The Dinner

I have to tell this story because it is a classic bad date story. I had been seeing a certain someone when I got a rather large artist fee. Officially we were NOT girlfriends, something she always got tetchy about if I suggested we were, even though she called me to talk every night.

One day I asked her if she wanted to go for dinner. I would treat (since as I already mentioned I had an artist fee in my pocket). I was envisioning something akin to a moderately upscale diner like Hamburger Mary’s, or even Havana. You know, nice food but casual. A basic date. Well she suggests a particular restaurant she likes that she never gets to go to, and I had never been there so I thought oh sure, whatever. We get there and I open the menu only to find entrees start at $50. I nearly fell out of my chair but being the suave butch dyke I am I supressed all shock and tried to carry this expenditure off with aplomb. So we ate and drank and chatted and she was being cute and then the bill came and I watched a goodly chunk of my artist fee vanish. Goodbye money!!! I will miss the groceries I could have bought.

Then we necked at a bus stop, but she started acting weird and then after all of that wouldn’t go home with me. Maybe it is sleazy to expect some romping because of an expensive dinner, but maybe it is also sleazy to take your lover for a dinner she’s paying for to a restaurant that is ridiculously pricey without giving a heads up. I wasn’t terribly put out yet because I did like her a lot.

The story doesn’t end there though. Not long after we had our break up squabble. I don’t know how you can break up with someone who’s not your girlfriend, but whatever. It was a break up. Several mean things were said, but the most shocking was when she announced “It all started with that dinner. I should have known, Ooooh, it’s the dinner where things get serious” and then went off about how I was trying to weasle her into a serious relationship by buying her an expensive dinner. I was so shocked now that I couldn’t say anything. I took her to dinner just because I thought it would be fun to eat hamburgers together. Suddenly I was the evil sugar mama trying to buy her ass with a $150 dinner. And I’m not even a sugar mama, she was the considerably older one!!! And she was the one who picked the goddamn expensive restaurant.

She’d never bought me dinner or lunch or breakfast. I think once she gave me some sweet blob of red beans from China town.

Luckily my next girlfriend took me to dinner and lunch a lot. And it was often casual dining in chinese restaurants with cheap burgers. She even made me gnocci one day.

But I had never known that buying a lover a lovely dinner was so offensive. Luckily since then I’ve had sweeties who are much more appreciative of nice things I do and don’t throw it back in my face.

She was so not a sugar mama. A moochie mama, maybe.