Jawwwwwg

                       

Women are somewhat notorious for changing their minds. We all know this. But women who date will most definitely agree and stick to a few key things. Always have some type of mouth freshener on you, shave until you resemble tofu, and never date a guy whose name you can't passionately scream out in bed.

As if the plethora of guys who drown in a sea of cheap cologne and 10 dollar chinatown sidewalk sale sweaters weren't enough of a dating limitation, we now also have to contend with the annunciation of their names.

The list is endless, but let’s start by naming a few that don’t work in the bedroom, now, until the end of time.

There can’t be any Freds, Kenneths, Donalds, Abrahams, Ahmeds, Barts, Olivers, Edwards, Mervins, Jillians, Jamies, Willies, Mortons, Adolfs, Linuses, Nathaniels, Thurstons, Waldos, or Wolfgangs.

Nor anyone that has your fathers name. Or anything even remotely close to it. For example, my fathers name is Jerry. So anything even starting with the letter 'J' is even a little too eerily close for me. So just to be on the safe side, I say eliminate the letter to the left of 'J' and the letter to the right of 'J'.

So no dating 'I', 'J' or 'K' names for me either.

We're down to choosing a man from the mere 23 letters left in the alphabet and here we are, already limited beyond reason to whom we'd even consider dating. And we haven't even said fucking hi yet.

There are a few names that happen to be in the safety zone. John, David, Chris, Michael, Joe, Brian, Eric, Tom, Paul, Scott, Jim, Greg, to name a few... and i used to believe 'George'.

And if you're reading this and happen to share any of the aforementioned acceptable names, know this is sheerly a coincidence and not some twisted methodology of getting my friends to disrobe and dangle from a trapeze with me.

Back to George.

This all changed for me once I dated my first George.
At first I thought, well, theres George Clooney, George Washington, and King George the Third. Not bad. But then I thought a little harder, and realized there's also Curious George, George Bush, and Boy George. Which instilled a fear, followed by more fear. And then a rectal spasm.

The possibility of dating George came into play via an internet dating service. George emailed me every day. George got no response from me every day. Because George misspelled everything, every day. An absolute Dawn dating deal breaker. But George was unrelenting. So much so, that even seeing George's name became as irritating to me as shaving my armpits with sulfuric acid and a 40 Grade sandpaper.

Online dating sites are for hopeless losers right? They're made for the bottom dwellers of society. It's where the leftovers and people that were hit in the face with a bag of nickels converge. I know this.

And there I was, 2 years ago, loserly filling out every question of my profile like my children's next breath of air depended upon it.

However, I did but remain stoic in my position to never actually DATE anyone from there, but to rather just window shop until someone interesting should possibly emerge.

Little did I know that I was window shopping at a store that was blown up for insurance money and had nothing to offer the greater female populace but the sad, war torn tattered remains, of the male citizenry, just for the asking.

I wasn’t even sure why I signed up for this online dating act of desperation in the first place. It's so not my style. I'm sure that was my mothers brainwashing / dating contribution. The same one who every time watches Derek Jeter on TV says, “ Now THAT'S the kind of guy you need to meet.”

Really, mom? Derek Jeter? Tall, sexy, boyish millionaire? How refreshing and unpredictable. 

So out of the hundreds of ugly, emotionally bruised, player, prosthetic limbed, pot bellied, tragic, jobless, disheveled, hillbillied, arrogant, tacky, mutant, grandpas who I politely turned down by telling them I had liver failure and only 6 months left to live, George, like a plantars wart, just kept coming back. And I thought 2 things. He's either so dumb that he can’t take more than a hint, or his penis requires night vision goggles and sifting devices to find. Neither of which appealed to me.

But George was a fireman. George had 2 kids. George was relatively cute. And George lived only an hour and a half away from me. And George was persistent. So once the name ‘George’ passed the bedroom inspection test, by saying it, from every possible sexual angle known to mankind, I decided maybe Georges earnest attempts to meet me weren't something I should so quickly dismiss. His name sounded a little more annoying when I yelled it swinging from the trapeze, but I blamed that particular deviation on the Doplar Effect, and let it slide.

The day after the experiment, I get online and see yet another email from George, but this time I decided to respond to the bold request of exchanging phone numbers, and possibly go on this much offered date.

It is just a date right? How bad can it be with a relatively cute fireman. There were however, these two pictures, ( not good considering he only had 2 pictures ) where I noticed his eyes looked unusually strange, like his thyroid was ready to explode. But I second guessed it and assumed that maybe someone was just stabbing him in the back right as the picture was being taken.

