Another one bites the dust...

When it comes to guys, I try not to be too picky. I know, it's probably a shock to those of you who really know me because I'll admit that I've broken up or completely with guys for some really interesting reasons.

Now, in my own defense, the guy who was cut for wearing clip-on ties had some other things wrong with him. The clip-on ties were ultimately what his roommates (who were convinced we were perfect together) chose to focus on when they called the apartment to call me out on breaking up with their boy. The fact that the same boy would show up at all hours of the day and night and try to take me out of parties that my roommates and I were throwing meant nothing to them...they were convinced that I was so shallow that I would break up with a twenty-year-old guy for wearing clip-on ties.

Which, of course, I was.

The latest guy was dropped for reasons a little more substantial, at least as far as I'm concerned. Two weeks ago, I started talking to this guy on Match. Let's call him Walt. Walt seemed fresh and funny, and mighty cute on paper. His emails were interesting, and he kept me entertained with text messages while my date for Lisa & Dave's wedding stood me up for three hours (totally other story, and when he finally showed, all worked out). Needless to say, I was intrigued. We made plans to meet up on Monday, and I was supposed to call on Sunday to figure out where and when.

I should have called the whole thing off on Sunday. It would have been much easier since I could tell from the phone call that it wouldn't have worked between us. What, just being picky, you say? The man wanted to meet for happy hour at 3 PM...on a Monday...and not like a holiday Monday, just a plain old every day Monday. Why 3 PM? He claimed he was always "thirsty" at 3 PM! Most people joke about this, he wasn't.

I started to realize that sobriety wasn't one of his primary life skills, but there was no graceful way to get out of the date. So, I went with the knowledge that he would totally surprise me or give me a good story to tell.

Three guesses as to which one this is...

I arrived just a tad early because I wanted to scope out a few stores in Fells' Point. Since they were closed (ha!), I moseyed on over to Max's. I was fully expecting to have a few minutes to myself to check the hair, chat up the bartenders, and make sure that I didn't have lipstick on my teeth. Sadly, that was not to be. As I walked in the door, he was already bellied up to the bar.

Wait a second, I thought, this isn't fair. I should be the one at the bar. I should be checking my hair, chatting up the bartender, and...oh crap, do I have lipstick on my teeth?

I couldn't worry about that because he saw me and waved. The conversation was congenial enough. He told me the same drunken stories from the night before, and I listened...again.

Really, the date wasn't entirely bad. To his credit, after he stopped being a nervous giggler and started telling some original stories, he was starting to turn me.

That was until we got on the subject of high school. Really, I don't know how it happened, but somehow the subject of SATs came up. You know, the SATs that really didn't matter 10 minutes after graduation, so they shouldn't really have mattered 10 years after? He was bragging about his scores. BRAGGING. I was starting to feel self conscious about my own, so I offered the excuse that I took them when I had the chicken pox. Yes, that's true, I took the SATs on Saturday and was sent home from school on Monday with the spots from hell. I finally got curious, so I asked him how high he scored.

And this is where the evening entered what I like to call the "Annie Get Your Gun" phase...Anything You can do I can do Better. For starters, I outscored the boy (with the chicken pox) by over 300 points! Then, he started looking for other ways to demonstrate how smart he was. I kept shutting him down. It wasn't pretty.

I don't think I was being picky at the time, and I even agreed to go out with him again. It was just with every new email and follow-up phone call, he wasn't making his case. Therefore, when I fell off the elliptical machine at the gym and ended up in x-ray on Friday afternoon, it was completely an accident. A very happy accident, but an accident nonetheless.

Ironically, he told me it wasn't a very smart move on my part....