Nice Guys and Nazis

My first date was in 1981. I’ve been dating ever since and I’m exhausted.

I thought online dating would bring my life’s extended courtship phase to an end and I must admit that most of the men I’ve met online are nice. The problem is, nice is the most passionate adjective I can supply to describe them.

A few weeks ago I had coffee with Average Joe. He was nice, really very nice. Nice looking, appropriately dressed, polite, and gainfully employed. While he was explaining auto insurance rates for the hard to insure, I tried to imagine spending my life with this average Joe; your typical nice guy. It was then that I began to understand why the entire country is on antidepressants. Only a hefty dose of Zoloft could make this imaginary really very nice life stimulating.

More recently I was pleasantly surprised when I received an enthusiastic response to my profile from a man whose screen name indicated he was Swiss. I never could resist a man with an accent? I sent him my phone number so we could make a date. When he called I did a quick mental scan of European geography and realized that the Swiss accent would not be romantic, instead my new exciting foreign man sounded like a Nazi – as in “Vwhere are your papers.”

I asked the Nazi to meet me at Zinc in Corona del Mar for coffee and he asked me to spell Zinc.

Judy: “Zee-Eye-En-Cee”
Nazi: “OK, yes Cee-Eye-En-Cee, Cinc, I’ll see you there.”
Judy: “No, it’s Zee-Eye-En-Cee. Zee as in Zebra, not Cee as in Cat, Zinc.”
Nazi: “Oh Zee, not Cee, Which Cee is a Zee?”

“Vhere are your Papers!”

Last weekend I met the Nazi in person (at Zinc with a Zee) and I was pleasantly surprised to find a tall attractive man who was obviously comfortable in his own skin. Usually my online dates are nervous. We talked about who knows what and I didn’t care because I thought I felt a spark. As the Nazi told me about his golden retriever, I glanced into my half full cup of coffee and wondered if the barista had accidentally poured regular instead of decaf. I’ll never know what was actually in that cup of coffee but I knew after an hour that I wanted to go out with the Nazi again.

Yeah – I wanted a second date! I was making real progress.

That evening I thought about my next post:

Every once in a great while you will meet someone who is attractive or exciting and you’ll get the spark that thankfully breaks the monotony of first dates.

Two days later I contemplated another post:

After you’ve worked for weeks perfecting your online profile, spent days reviewing and emailing prospective dates, endured countless hours of really very nice first dates, you’ll eventually feel a spark.

Here’s the gruesome concealed catch, this attractive exciting man who has sparked your desire, has to feel a spark too.

You see, the Nazi didn’t call. The dating equation is much more complicated than I first thought it was. I don’t just have to find a guy that I like; he has to like me back.

This just might take forever!