So fine. I give him my cell number, and say we should talk sometime. Not even ten minutes later, my phone rings. I see an unfamiliar number and immediately know its from George. I'm a little nervous but figured we could always talk about the proper treatment for sunburns, the ' Dalmations Are Deaf ' myth, or if all else failed, i could just have an uplifting conversation about people jumping to their deaths on 9/11.

I answer the phone.

Me: 'Hello?'

George: " Hi Dawwwwwwwwwn, it's Jawwwwwwwwwwwwwg."

me: "Oh. Fuck. uhhh uhhh..I mean, Oh. Hi!"

A horrible accent resulting in an R-less George.

Now this was something I had never foreseen in my extensive Bad Name research. Not only was his accent so strong that he was destroying his and poor George Clooney's name, but now he's destroying my name as well.

Dawn. The sunrise. Pastel colors. Dewey leaves. Long shadows. I didnt think it was ever possible to ruin Dawn. But he did. I personally wouldve been happier with "Hey Gertrude" at that point.

So now, theres a new addendum to my original rules: You can't have two 'awww' sounding partner names. No Shawn and Dawn, Nor Harrys and Marys. No Jimmys and Kimmys.

No Garanimals name matching.

I also couldn't help notice, but according to my calculations, 'Ewwwwww' had the same amount of 'W's as he made 'Jawwwwwg' sound like it did. A gruesome discovery that I'm convinced was more than likely, a sign from God.

This was not looking nor sounding good. Plus it had the overt 'J' sound of my fathers name. Making this introduction more repulsive by the minute.

What am I going to do now?! Can I call him Derek Jeter instead? At this point, I'm thinking Chinwendoo is looking better than I had thought. If he really liked me, he'd change his name to Chinwendoo. Hey when i got married, i changed my last name. So what is so bad about changing his first name. Show a little commitment and willingness to sacrifice for Christ's sake. We're in the 'woooing' period. Now's your time to shine, and slay dragons for each other.

For a moment, I thought of pretending he dialed the wrong number by responding "Pardon me? This is Connecticut you've called. I think you meant to call Bensonhurst."

But instead, I opt for pulling out the Bible and decide to practice that "Do Unto Others Bullshit, and simply say "Hi!" in return.

He continues: " Hi Dawwwwwwwn, it's Jawwwwwwwg, from 'Internet Dating Nightmares? ...you just gaymee me yaw numba???"

FYI, years of being married into a Jewish family and having the quintessential Jewish in-laws, who basically would've paid front row tickets to see me terminally gag on The Body of Christ Wafer, have taught me how to be perfectly , inauthentically pleasant when all the doors are locked, and I have no way out. So I pull this learned trait out of my bag of social goodies and perk back up to my normal self, and continue conversing.

I don't really recall what we spoke about because all I seemed to focus on hearing was him say individual words like…cawwwwl… tawwwking….beach bawwwwls, and something about the Jersey Shawwwww.

We talk for another 15 minutes until I realize I can't go on and need an excuse to hang up. "I'm sorry George, my phone is breaking up. I can't seem to properly hear any vowels or consonants . Thanks for cawwwling, it was nice hearing your horrendous accent and I'll cawwwl you back when I'm less grossed out, less educated, or more dead."

But it came out more like, "...Thanks so much for calling. It was nice talking to you, but I'm kind of busy from now until Armageddon." 

We hang up and 20 minutes later, and he texts me a picture of his abs.

Who would send someone a picture of just their headless abs?! Plus now I'm growing more concerned by the minute that he has no head, you know, from the insurance job explosion.

In typical woman fashion, I quickly grab the phone and call every female I’ve ever met dating back to the Mesozoic era to shred this guy into little pieces.

My friends unanimously agree that I was possibly being too harsh, and say that accents don't mean anything. ( Nor did his chronic misspellings, bad grammar, bulgy eyes, severed stomach or Fuggetabout's either... I suppose.)

Then I was hit with this sudden pang of guilt. Maybe I was in fact, being too harsh. Maybe he was a genuine nice guy that just never received a Hooked On Phonics book as a Christmas stocking stuffer. Or his parents never introduced him to other humans.

My ‘friends’ advise me that if he calls again, I should at least be willing to meet him for a drink. Maybe they're right I thought. Plus he's a fireman. So if I pass out from boredom or stupidity or decide to set him on fire, he'll know what to do.

I eventually concede and make that pact with my friends. 
The friends that I am no longer on speaking terms with.

Sure enough, 2 days later, I get the call.

I had him in my phone log then as, 'Jawwwg'.

I hadn't seen that many 'w's in digital display since the launch of the first dot com business.

I take a deep breath and answer my phone.

Me: "Hello?"

