The answer is yes to all of the above. Date sabotage is one of the long refined arts of the coward and the inertia-laden sitcom character. The key to the technique is in making them pissed off at you but without it being your fault. You have to get them to dislike you as a person so much that they think you'd be a horrible boyfriend, so it becomes their decision to end the date. You then escape guiltless.[47]
For some reason, when sabotaging a date, it is better to come off weird or crazy than rude. Rudeness throws the fault back on you, as if you're doing something assholish, rather than being something they dislike. Being a weird, awkward creep ranks higher than asshole in recollections to friends the day after in date postmortem[48]. So, to do this you need to “accidentally” blurt out something that makes the other person either incredibly uncomfortable or immediately insulted. You’d think this would be easy, but it’s not. You can’t just go for the throat, because then they’ll know it was intentional. If you are too outlandish or too non sequitur about it, they also realize you’re fucking with them. You have to subtly and reasonably horrify them. The name of the game is careful escalation.
For example, I first tried to take advantage of the fact that Deborah was a flight attendant. If the media is to be believed, flight attendants hate being called “stewardesses"; they feel it is demeaning. This was the perfect button to push on. So I nonchalantly questioned her about her work, “accidentally” calling her a stewardess. Then I sat back and waited for the outrage so I could feign ignorance and then apologetically and ineffectively back peddle, dropping worse offenses on the way.
The problem is that she didn’t take the bait. She just went on talking like I hadn’t said anything wrong. I made another statement, saying stewardess again. I said it slowly, pausing right after it so it hung in the air. Stew-ARD-ess, my tone as black and venomous as I could make it without risking the charade.
No reaction. Nothing. No outrage, no anything. Was she stupid or oblivious?
I was frustrated. I decided it might be time to pull out the big guns.
“So are you kinky?” I asked, being cocky. It was kind of a non sequitur and I knew I would lose some points from the judges, but it made some sense within the context of a date and it was, of course, a very polarizing subject. This was sure to turn her off, especially brought up this early and without any rapport developed through the date. I decided to put the cherry on top and pushed one sentence further: “How naughty do you get once we’re in bed?”
She chuckled playfully. “Oh very. I’m sure you’ll have many opportunities to shackle me and whip me. I’m a total painslut.”
Umm…
“Well,” I said, switching gears, “back to airlines, the real reason that airline tickets are expensive but the workers are underfunded is because of the Jews.” I ended that sentence quickly taking a drink to hide any expression I had.
I bet you are now suddenly angry. I don't blame you. But before you throw down this book in disgust, before you begin throwing outrage like a monkey flinging poo, stop and wait for the explanation. Know that this is a tactic. I do not really believe this. I don't believe in a conspiracy, and I am the first to roll my eyes when someone attributes the evils of the world to Zionists. In actuality, this tactic is exploiting how pro-Semitic (i.e. sane) people generally are. Few like an anti-Semite and even if they don't have strong views on the subject, it's generally a reason to look down on someone for being intolerant. And for a first date, it is the touch of death.
Except here. “Oh, completely!” she said. “It’s so refreshing to meet someone who will finally admit that openly. My father always hated them and their conspiracy. He taught me all about them, as well as staying true and staying proud.”
“’Staying true and staying proud?’” I asked.
“To my race,” she said. “No mixing. That’s why I like that you have such fair skin. We are part of the superior race.”
It was a moment before this truly sank in.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! A giant robot hanging from the top of a skyscraper was warning me just how crazy she was. I have learned to trust the phantom robot to tell me when a prospective date had just crossed into crazy town. I have no idea where that robot came from or why he appears in my mind, but distrust the robot at your own peril.
In the throes of a fight-or-flight panic, I somehow stammered out that I needed to go to the bathroom as I stood up and knocked my chair over. I didn’t look back as I went straight to the restroom, nearly body-checking a waiter on the way there. Inside the bathroom, I clutched the sink, panting, as I stared in the mirror frantically. I splashed water in my face and calmed myself down.
