Mr. Nice Guy

After sifting through thousands of duds, I finally met another guy, also from Match. Luckily, it was not a Columbo repeat performance.

He was 42 and a financial analyst. Got his MBA from NYU. No kids, no pets, never married. Lives on the UWS during the week and spends his weekends in NJ at a house he’s renovating. Physically, he was cute. Twelve year old boy kind of cute (I mean that in the most non-gross way possible). And at 5’9” he was MUCH shorter than I like, but really, what else is new? He probably wasn't thrilled with an amazon like me either.

He first emailed me about 3 months ago. Not a wink, an actual email. With words. I wrote him back because it was apparent he read my profile (mainly because he quoted it back to me), and his profile was thoughtful and sweet. But as the weeks ticked by, he never once asked for my number. Instead, he told me all kinds of stories. He was a regular Charles Dickens. This went on for SO long, I really just thought he wanted to be pen pals.

When Short Stuff finally summoned the courage to ask me on a D-A-T-E, he chose a Starbucks. In Grand Central. Ok, I guess. Though don’t guys ask girls out to dinner anymore? (Too big a commitment, I’m sure).

Anyway, during totally legitimate dinner-eating hours, we spent our time breezily chatting over coffee. Actually, it was hot cocoa for me, I hate coffee (oh RELAX, it’s not like I said I hate puppies).

In our time together, he did a fair amount of annoying name dropping (drives a Mercedes and an Audi, whipped out his platinum Amex for a $7 check, has a Sub-Zero fridge, blabety, blah, blah). I’m guessing that was just the nerves talking to show me that he’s taller when he stands on his money. Eh. About halfway through our coffee/cocoa liquid meal, he ordered up a rice krispie treat, which my stomach and I just assumed he planned to share. Nope. He picked up the whole marshmallow-y hunk and ate it like an apple.

Overall, though, I have to say this guy was actually pretty normal. He listened to me ramble on about nothing, asked questions that would seem to indicate he was interested in future ramblings, told totally regular stories about his family and growing up on Staten Island, had solid recall of our many, many, MANY email exchanges, and basically seemed like an all-around nice guy.

And you know what I realized?

I like jerks. It’s really as simple as that.

I think I've always known it. But UGH, I wish it wasn’t true! Blame it on some mutant relationship gene, I don’t know. But nice guys -- at least THIS nice guy -- was… boring. I wanted to like him. All 5’9” of him. Really, I did! But no. I guess it comes down to this: I need someone to keep me on my toes. And he was kind of like an open book. One that I’ve read before. And then returned to the library.

About a week later, we emailed. I was the first to put it out there -- we’re a bit lacking in the chemistry department. Still, he said he wants to be friends. And I think he actually means it.

Sigh.