The Fish Face Guy
by Amber Hathaway
For better or worse, I’m quite familiar with online dating, especially the flaws in that system. Having always preferred men to be a few years older than me, I never dated within my high school or even within my college. I have met nearly all of my dates online. Maybe it’s because I rate mediocre on the attractiveness scale but tend to wow people with my wit, or because I place such a high value on intelligence and cleverness, but I’ve always just found myself able to tell if someone is worth my time by chatting online over the course of a few days or weeks or even months.
That is, I’m almost always able to tell. One evening last year I discovered the importance of the in-person meeting. A young man in my area, let’s call him James, had messaged me on a popular dating site and we had been chatting almost everyday for over a week. Not wanting to waste time, we decided to make plans for dinner that coming weekend to see if we had any chemistry. It turns out that he did, but I certainly did not.
He arrived at my place (then, a dorm) and I knew immediately that I had gotten myself in over my head. Unlike his profile’s listing of five-foot-six, James ranked about an inch shorter than me, somewhere in the vicinity of five-foot-three. His hair was cut awkwardly, almost as if he couldn’t decide between a buzz cut and the ever-popular “bed head” look. His teeth could barely fit in his mouth, a phenomenon I wasn’t sure existed until I met James. I had seen a picture of him online, and it wasn’t fake or anything, it just grossly overstated his facial proportions and arrangement. Now, my standards for fitness and attractiveness for a partner are pretty middle-of-the-road, especially if I feel like there is already a mental connection brewing. But he just knocked his big forehead on the bar in every category. Even the way he held himself was somehow unattractive. But it was too late to bail, we were halfway out the door and headed to the local Uno’s.
We spent nearly 3 hours there, with James trying to find the right time to take my hand in his across the table and with me frantically trying to figure out how to get out of this. Being young and a serial monogamist, I had never wanted to leave a date that badly and had no plan of action for this contingency. I tried to be boring, he didn’t care. I tried to be snide, he found it funny. I tried to be sleepy, he took no notice. It seemed no level of undesirability I attained would be good enough to scare him away. Now, I consider myself to be pretty far into the “nerd” category, but at the third mention of his comic book collection (I didn’t realize people still had entire collections) I knew I had to get out. Finally around 9:30 I was able to initiate the jacket-putting-on at the restaurant and, like a true gentleman, he offered to walk me home. Damn.
I kept my hands in my pockets and my pace just a tad quicker than his. We got to my stoop and had awkward chatter for a minute or two before he put his hands on my waist and pulled me to him for a kiss. In a situation with mutual attraction, that boldness would be sexy. In this circumstance, it was horrible. Everything went into slow-motion. I saw his mouth pucker up into a fish face, as if that’s an attractive kissing position. I paused, trying to break the moment without doing the full pull-away. The last thing I want, ever, is to hurt anyone’s feelings, but that prevents me from doing so for my own hundred-fold benefit. So I let him kiss me; believe me, it was as one-sided as it sounds. I broke it off within seconds, pulling back quickly and disengaging his hands from my waist. I smiled awkwardly and gave him a curt “well, g’night” and went inside without looking back. To this day, the poor man is “the fish face guy” in my group of friends.
About the author: Amber is currently teaching English in Boston and happily dating a man who, to her knowledge, has never made a kissy fish face. She plans to write a scathing tell-all memoir as soon as she finds some scathing information to reveal.
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April 22nd, 2007 at 4:05 am
Ummm, praytell. Why on earth would you allow someone you find repulsive to kiss you. You could have, at the very least, said that you do not kiss anyone on a first date. However, more truthfully and far more mature, would be to have said that although he’s a nice guy, you are not interested in taking anything further.
Goodness me, I could never imagine being so silly as to allow someone gross to kiss me!