It is my humble opinion that grownup dating is the most horrible thing in the entire world—worse, even, than teenage dating, which I think we can all agree was stressful and awkward enough. I am basing this humble opinion on exactly one (1) date, but that will have to do, as I certainly do not intend to go on another for a very long time.

It doesn’t help, I suppose, that I was already twirl-my-hair-around-my-finger in love with someone else. It also does not help that I was on the date less to have a good time and more to prove to myself that the true object of my affection had no power over me whatsoever. I know what you’re thinking: People only pull these petulant stunts of denial in bad movies, right? Only in Hollywood are fully grown human beings immature enough to go out of their way to sabotage a budding romance in order to prove a point to absolutely no one, RIGHT?

Ahem.

Well, anyway, I assure you that I have given myself a stern talking-to on the matter and confessed to all the appropriate parties, so I won’t be needing any guff from you regarding my role in a certain doomed evening during which I allowed some hapless boy to buy me pie and feed my pride. Moving along.

When I decided to go on this date, I already had some objections to the entire dating process that I wished to air to my suitor before the proceedings got under way. First of all, I told him, there would be no dinner. I had no interest in having to endlessly twirl spaghetti around on my plate, frantically searching for the bite that wouldn’t hang halfway out of my mouth or get tomato sauce all over my face. Besides, what if I wound up hating my date? Dinner would then be much too long to endure, and I can’t climb out of the bathroom window very easily without snagging my only nice pair of tights. (The rest have been chewed up by roller derby, not that this stops me from wearing them, which explains why I am nervously tugging on the hem of my dress so that you don’t see the place where the velcro on my wristguard put a snag in the thigh or the pilly part where I skidded across the floor on my ass.)

Note my assumption that if a date were going terribly, I would have the sense in my head to end it. This notion was, as it turned out, a bit optimistic on my part.

I also declared quite stridently beforehand that there would be no wearing of dating clothes. I don’t even really OWN dating clothes. After that date, I did feel prompted to buy a flattering little black dress that I can wear when flying first class and when going to nice dinners. It’s Calvin Klein, it was marked down from $100 to only $35. That’s all well and good, until you consider that I bought it not because it was particularly amazing, but because it struck me as the sort of garment that might feasibly enable one to avoid having to shop for another dress ever again.

(Honestly, I thank my lucky stars every day that I have such gracious, kind friends, by which I mean it’s a goddamned miracle that, to my knowledge, none of them have ever volunteered me for one of those fashion programs where the subject being “helped” is plopped in front of a three-way mirror and then humiliated nearly to tears by the scathingly condescending observations of a gay man, a former prom queen, or some inscrutable hybrid of the two. My idea of a fancy outfit is one involving pants—not any particular kind of pants, mind you, just their mere presence. When I say, “One sec—let me put my shoes on,” it is only a slight exaggeration to argue that “my shoes” could be interpreted literally, as in, I am referring to ALL OF MY SHOES—both of them.)

(I … ah … at least they match?)

The boy in question agreed to my terms, so we wound up planning an ubercasual coffee date, complete with a dress code of hoodies and sneakers. Which would have been nice, if he had stuck to the plan. I’m thinking that I should have known this date was headed in a bad direction when this same guy picked me up wearing a blazer and holding a giant bouquet of flowers.

Fortunately, I’m fast on my feet, so I think I concealed my confusion (I THOUGHT WE HAD A DEAL, BUDDY) by saying something charming like, “Oh, the cat is totally going to eat those!” Then I bounded back up the stairs to hide them on top of the highest shelf in my house, an effort that fortunately was no big deal, as I had had the foresight to dress rather … athletically, especially in comparison to my new companion.

And then … as we walked to his car … he … he …

… he grabbed my hand.

I was, in a word, scandalized.

Am I just the prim schoolmarm type? Aside from a chance encounter in public that had turned into a very long conversation and an exchange of phone numbers, along with a subsequent text conversation or two, I had never interacted with this man in my life, and here he was, shamelessly trying to mesh our sweaty, throbbing finger-webbings together!

In fact, holding hands would quickly become a sticking point throughout the course of our entire five-hour relationship, and at one point I found myself seated across from him at the coffee shop, arms crossed in front of me, staring down at his hand extended across the table as he opened and closed it repeatedly in an attempt to get me to take it. This was exactly as awkward as it sounds, I assure you. I still think about that hand, sometimes, opening and closing rhythmically like the mouth of a hungry eel while my own hands hid in my armpits’ petticoats like frightened children. Much later in the evening, he would actually reach into my pocket in order to take the hand I wasn’t offering—and then complain when his fingers brushed a (clean) tissue, because ewww, a tissue!

I think you will agree that a man so averse to surprises probably shouldn’t make a habit of jamming his hands into other people’s pockets without invitation. I am just saying.

Other highlights of the evening:

1. When we pulled up outside my house, he asked to see my place, and I declined. I had, in fact, left it quite messy, because if you are me and you want to make absolutely sure you are not going to do anything potentially regrettable with someone on a date, that is what you do. I’m pretty sure a boy could dose me with enough roofies to drop a T-Rex and I still would refuse to bring him home to dirty dishes in the sink. When I revealed this to him, he actually started arguing with me, insisting that he didn’t mind the mess and “just wanted to hang out.” As he repeatedly dismissed my increasingly irritated protests, I was so overtaken by disbelief and indignance that I could scarcely counter with anything coherent. When I think of it now, I am filled with pure old-fashioned feminine outrage, the kind that prompts you to beat someone with your purse, because you know what? No means no, asshole.

