wow. that was NOT good.

So everyone's had a bad date, right? One that was kind of blah, didn't go well, or ended up leaving you in Crazytown (population: him). As of yesterday afternoon, all my bad ones had been just boring, uneventful or dull.

Enter Frank.

Now, Frank is a friend of a friend, who had seen me in a show in November and had been pestering our mutual friend since then to get my number. I agreed to meet him sight-(sort-of)-unseen. Sight-unremembered, if you will. (It's one of the dangers of being a performer -- you've looked at me for two hours and I've looked at you for two minutes. Who's going to remember whom better??)

Anyway, we were set to meet at 6:30 at a bar in the East Village. I was running late, but my late is only about five to ten minutes, so I hadn't called him yet to tell him so, when my phone rang. Turns out, he was running late too! Terrific!

"Well, it's nice that you were going to call me," he snarked.

"Um, well, actually, I was about to pick up the phone as soon as I was done with what I was doing."

"Oh, ha-ha, no, I was just messing with you -- even though I never say that phrase, messingwithyou, I'mjustkiddingaround... (disintegrate into nervous mumbling)."

"Ok, so let me finish up what I'm doing here, and I should be there by about 6:40."

"Great, ok, so if you get there first, just sit at the bar and have a lycheetini or plum wine on me."

"Great, thanks!"

"Yeah, I mean, if I get there first, I'll just have one on me, too. You know? This way, it's like, everybody wins!"

(I was now desperate to get off the phone, because if he continued to jabber, I'd be even later than I said I would.)

"OK, so I'll see you in twenty minutes."

And then about forty five minutes later, I actually did. And not at the bar, either, because that bar didn't open until 8. When he did show up, we went to a sushi place around the corner and by the time we sat down there was already tension between us. Just a not-being-on-the-same-page-ness. His jokes weren't landing with me, and I wasn't laughing, causing him (I imagine) to want to ratchet it up a notch, when all I really wanted was to relax a little and not work so hard to please anybody.

Anyway, we sat down, ordered some sake and food, and it continued downhill from there. Ex-girlfriends and boyfriends were brought up in the first half hour, and the Yale jokes started almost immediately.

"You're the first person I've met who went to Yale and doesn't even bring it up in conversation."

"Really? That's odd."

"No, most of them are like, 'hey, what time is it? Oh, it's Yale o'clock,' or they're like 'well, when I was at YALE...'"

"Ha ha ha ha, that's soooooooooooooooooo funny!"

Ok, I didn't say that last line. Instead, I sat there befuddled. We've been here ten minutes, why are you already picking on me??

It went like that for a while. At one point he told me that he only goes out with girls who he knows will dump him, and asked me what I find myself attracted to. I told him that, in the past, I have often gone out with guys I would call wounded animals -- someone I could help or be needed by -- but I amended that to say that I wasn't looking for that anymore. I had learned that, even though while they might be initially attractive, "wounded animals" wouldn't give me what I need, blah blah blah blah blah.

For every Yale joke, there then came a Wounded Animal joke.

I'm telling you, guys, this is not the way to do it.

There were snide comments, couched within self-deprecation. There were jabs, tossed off as jokes. There were accusations and assumptions, and in general, behavior that, if we had ACTUALLY KNOWN EACH OTHER AT ALL might have been remotely acceptable. But what Frank didn't seem to realize was that this was a first date. On a first date, we don't share all our insecurities, our dark sides, our shortcomings, our neuroses.

And we don't drink three bottles of sake all by ourselves.

Here's the problem: I'm too nice. He clearly liked me, and I wanted to return the favor. So I sat there and listened to him and tried to find the good in the situation. I tried to find a way to connect with him that wouldn't leave me out in the cold. I ignored the multiple times he interrupted me, bulldozed me, re-filled my already full sake glass. He put all his problems and needs and unhappinesses on the table, and then expected me to do something with it.

(Would carting it off in the U-Haul chock full of his emotional baggage be a bad move? I was beginning to think not.)

After about two hours of this, I couldn't take it anymore. My willingness to be berated and judged and snipped at (even in the name of "comedy") had worn thin, and I just wanted to go. So I said to him, "I'm feeling really uncomfortable here."

"Don't you think you're being a little dramatic?"

"That's as may be, but I'm not comfortable. So, uh, I think I'm just gonna take off."

And I put my coat on and walked out into the rain.