George: " Hi Dwwawwwwwwwn, it's Jawwwwwwwg ???"

Now I'm hearing additional 'W's, right after the 'D'.

And why does he have to go UP at the end of his name.. like he's asking me a question. I just wanted to say " You called me, asshole, don’t you know your own name???" And then I realized, no. He doesn't know his own name.

We continue to talk, and he asks me out for that coming Saturday night.

I was torn between stabbing my ear with a rusty hypodermic needle or going on this date.

Stabbing my ear won, until I realized he would just keep cawwwling anyway until I lowered my standards to ankle height and succumbed to the torture.
So Saturday night, it was.

Growing up in New York City, I was always aware of my New York accent. But after one phone call with George, it occurred to me to start retracing my roots to see if I was possibly a descendant of Queen Anne.

Saturday night comes, and we're to meet in front of a local bar in CT.

I arrive 10 minutes early purely on the 'the first to come, can be the first to run like hell' concept.

He approached the bar, sees me, and emphatically waves while yelling out an embarrassing ...... " Dwwawwwwwwwn!!!"

I was surprised he had even recognized me considering I violently withdrew my head into my turtleneck once I heard him. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't bad looking, I'd say he was a 7 or 8 on a scale of one to 10.

But I'm referring to the IQ scale.

He grabs the door handle of the bar and says:

" Hea, lemme get the dawwwwwwwww."

As the alcohol took affect, all of George's small talk became white noise. But my brain dead trance was occasionally interrupted with hearing " blah blah blah dawwwgs", “blah blah blah glassa waaawta”, and "blah blah are ya ready ta awwwda."

I look to his eyes for some type of possible physical connection, and all I see looking eagerly back at me were 2 golf ball eyes precariously hanging out of his head. I kept nervously putting my hand over my glass in fear of them falling into my drink. Which I needed desperately at this point. My internal monologue being " I told you dumb Dawn! I TOLD you they were too buggy. Knife stab my ass!"

I let him talk for a while, If that's what we're calling it. Because I, on the other hand, was quite speechless. He said he was so glad that I was so 'smawwwwt' and glad that I wasn't shawwwwt, and that I was gawwwwjus.

He talked about his friend Pawwwwwl, and his 2 dawwwwwtiz, and her pet hawwwwss.

I managed to be as pleasant as I knew how, and drink as much as possible to prevent a personal suicide attempt, by me willingly beating my brains in, in the public restroom with the toilet seat cover.

After a 3 hour, R-less conversation, I lied to him and told him that I needed to wake up early the next morning to run. Because running was on my mind. Running fast, and far. In high heeled shoes.

I thanked him for the nice evening of drinks and hemorrhaging ear canals and walked to my car. However, walking is an understatement.

I actually got a $250 ticket in the parking lot for running too fast.  Who gets a ticket for running too fast? I never knew that could happen. I mean I knew you weren't ever allowed to run fast through the hallways in 5th grade, but I didn't realize they were finally cracking down on it so hard now.

The very next day, I hear my phone ringing. This time, it was ringing with an accent. I look down at the caller ID and see it's Jawwwwwgy Pawwwwwgy, and let it go to voicemail.

But my conscience gets the best of me and I realize I should return the call to say a final thank you. But the thought of talking or listening to Jawwwwg has become about as appealing as drinking hot earthworms through a straw.

"You have 1 new message."

I press play, and make a face like I just swallowed the drainage off a coronors floor.

I listen. For a second.

" Hi Dwawwwwwn, it's Jawwwwwwg?"

The thought of listening to the rest of the message doesn't even cross my mind. I press delete, and call the entire east coast once more for counsel.

I was met with a resounding "Yes, call back, that's the right thing to do."

Those friends are now listed as 'Antichrist' on my phone log.

Like ripping off a hot waxing strip from the pubic region, I decide to do it quickly and get it over with.

He answered his phone on a mere 1/8th of a ring.

After spitting the puke out that had just suddenly accumulated in my mouth, from the desperate 1/8th of a ring pick-up, I said real quickly " Oh hi its Dawn."

And just as he started saying " Oh hi Dwwawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn!!" , I thought "Shit here we go again" and figured I’d run out and do some grocery shopping and maybe visit some friends, in hopes of me returning to the call as he was nearing his completion of W's.

But it was useless.

He was still only on his 876th 'W' when I was done gallivanting around town.

He continues to talk and ends with a claim of wanting to go out with me again that following weekend.

That's when I knew I had to be completely honest with him. Ok 'completely' is a lie, I'm not that heartless. I mean hawwwwhtless.

Me: "George, thank you so much for coming up here and taking me out, I had an okay time, but I've decided I really need to take a break from dating for a while."

