Unrelated to the topic of this post, but important nevertheless, I must say that I am very much looking forward to the release of “No Dignity”. 

Now, to the business at hand – regaling you fine readers with my dating tales. Specifically, the guy S alluded to whose nickname involves Japanese food.

I present to you: The Story of Beef Teriyaki Guy.

Shortly after getting dumped, I received a surprisingly decent message from BTG. We seemed to hit it off, and he quickly asked me if I’d like to meet him for coffee. It was hardly a terrible date. He didn’t insult me, attack my face, or do anything else heinous. But I was pretty underwhelmed less than 5 minutes into the date. For one thing, he had a facial tic that reminded me of my friend’s dad. And no one wants to be reminded of someone’s dad when on a date. Also, he did 90% of the talking. When he did ask me a question, he would immediately follow up my response with a related story of his. Never a follow up question for me. He wasn’t even talking about anything all that interesting. Which was a huge bummer, because we talked a lot about traveling, a topic I usually LOVE to talk about. Traveling is one of my favorite ways to spend my money. But he and I have very different ideas about what makes traveling awesome. He’s the kind of guy who travels for the sake of saying he’s been somewhere, rather than to actually enjoy the culture of the place he’s visiting. I just don’t really see the point in that. 

I basically gathered that he loves booking trips with tour companies and only really hits up major tourist attractions. Which is fine, whatever floats your boat, but that’s my least favorite way to travel. He was shocked that on my trip back in January/February, we rented a car and just drove around Europe on our own. That’s my favorite way to travel. Of course I hit up tourist spots, but I like to do lots of other stuff too, and on my own schedule. That other stuff is typically the most interesting part of any trip. He recently went to Dubai, and the only things he talked about were going to the top of the Burj Khalifa and getting a ride in a dune buggy. The world’s tallest building is cool and all, but that’s all you can tell me about?

He also went to China for a couple weeks in college. And he shared precisely 2 things about China: 1) they went to the Great Wall; and 2) he was surprised by how different the food was. The following sentence came out of his mouth: “I didn’t understand – where was the beef teriyaki and the general gao’s chicken? I didn’t even know beef teriyaki was Japanese, not Chinese.”

Source: http://gifrific.com/tom-hanks-saying-really/

Ummmmmm. There are 5,000 things wrong with that sentence. Tom Hanks and I don’t even know where to begin. Aside from the cultural ignorance, he also apparently couldn’t find anything he was willing to try, so he ate McDonalds for the entirety of his trip. Which was made super easy by picture menus, so he could just point to what he wanted. What’s the point of traveling if you’re just going to eat McDonalds? You can do that here. I know all about picky eaters, I grew up with one. But even my sister could have found something she liked in China (hint: RICE). Local food is one of the very best parts of traveling. Unless you’re trying to get a waffle in Belgium, because that was an epic fail not once, but twice. Anywho. I was getting really bored with Beef Teriyaki Guy, and finding it increasingly more difficult to continue being on this date. 

And then came the straw that broke the camel’s back. In one of his rare instances of asking about me, he asked where I had traveled to. As you might know from our About page, S and I spent a semester abroad in college. As it happens, that semester was spent in London. And oh my, did I fall in love with that city. He too had been to London, he shared. At the tail end of a trip he took to Italy, he met his parents in London for a couple of days, he explained. At which point he dropped this bomb:

BTG: I actually wasn’t that impressed with London.

Me internally: -8,254,465,687,345 points. 

Me out loud: Really? That makes me sad. 

This is where I learned about his worst travel habit. He doesn’t do a lot of any research beyond tour companies and the most basic/top tourist attractions. Aside from telling me that it wasn’t until they got home that they realized Stonehenge is only a few hours from London, he said “we saw Big Ben and the London Eye, and then what else really was there to do?”

I’m sorry, WHAT? What the fuck do you mean “what else was there to do?” Is that a serious question?

Source: http://narwhaaal.tumblr.com/post/79189389471

For one thing, Stonehenge is just a bunch of rocks. Granted, I went out there and walked around the rocks, but the trip was coupled with other things in the area (and a tragic story about the demise of a plastic grocery bag). On top of that, the only things you did were see Big Ben and the London Eye, but the thing you’re most bummed about missing is a circle of mysterious rocks in field in the English countryside? With a look of shock on my face, and in a somewhat hysterical, high-pitched voice, I just started word-vomiting various things to do in London. Museums (so many!), parks, theater, markets, food, tea, a fafillion adorable neighborhoods, THE TOWER OF LONDON. Dude, the Tower of London is a tourist attraction gold mine. Also, S, remember our glorious girl-date to the Churchill War Rooms? Best. Date. Ever! Of all the examples I shouted, at the very least the Tower of London should have been on his radar. That list barely scratches the surface, and doesn’t even mention day trips outside the city limits. Because, as Dr. Samuel Johnson so wisely put it, “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” That city is glorious, with an endless array of things to do/see. 

Sidenote: I could shout about the the Tower of London all day every day. It’s full of 900 years of amazing history, and adorable beef-eaters. Executions, ghosts, ravens, the crown jewels. Even the bathrooms are interesting. I’ll stop before I get completely out of control.

Where there had been a simple indifference towards Beef Teriyaki Guy, there was now a little tiny seed of hate. Talking shit about London is a cardinal sin in my book. It’s simply not tolerated. Especially by someone as ignorant as he was about what London has to offer.

I changed the topic before I got all howler monkey in public, but Beef Teriyaki Guy and I had nothing in common. Once I steered the conversation away from traveling, he made a couple bad lawyer jokes*, explained his tech job in excruciating detail, and mentioned at least 5 times that he recently got a new job that came with a huge pay increase. Luckily, I had some errands I had to run (I’m a terrible liar), so I said I had to go. He was bummed to hear that, because he was about to suggest that we go play mini golf or something, since it was so nice outside. Naturally, he had thought the date was going great. I thanked him for the coffee, and hightailed it out of Rhode Island (of course his suggestion had been a coffee shop less than a mile from his place, and not somewhere more centrally located between us). I won’t be seeing BTG again any time soon.

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* I actually love lawyer jokes. We’re the worst, often times in very comical ways. But I’ve also heard a lot of lawyer jokes, so forgive me when I’m less than humored when your jokes run along the generic and tired lines of: 

What’s the difference between a lawyer and a boxing referee? A boxing referee doesn’t get paid more for a longer fight.

What’s the difference between a jellyfish and a lawyer? One’s a spineless, poisonous blob. The other is a form of sea life. 

What’s the difference between a lawyer and a leech? After you die, a leech stops sucking your blood.

Instead, try something more like these, which are far less generic/offensive, and actually pretty clever and fitting to tell to a defense attorney (which he knew I was):

Source: Stu’s Views