At the time, though, I just awkwardly held my ground until he groaned, put the car in reverse, and took me to a bar instead.

I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t you just get out of the car? JUST GET OUT OF THE CAR. I tell the horror-movie heroine version of myself the same thing. She lives in my memories, and she does the same stupid things over and over again while I hit rewind and beg her not to run up those stairs. Why does she always run up the stairs?

The only explanation that I can offer is that it was only nine thirty, he struck me as the sort of person who wasn’t going to give up on me at that hour unless I was very, very insulting, and I am terminally polite. I’m sorry. Believe me. I could write a book on all of the mishaps that have occurred to me as a result of being mannerly, and I’m sure the more polite among you are totally nodding your heads right now. (Not that you would rant about it in the comments, because that would be unseemly.)

2. As he clinked beers with me at the bar he took me to after I denied his advances, he said, “To many more dates,” which probably would have sounded utterly desperate to my jaded ears even if I hadn’t already spent hours hiding my hands from him as if he were a teething puppy.

3. Moments later, he casually proposed that we “take a trip somewhere” for New Year’s Eve while we sipped our drinks, as if we were a married couple at the breakfast table instead of two strangers on their first spectacularly awkward date. In the latest of a string of humble moments, I think I mumbled something about already having plans to go to Mexico, which was not even remotely true.

The most embarrassing thing about this date, as you have surely already surmised, is that it kept going. I am horrified at myself for gritting my teeth and enduring it, rather than getting up to “get another latte,” sneaking out the back door of the coffee shop, and joining the witness-protection program, like any self-respecting person. But the sad truth is that a date could probably reach across the table and start stroking my hair while cooing at me like a dove, and I’m sure I would either pretend not to notice or smile uncertainly and say something like, “Oh … d-do you like it? My stylist says it’s very thick!”

If you think that’s bad, you should see me with a houseguest. I cannot think of anything a houseguest could do that would cause me to ask them to leave. They could take my peanut butter out of the cabinet and smear it all over themselves while singing “I’m a Little Teapot” and I would just stand there and observe the whole spectacle miserably while musing aloud that I am new to performance art—and then, despite myself, adding encouraging comments like, “Well, you are very original! I don’t have to be a connoisseur to see that!”

So, to be fair, what I am telling you is that I did not do a good job of indicating that I did not like him and wanted to be done now … and that’s putting it kindly. Were he to read this, something I fervently hope never happens (and believe me, I feel guilty enough just for hitting Publish), he would claim that I gave him almost no feedback whatsoever, and he would be right.

Yes, my eyes were wide. Yes, my hands were crammed in my pockets. Yes, I did stare at him in shocked silence for a beat or two after he suggested we travel together. But if my unfortunate social experiences have taught me anything, it’s that not everyone picks up on the sort of subtle cues that I would see from a mile away. Not everyone understands that sometimes (and almost always, in the dating realm), faint praise is an incredibly damning thing.

So, yes. I take responsibility.

That said, I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.

At one point during this date that went on and on while time somehow stopped and I inched through eternity and I got old and my teeth fell out and I died of old age and my corpse still continued to be dragged around town by this person like a favorite tattered blanket, he proposed that we go for a walk in the park.

I have no idea why I agreed (LOOK! A THEME!), because it was far too cold outside for such things, which meant that my nose started running immediately, and two minutes later, I was actively shivering. While trying to hide my shivering, because this might be taken as an opportunity for exactly the kind of physical contact I was now actively fantasizing about making it home without.

So we walked, in the deserted park, in the dark, at which point I realized that my decison-making had graduated from stupid to utterly reckless. I suffer from an active imagination, and if you suffer from the same ailment, you already know how easy it is, in these situations, to not only imagine someone burying your body, but to actually see in front of you the coveralls he is wearing to complete this messy job and hypothesize about the way the moonlight will cast a ghostlike reflection on his various garden implements.

Truthfully, he struck me as harmless—eager to the point of repulsion, but harmless. All the same, I found myself dividing my attention between shivering like a leaf in the wind, wiping my nose on my sleeve like the lady I am, and bracing myself for any sudden lunges on his part. I’m not sure what men expect from us in these situations, but I have to tell you, if you want our inner dialogue to consist of anything besides IF ALL ELSE FAILS GO FOR THE EYES, you may want to stick to public, well-lit places at first.

In a moment of levity, he wound up playfully picking me up and slinging me over one shoulder, which was actually kind of amusing … until a second later, when, and I swear I am not exaggerating this in any capacity, he threw me down onto the ground, said “Oops! You fell!” … and then plopped directly on top of me.

He was trying to be lighthearted and romantic, but you have never seen anyone scramble to her feet so fast, I assure you. For those of you still perfecting your game, I have a free hint: if your approach is nearly indistinguishable from the beginnings of a good old-fashioned campus raping on the quad lawn, you’re probably doing it wrong.

And Internet, that is why, by the time I climbed out of his car and clambered up my steps and latched my door behind me with a relief so palpable that I could almost hear the splash as I escaped the fishing net, flopped around on the deck, and finally found my way back overboard, I had developed this particular certainty, the certainty that you are witnessing right now at this very moment, that I am never dating again.

You can sit down and argue with me if you want to, but please, let’s just do it over coffee while wearing really sensible shoes.

And this time? If you show up with flowers, the jig is up.