Bad Date Alert! Part Deux

So....for those of you who were anxiously awaiting the next installment in "Chelsea's Date From Hell"....wait no more.

So yes. He had a giant portrait of his ex at the tender age of seventeen hanging as a HUGE warning signal to me. I could almost hear "Danger! Danger Will Robinson!"

But did this stop me? I'd like to say yes. I'd like to say a lot of things. But as will probably come as a surprise to NONE of you (unless you are a stranger who stumbled upon this blog)--I stayed.

He gave me a tour of the apartment and I couldn't help but feel that the place was a little...how should I put this? Oh right. GIRLY. Not in like a metrosexual single guy way but in like a.....a girl definitely probably lives here.

Maybe it was the Sophie Kinsella novels in the bookshelf. Maybe it was the copy of "Now And Then" on the DVD shelf. Maybe it was the embroidered pillow on the couch that said something like "Friends are flowers in the garden of life". I received confirmation that the pillow was indeed lovingly embroidered by the ex. I could tell I would hate this girl.

Despite all of these horrible signs, I ended up hooking up with my date as we watched "Evil Dead". Don't you dare judge me! I am in a really weird place in my life right now and he was REALLY cute! Of course, all the while I can't stop looking over at the giant portrait. It's like she's staring at me! I half expected her eyes to start glowing....oh, who am I kidding? I TOTALLY expected it! Anyway, mid-hookup I had to get up and pee because I am extremely smooth and not awkward in the least.

I step into his bathroom. I KNOW I'm going to snoop. Of course it's wrong, of course I shouldn't, of COURSE I'll find things I don't want to see. But like Alice in Wonderland I was "curious and curiouser" and I had to scratch my itch.

The medicine cabinet reveals that he is on Lexapro. Hey, ain't no shame in getting help from an anti-depressant. But....it did make me think perhaps he had a little more baggage than I wanted to deal with right now.

I'm not really sure what then compelled me to pull the shower curtain aside. I really, truly wish this was the part in the story where I revealed his ex-fiancee to be behind the curtain, hiding in the tub. When I make this into a movie or a one-act play, that IS what will happen. I half expected her to be there myself. She wasn't. But a couple of Herbal Essences bottles and a pink razor were!

This was all the evidence I needed. Either this guy was keeping his apartment creepily preserved like Miss Havisham in her wedding dress, awaiting his fiancee's return.....or she still lived there.

I stormed into the living room filled with high-pitched accusations when I noticed he wasn't there. I stepped into the bedroom to find him NAKED on his bed. He totally pulled the "Naked Man" on me!!! If you watch "How I Met Your Mother", you get that. If you don't...you are a loser and should really fix that. I now had to confront a NAKED man about his shady, lying ways. It was very "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and I was simultaneously laughing, crying and yelling all at the same time. The tears were, I assure you tears of laughter.

He insisted that the ex-fiancee didn't live there- she was in Atlanta at school!

"And where does she live when she's not at school?" I asked.

He got sheepish. He sold me a whole lot of garbage about how she visits there when she's not at school...blah blah blah....the wedding is on hold....blah blah blah....they're not really still engaged.

"Did she give back the ring?" I asked.

Silence.

I gathered my things to go. He put his hands on my shoulders to stop me, insisting that he can see other people.

"That's fine." I said. "But you're not going to see THIS person." This is one of the few times in my life that I've said something that I actually feel is worthy of being a line from a movie. I hope to get to use that line again someday. I'm sure, given my tormented romantic history, that I will.

He then starts to cry. Sloppy, sloppy tears. I am so uncomfortable that all I want to do is get out of there. He tells me that it's been really hard with the long distance from his "ex", that he's not sure they belong together, that he's not sure she's the one. I tell him he seems like a nice person but he should really get his sh*t together. And then I leave him, naked and crying.

Seriously. I don't think I'm going to date again. I'm going to take this as a really big sign.

At least I know how to scare people away now though! Next time I'm trying to get rid of some dude, I'm going to invite him over to my place and hang up some terrifyingly giant portrait of one of my exes. So I guess it wasn't a COMPLETE loss.