Where’s that girl that was obsessed with the Oscar Meyer song? She wasn’t so bad a dinner companion. The meth whore? The man hater? All preferable to Little Miss Crazy White Supremacist out at the table.
I’m usually pretty open minded about people’s individual quirks and trips. Whatever they want to do is cool. It may not be something I agree with, and that’s okay. That's their thing. But this is where I draw the line. Discrimination and intolerance just bug the shit out of me. Always have, always will. I’m intolerant of intolerance. I’m sure there’s some irony, hypocrisy, or contradiction, but there it is. When will people reach a state of enlightenment where they realize it’s so much better to dislike people for individual reasons, rather than their arbitrary grouping, a cultural background, or the color of their skin?
Besides that, even if I might be okay or neutral about her racism, I still thought she was crazy. There were too many markers of extreme psychoness in the evening. On the crazyometer, she was rating batshit-and-a-half.
So I knew I had to get out of the restaurant somehow. I went over my options, delineating all the strengths and weaknesses of any plans:
Plan A: Sneak out of the bathroom and then restaurant without her seeing. I would need to do my best stealth impression. What would Ezio do? He’d probably just sneak up behind her, do a stealth kill, and walk out without having to worry about being seen. Flaws: Deborah was sitting with the wall at her back, lack of assassin training, prison time.
Plan B: Just leave the bathroom and walk directly out of the restaurant. Don’t sneak, don’t run. Just walk, and never turn and look at her. Ignore her shouts, her inevitable harpy-like screeching, and her questions of how she was getting home. Flaws: The size of the cojones required for this plan would make walking prohibitive.
Plan C: Go back out there, sit down and finish out the evening. Gritted teeth, neutral small talk. End the date with a weak handshake and awkward silence, don't respond to her calls, tweets, or Facebook requests. Under duress resort to the mantra of "it's not you, it's me". But what if she kept wanting keep up the racist banter all evening? I’ve faked my way through a lot of things, but I had no desire to fake my way through NeoNaziLoveMatch.com. Flaws: I lack the patience to pull this off. Despite effort to become so in college, I have never been the better man.
Plan D: Go back, explain respectfully that we are not a match, pay the check, then take her home early. Have the most awkward ride ever. Flaws: Who are we kidding? That’s not who I am.
Instead, I hatched a cunning plan. Except substitute cunning with “cowardly”, since that’s really what it was.
I pulled out my phone and called Becky. I prayed she wasn’t on a date, at a movie, doing her hair, whatever. I prayed she was available and willing to do me a big favor. She was the only person crazy enough for what I had in mind. Sometimes you need to fight crazy with crazy.
Continued in Damned Lies available now!
* * *
[1] I know this from experience. When I puked, I didn't smell any worse. I actually smelled slightly better.
[2] Pro tip: hit the clinic and tell them the wound was caused by rotten wood.
[3] Hide your wife, hide your kids, and give us a call.
[4] Something you never want to meet.
[5] Well, the individual items might be cheap, but we nee
d so much of them. Weapons, unstained clothes, gas masks, plastic bags, cleaning supplies, etc. Our gear has a bunch of overlaps with serial killers and I wonder how they can afford to be such horrible human beings on a regular basis.
[6] And question why you paid money for that fake ID in the first place.
[7] I'm not sure if we should really call it a business. We're barely getting paid. It's really just me and my brother trying to get money for hitting abnormal creatures with deadly objects. Is that a business or is that a cleverly disguised psychosis?
[8] Also Mikkel has a thing for Asian girls.
[9] Dirt, yes. Mud, no.
[10] Or are they??
[11] Note to self, find out boyfriend's name so we can stop calling him "her boyfriend."
[12] Still don't know his name.
[13] Mikkel suggested once "Quiet the Dead", but that sounded like a heavy metal album.
[14] Exception: for some reason if you die from zombie bites, especially multiple zombie bites, a short period after your first bite, then you turn. But that's rare these days, as swarms of zombies are not common.
