When I first started using Tinder for actual dating instead of just fooling around on the app, one of the first people I matched with was a coworker.  It really freaked me out.  I didn’t message him for a couple months and we didn’t make any eye contact at the office.  When I did finally message him it was something like, “Hey, we might as well have a drink and get at least comfortable so we don’t have to keep avoiding each other at the office!  Would you like to go out for a cocktail?”

He replied that he didn’t work for my company anymore, so that wouldn’t be an issue, but he’d love to get a drink.  In the meantime, I friend-requested him on Facebook.  At the time I figured it was a good way for someone to see my weird humor and personality before actually meeting, and it was less work with sharing photos.  He didn’t accept the friend request, but I didn’t mind.  If he felt like he needed to meet me before showing me his personal life, that was totally understandable.

We met at a fancy bar and restaurant and had a happy hour cocktail.  That’s really all it took for me to figure out this shit was NOT going to work out.  We even had an eavesdropper who would periodically raise her eyebrows at what this guy was saying.

Turns out he left driving taxi for my company to go to Uber, because he thought he was making more money.  True, he was making more immediate cash, but he wasn’t taking into consideration all the insurance, gas, car maintenance, and health benefits.  Not to mention he was unabashedly directly competing for my income and not caring.  Totally not fucking this guy.

To my credit, I gracefully moved away from this subject because I wanted to finish my drink without punching someone in the god damn face.  We talked a little about books and movies.  It’s been a while since the date, but from what I remember, he was laser focused on Lord of the Rings and hadn’t branched out into many other books of that GIGANTIC genre.

I changed subjects again, but this was where he started volunteering information about how taxi driving was just temporary for him in the first place.  He was an entrepreneur, but he had been involved with his family’s business for a long time.  When he pitched an idea to them for a branch of their business they froze him out and fired him.  Something about the family being super religious and the idea focused on alcohol, so it didn’t work.

“I turned them in for tax evasion in retribution!” He said with glee all over his face, “Very recently they had an internal revenue agent scouring the office!”  Both me and the eavesdropper had to pick up our jaws from the bar like cartoon characters.  Who on Earth brags about turning his entire family in to the IRS on their first date?  A sociopath.

Now, my recurring thought for this entire conversation was, “this guy is NOT a giver.  I would never have an orgasm.”  Not to mention he’d probably be a whole lot of drama.

I was so proud of myself for finishing my drink, paying for my drink separately, and leaving gracefully.  I pulled over a few blocks from the bar and noticed he’d just then as I left the bar accepted my Facebook friend request.  I immediately unfriended him, knowing that he was probably still on my page browsing it and would be unable to navigate further, which would alert him with what I’d done.  Maybe I was too graceful, because I couldn’t figure out how he thought I had a good time and still wanted to be friends with him.  I didn’t agree with anything he was telling me and my “good-bye” was very simple, lacking of “I had a good time,” or “let’s do this again.”

I don’t add online dating people to my social media before meeting them in person anymore.