One post-bellini sunny Sunday I went to this shitty dive bar (and as you know I absolutely detest shitty dive bars) to meet this dude that I was thinking about possibly, maybe dating, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a guy I had gone on one date with pouring a beer out of a pitcher. I cringed at the memory of our date, a horribly dull evening and a total waste of calories. He had sent several texts one of which said, "I realize our date was a bit lackluster." A bit lackluster? I thought. That makes lackluster look like New Year's 1999. Afterward, I had written that I'd rather be in a coma than on a date with him. And shit, I honestly couldn't even remember his name.

"How are you?" I said smiling and waving to him, trying desperately to think of his name. Derek? Lance? Dan? I think it's Dan. Eff.

"What's new?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing," I lied. It's annoying when boring people ask "What's up?" because then you go on excitedly about everything you are up to just to politely flip the question and hear an irksome...

"Nothing," he responded. (See I knew it.) These people will respond "nothing" no matter what you say; so you may as well avoid a conversation all together.

Then he stepped aside to pour another beer leaving my friend and I to politely chat with his friend who was admittedly kind of hot. "So how do you know Dave," his friend asked. Dave! Dave. Duh.

"Um, we went out on a date once," I began, "but then I lost my phone." Trying desperately to backpedal I foolishly continued speaking.  "For like two weeks I didn't have the right phone. I lose my phone a lot. When I studied abroad in college, I lost six cell phones..." I babbled.

"Oh, um, I see. Well, sometimes that happens. So what do you think of his place?" he asked.

"His place? Oh, we only went on one date. I didn't go to his place." As if!

"No, his place," he repeated spreading out his arms and gesturing towards the bar.

Then an energy-saving LCD light bulb went off inside my busy little brain, and I remembered that the Dave dude did own a bar. I pictured it much nicer in my mind. My afternoon mission to catch a quick minute with a high potential or whatever landed me in the coma dude's bar. It turned out that the dude I liked was tired from his weekend and being quiet (which I don't even know what to do with), so he went home leaving me in a bar owned by some dude who, as evidenced by the sixty texts he sent me over the following two days, was obviously trying to get with me. I never responded because seriously, I cannot thrive in an environment characterized by broken bathroom sinks and the stench of last night's vomit. The entire afternoon was a colossal waste of time that left me longing to leisurely browse Didier Ludot with a baguette peaking out of my Birkan or sip prosecco atop La Rinascente. It made me miss September Sundays at Felix and strolling along the Hudson with my Mexican boyfriend who was, amongst other things, extremely well-dressed. The whole hairy experience left me downtrodden, romantically deprived and seriously vowing to more meticulously catalog my dates.

Emma Dinzebach