George: "Oh noooo really??? Was it sumptin' I said???"

Me: "No Jawwwwg. No. It was just one fucking letter in particular."

Plenty Of Stinky Fish

Plenty of rotten fish, spineless fish, slimy fish, cheap fish, dull fish, ugly fish, dumb fish, and late fish. 
But it's better known to the general public as 'Plenty of Fish', a dating website. Some refer to it as P.O.F. Or more realistically, once you consider how fast the actual date will make you want to disappear from the restaurant table, 'P.O.O.F.'.

This is a dating website that should be avoided at all costs. But that’s redundant. All dating websites should be avoided at all costs. However, there was this one stray fish who somehow snuck through the cracks. Recently, I've become one of these people who despise hours of lengthy emails and text messages. Why drag out the torture, when so much can be determined from a phone call. Especially when for women, a bad voice on the phone is an automatic deal breaker. So I’d personally rather just get on the phone and see if we either a} can have a stimulating conversation, and as importantly b} make sure his voice doesn’t sound like he's had a recent tracheotomy. 

We talked on the phone, and his voice passed inspection. It was fine, but the conversations being spewed by the voice were more or less the audible versions of a bottle of Ambien taken with a handle of whiskey. Beyond underwhelming and borderline suicide inducing. Like I was on the phone with my dry cleaners, trying to muster up some type of physical chemistry by discussing the chronological history of a lint brush.


Shoot me.

He asks me out for that coming Saturday night. Not for dinner, heaven forbid, but just to meet to see if we weren’t revolted by the sight of each other. I was already revolted by the inane conversation, so I couldn’t imagine the actual personification of this conversation resulting in a bigger, more gaggier revulsion.

Crap. Now what.

Well, I was meeting some friends out later on that evening, so initially, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to meet up for a few drinks prior to that. And as everyone that's done Internet dating knows, you need a plan; If it's going well, you just stay out. But for the inevitability of it going horribly, you must prepare. This is done by first prepping your friends that within the first 10 minutes of meeting your date, you might be bolting into the public bathroom to send them the infamous S.O.S. text message, instructing them to call you immediately with some sudden, fictitious broken down car stories, or possibly some type of life threatening emergency that can only be resolved by you and you only. (You know, "she needs a kidney and we're both the same blood type." I don't know. Make it up.) So it's vital that your friends be kept apprised of the dates status, via live stream Tweets, so you can flee on a dime if the need should arise. 

And it always does.

I'm beginning to think that my dates must think my friends are the most accident prone, organ dependent, needy cluster of people on the planet.

OK, so the boring guy and I pick a time. 8:00 was my original time, but he said he was hoping to spend more time with me, even though he must've heard me hacking into my toilet as he said that.

He asked if we could do 7:00. A bit early for my comfort level. I was hoping to drown out his dullness in a bustling room of colorful alcoholics a little later on. But then again, meeting him a little earlier would leave me a greater bed of time to make fun of him after I left.


7:00 he wants? 
7:00 it is.

I walk into the bar, 6:59 P.M. I wait until 7:05, sit down and politely text him letting him know there's parking right next door, and I’m sitting at the bar. I also tell him he can’t miss me, since at 7:00 on a Saturday night, I’m of course the only asshole in the entire place ( the edited version of that ).

He sends me a text back: “Be there in like 15.”

Wait. What's that sound? I hear an umpire. 

He yells: “Strike 1!”
(Actually Strike 27 if you count the grueling 10 minutes of lame phone conversation, but let’s try and forget that for now. Because even starting at 1, come the end of this date, the umpire's coming down with an acute case of laryngitis).

I don't get this. A full-grown man asks out a full-grown woman. He bumps up the time a full hour earlier. I practically run over every squirrel and baby groundhog to get here on time, and ...“Like” 15??

I’ll be gone in “Like 13 and a half”.

Unreal. A 40 year old dude that can't be on time. Disgusting. This is why I usually date younger guys. The older ones are so irresponsible.

I take out my card and order a drink. An apple-pear martini.

And now I need to kill "...Like 15 minutes". 

Let the friend texting / man shreddage commence.

Just as I was just finishing up my second drink, and texting my friend that I wasn't staying any longer, I feel someone tap me on my shoulder. Here he his.

34 minutes late.

No apology, no acknowledgment of being late, and a severely annoying poke on my shoulder.

(Umpire: “Strike 2!”)

I turn around and see he’s wearing a beigey/grey t-shirt that was so wrinkled that by comparison it made a Shar-Pei puppy look ironed and starched.

(Umpire: “Strike 3!)

