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My blind date was set up by my rock climbing instructor for a group class. The instructor was good looking, friendly, a Christian, and therefore obviously happily married. I had thought to ask if he had a brother, but couldn't bring myself to be so bold. It may have been taken as a sideways approach to asking if there was any hope we might one day be related. It came as quite a shock then when he came up to me at the end of the classes and (awkwardly) asked if I would ever consider going out with his brother. Sign from God? I think so! It must have been FATE. Right? The setter upper did warn me that "He is not me..." which I laughed off with an "Obviously!". But how could someone related to the outdoorsy, active, outgoing, humorous setter upper be all that bad. Right?
Setter uppers always play on the highlights: he's a dentist, owns his own place, is actively involved in church and plays in the church band (points all round). So I agreed to exchanging e-mails. We wrote a few times and made plans to meet for coffee.
Crisis: What do you wear when you are going to meet a dentist for coffee? Are there higher standards based on occupation? I didn't want to be too overdone, but still somewhat put together to look "nice". I also made sure that I brushed my teeth an extra time or 2...
I went in to our prearranged locale nervous with butterflies. They were quickly crushed under the rock of realization that this man had not had the same "What should I wear" crisis as I had. We did the whole, Hi, are you blah blah blee? and the confirmation of who is who. In the short time it took for introductions, I was like, 'Dang, this guy really didn't put much effort into this situation. I bet he's not even really a dentist. If he is, business mustn't be going very well...'
He wore an old sweatshirt that had his University logo on it (I don't like those), probably from when he was a first year student in the 15 year dentistry program. I think he was wearing sweatpants too? Maybe they were poor fitting jeans, anywho, not that important. He was a little on the husky side and the sweatshirt did nothing to flatter that fact. He just looked frumpy, like he'd rolled off the couch and come to meet some girl.
Ok, ok, get over it. Let's get to know this guy, clothes can be remedied. Super sweet guy, a little awkward but I don't mind making conversation with strangers. It's actually kind of fun to find things in common with people as well as find out what makes them unique. So he's a dentist, I work in healthcare. I try to get people to talk about what interests them because you can find out more about them than they realize. :) So his topic of choice was dentistry. Dental surgery, dental school, the difficulties of running a practice, dental procedures in great depth and detail, too much depth and too much detail. Because I'm polite and have an understanding of medical procedures, I let it continue. So. Boring.
There was a bit of conversation about family and travel. Then back to dental discussions: bridges, grafts, specialized training courses, patient cases where teeth would not stay in no matter what. He noticed my teeth and commented on them (fortunately he found them to his satisfaction, phewf!).
He did own his own place. He also had a renter that kind of sounded like someone who bummed around. I could just picture the 3 of us hanging out in our university sweats, eating greasy food, and watching sports in a dark basement. Awesome. By the end I just didn't want to hear anymore teeth or dentally words. Overall the date wasn't terrible, just overwhelmingly one sided.
We met up again because I figured I'd give the guy another chance to see if anything more interesting came up in conversation. We went to play squash and I got to use the "elite" ladies locker room as his guest. Now if that doesn't tempt a girl to take the dentist and run, I don't know what will. It was pretty impressive: private saunas, a full countertop of beauty products and hair styling supplies, giant mirrors and lights, lounge areas. After the game, he asked if we could go for coffee. However, me being the little student that I was, just planned to play and head home, not have a romantic date situation. I didn't bring extra anythings to change into, or a towel (there may have been some there but that fact only dawned on me now as I type this many years later... I blame naivety). So off we went, him all shiny, clean, and fresh. Me - all none of those things. I was totally embarrassed.
Conversation was more varied this time but still ultra dull and he kept mentioning a dental assistant that went on a medical outreach he went on. I thought, well maybe you should ask her out. She'll have a lot more interest in the procedure stories... I went home that night thinking, "that was so boring!!!" No dice. I ended it via e-mail because that was his most frequently used form of communication.
On a side note, I went to the same university that he had been at (maybe that was the reason for the sweater, proof of his cool hipness). On the way to one of my classes I walked past a set of grad photos. I stopped to look - dentistry program. Found his face. It watched me as I walked past for the rest of the semester.
Waste of Makeup says: "I told you NOT TO DATE THE DENTIST!"
And, on second thought... I probably would have punched the brother in the leg and given him a charley horse as payback.