[15] In the past there have been issues with other things that keep us up, but those days are done and I don't want to talk about them.
[16] Read: kind of crazy
[17] I bet you thought I was going to say something like "shit" or "piss". No, we're classy.
[18] You buy that, right?
[19] Typically chipped human femurs that they have cleaned with their own teeth. Nasty cavemen sort of stuff. Cannibal cavemen stuff.
[20] Please don't murder me. It's not worth whatever they're paying you.
[21] Don't take this as a sign Mikkel knows what he's doing. Most of what he knows of first aid comes from medical dramas and instructional internet videos.
[22] Only $20 on Amazon.
[23] The fact that it was like the apartment I spent my teens in had always been a little comforting.
[24] As far as we know, ghouls have no culinary traditions besides "eat until full". Of course, this ghoul could be the anomalous chef the entire ghoul community has been waiting for.
[25] After a five block walk to where he had actually found a parking spot.
[26] Carly was the obvious exception.
[27] Mikkel found a picture of it somewhere online, maybe a fantasy novel or LARPers. He went out of his way until he found someone who built a makeshift but still entirely useable one for him. I'm usually more the blunt weapons fan, but damn does he love that hammer. He calls it the Foehammer, though he admits that should be the name of a sword. I have no clue what he is talking about.
[28] To this day, Mikkel refuses to refer to him as anything other than Suitguy. No matter how many times I tell Mikkel his real name, Mikkel always calls him Suitguy.
[29] Yes, he made that joke. Managers of the world, do not make that joke. It is acceptable as a dad joke only.
[30] Often being stoned.
[31] [31] So far we haven't yet encountered werewolves. It was just an analogy.
[32] Trust me, we've done this before. I know my brother's mask-muffled words very well.
[33] He probably actually said tear gas, but fear gas sounded more interesting.
[34] Was it Jillians? A previous girlfriend of unknown name's? Carly's? Who knows?
[35] Thankfully he was wearing boxers under the robe. I mean, we're close, but we're not that close.
[36] I wanted to put a picture of a Chihuahua here for scale, but my publisher said that's needlessly expensive. They're why we can't have nice things.
[37] Mikkel hadn't yet convinced Meat to name his SUV, but he had tried. The "Meat Wagon" and "The Midnight Meat Train" were Mikkel's favorite suggestions.
[38] And by that, I mean in a jerky, passive-aggressive way.
[39] Though I acknowledge that sometimes that is probably the best time.
[40] But to be fair, they would know I was definitely not a Spider, so that should make them pause, right?
[41] Fun fact: there was no lighthouse anywhere near the diner.
[42] Yes, I'm not allowed to tell you even the street Paulie lives on. He's afraid They'll then know. As if They would read this.
[43] Mikkel kept trying to make me shorten this to just "Monster Squad". A movie or something, I think.
[44] No pun intended.
[45] Or unfortunately, if you were hoping for some mask yanking shenanigans.
[46] I may have also given him my best Gene Simmons tongue out expression.
[47] It's not really guiltless. We're talking social guilt. To an external watcher or a live studio audience, you are still "in the right". Not guiltless in the way that there's still a dark, cold spot deep within you for the things you do, waiting to catch up to you and making you drink alone late at night.
[48] Nobody knows why. The universe has many mysteries.
Table of Contents
I Never Told You What I Do For A Living
Problems
The Kids Aren't Alright
The Job That Ate My Brain
Bop 'Til You Drop
Bulletproof Heart
Mother
Some Kind of Hate
Ivan Meets GI Joe
The Morning After
Working in the Coal Mine
Chemical Warfare
This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race
The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You
Well Paid Scientist
Run to the Hills
Let's Have a War
Rock the Casbah
Invaders
Stuff is Messed Up
Not of This World
Defy You
Famous Last Words
About the Author
Excerpt from Damned Lies
I Kill Monsters Page 30