Me: “Oh hey, how are you. I’m sorry, did we say 7:34? I thought you emphatically said 7:00."

He kind of smiles, makes a stupid shrug with his shoulders, and basically ignores the question.

(Strike 4!)

The bartender asks him if he’d like a drink. He orders a Bud Light, (Strike 5!), and puts it on my tab, and then tells me I look exactly like a girl on TV (who I look nothing like), that he has a mad crush on.

(Strike, errr…13!!!)

Not only was he wearing a t-shirt that rivaled a ball of aluminum foil that was sat on by an elephant, and somehow peeled itself back open and molded into a homeless persons shirt, but I glance down and see he’s wearing a pair of ancient filthy sneakers, which were being tickled by pants that were so shredded at the bottom, they could’ve been used in a car wash in replace of those soapy dancing car noodles. Except unlike the car wash dancing soap noodles, his stringy pants noodles didn’t look like they ever had a proper introduction to soap.


At least be one. Either late. Or sloppy. If you’re always late, you better make sure you dress to kill. If you’re a fucking slob, you better be an on-time fucking slob. But whatever you do, don’t be a late, unforgiving, sloppy, cheap, tab-hijacking, boring, car wash noodle fucking wearing slob. Just a helpful dating tip.

Maybe it was a blessing. Because after nights like those, I always seem to find God again.

I'm sitting there thinking, “Please Dear God. Please God. Please. God? Don’t make me sit here any longer than I have to. My mother fell down a flight of stairs when she was pregnant with me, broke her water in her first month, laid in bed with me for 8 months, and I survived. I was on my death bed with Lyme disease for over 3 years. I’ve been tested enough. And I’m pretty sure I genuinely can’t make it through this horrid date / t-shirt disaster. Please God, set the restaurant on fire so I’ll have to run out mid sentence. If you do, I promise from now on I’ll just have sex to make babies. See you in church on Sunday. Swear. (Sorry God. No swearing.)"

I'm sorry but whether we want to believe it or not, first impressions are everything. That’s why when you go on a job interview, you don’t show up wearing a track suit, eating scrambled eggs with an armadillo in tow. And casual is one thing. I'm all for casual. Casual is great. Jeans and a nice button down or a pull over. But from head to toe, he was wearing something more like it was pulled-apart. This was like Friday Casual Dress Down Day at the oil refining factory.


Shoot me again. But this time do it so it actually pierces my front temporal lobe and kills me quickly.

And if this is him when he’s trying, what’s gonna  happen after 5 dates with him. 10 dates. When he's comfortable. He’s gonna meet you out in a used contractor bag and banana leaves for shoes, that’s what'll happen.

And guess what, if you’re going to show up looking like you pulled an all nighter with your drinking buddies, your intelligence and personality best be off the chart. And like I said, he was about as exciting as talking to a wet cotton ball. A wet, wrinkled cotton ball. Now I can at least die knowing, if a cotton ball were to talk, I’d know exactly what it would sound like. And it'd be late.

At this point, my normally talkative self apparently decided to go into hibernation for survival purposes, and was replaced by a reticent, bathroom-going, coaster-playing, bitch. (FYI guys…when a woman goes to the bathroom after meeting you for the first time, within 5 minutes of saying hello, she’s leaving in 10 minutes.)

He finally finishes his first shitty free drink, and orders another one. I think this time around he went for the upgrade and got a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and evidently decided to simply rollover the previous "Ordering Beers On My Tab" plan.

(Strike…what number are we on?...)

The depth of boredom in talking to this guy in person, actually made our previous phone conversation about road signs in Yonkers or guitar parts or whatever it was, seem like we were previously unraveling the origins of the universe. So for the remaining 5 minutes, I joyfully brought up guitar parts.


After a painful 45 minutes of what seemed like death by fire ants, I tell him I have to leave in a few minutes to meet up with some friends for dinner. "Have" being the integral word.

He asks me if I’d like another drink.

I said: “Awww no…that’s kind of you, but I’ve already bought myself enough drinks tonight. And I also want to be sure that when I tell my friends about you, and I’m throwing up, they know it’s because I’m describing you, and not that I just have liquor poisoning.”

The S.O.S. call finally comes in. It's my awesome friend, who upon my death, I shall bequeath all my worldly possessions 
(Which at that point could've been within 5 minutes). The call. That beautiful, "sorry dude, gotta go!" call. I stood up, shook his hand, bullshitted something about "nice meeting you", and left leaving a dust trail like the ones where Road Runner is being chased by Wiley Coyote.


The next day he called and asked me out for the following weekend.

I simply told him I couldn’t do it because he had way too much laundry to catch up on.


Clueless fish.

;)~