “Oh, I see you already got your coffee?” He was clearly pissed. At least neither of us were feeling good about where this was going.

We continued talking and I discovered that his online humor didn’t translate to real life. His jokes revolved around how horrible of a cook he was; how this was his first date in years; how he doesn’t go out much; and how his cat is his only friend. At least, I hope those were jokes. The creep alarms were going off.

Thankfully, I was prepared. I texted a friend an SOS. Shitty thing to do, I know, but I couldn’t be with this guy for another minute. He was just commenting that he liked how tight my jeans were when my friend burst in. She gave a very unconvincing, “We totally had homework due today! Did you do it?” (It was the first day of class. Why would we have homework?) I went along with it though, saying I totally forgot, and that I would text him later. Then I literally ran out the door.

Was it the smoothest exit in the world? No. Was it totally worth it? Hell yes.