I’ve never been a fan of blind dates, but a friend found a guy ” I just HAD to meet.” So, I agreed to let her give him my phone number. Guy arrived on time and picked me up in a cab to head to dinner. Guy picked a cute gourmet pizza place that neither of us had ever been to but which had been recommended to him by a friend. He requested a table outside on the patio and chose a bottle of wine for us. Everything seemed to be going rather nicely.

And then the Mr. Hyde appeared. As our waitress walked away, he made a snide comment about the way she was dressed. At first, I couldn’t tell if he was joking or if I had misheard what he said, so I just sort of smiled and let it go by. A few minutes later, he interrupted me to point out what he called a “major mismatch.” I turned to see a pretty woman walking hand-in-hand with an cute, but admittedly average looking guy – by no means a major mismatch and certainly did not warrant an interruption and the 2 minute discourse Mr. Hyde proceeded with about how it must suck because women have to be beautiful to get men, but even an ugly man can always find a woman because women want relationships.

The remainder of the meal was marked by Jekyll/Hyde transformations. The jabs about everything from our waitress, to passers-by, to how areas of medicine outside of neuro-surgery area are basically just glorified nursing, were interspersed with compliments and interesting banter.

Clinging to the hope that Jekyll would prevail, I agreed to walk with him to get gelato. After 10 minutes of walking with Jekyll, he realized that we were headed in the wrong direction and Hyde proceeded with a rant full of more 4-letter words than I’ve heard in a very long time.

After calming down, Jekyll told me about his condo. Suddenly, Hyde launched into a story about how the previous night, he was awoken by noises coming from his neighbor. He eavesdropped and figured out that the sounds were the result of some over-enthusiastic drunken masturbating. This story was questionably first-date appropriate to start with, but I might have let it slide if Hyde had not continued describing the sounds and how he stayed up and listened to her go at it multiple times for an hour.

The icing on the cake happened at the awkward goodbye moment. I offered him some money for the cab (in my head telling myself I was going to murder my friend for thinking that this guy was even close to being a good match for me) and climbed out. Unfortunately, Hyde climbed out behind me. I initially was going to be nice and just give him a hug and say good night. But, as I pulled away from the hug he tried to kiss me, which I pulled away from. Somehow Hyde took that to mean, “I don’t want to do this here, but why don’t you come upstairs with me” and turned to head inside. After I exclaimed, “Whoa! I don’t think you should come up,” he threw a toddler’s tantrum. Hyde made flustered, pouty remarks about paying for the date and deserving a kiss. I should have just said, “You’ve got to be kidding me, get out of here!” Instead I apologized for any confusion and snuck through the door, pulling it tightly behind me, already pulling out my phone to call and yell at my friend for this torture.