No pomegranate martinis

I have a date tomorrow. Yes! A blind date, to be exact. While most people would cringe at this thought, I am excited. I love blind dates. You get free drinks (hopefully), talk a little about your hopes and dreams, and usually, because most blind dates are all absolute duds, you get to slip in some elaborate lies about yourself and see if the other person notices. For example, "Yes, I have been lucky enough to travel extensively. Mostly because of my unpaid internship I had two years ago with the Circus. I had to quit, though, because I realized I was allergic to lion dander. Oh the Merlot sounds nice, don't you think?"

My co-worker set me up on this date. This is creates room for a bit of fear, only because of the caliber of the only other blind date she has set me up on. It was about two months ago and the guy was her friend from high school. We met on a Friday night for sushi at a place with buy one get one free drinks. I arrived to find him drinking...a pomegranate martini. "They're really great here, try one," he said.

"Uh, ok," I said. Then, he was nice enough to order for us, but unfortunately all we ended up with was a plate of sashimi. Great, nice and filling. Four drinks into the date (he is on his FOURTH pomegranate martini and I'm onto the 3rd type of mojito on the sugary drink special menu) we get into what I like to call the "hopes and dreams" portion. Where do you see yourself in 5 years, blah, blah, etc... "Truthfully," he slurred confidently, "I really just want to be a stay at home Dad. I'd like to find a powerful and driven wife who wanted to support the family, and I would stay home and take care of the kids. I mean I have hobbies, I really like writing poetry." At this point I think I made a small coughing noise and attempted a polite, "Uh huh." I'm all for 21st Century and mixing up gender roles, but I want equality, not a husband that sits at home eating bon-bons and writing poetry while I bring home the bacon.

"And as far as my kids," he said, "I am all for homeschool, at least until high school. I can give them a much better education than any 'normal' school can. As opposed to the polite cough for the stay at home dad comment, at this point I think I made a face like I had just eaten cat poo.

To each their own, but a pomegranate martini drinking-stay at home dad-homeschooler just isn't my type. As we awkwardly hugged goodbye at the end of the night, I thought, 'Wow, this was a bad date.' But truthfully, its just another great story. Or perhaps, should have been a learning experience never to be set up by this co-worker ever again. Oh well, as long my blind date tomorrow doesn't drink pomegranate martinis, we should be off to a good start.