The eHarmony Sequel

So Part One of my eHarmony experiment was not particularly successful by any definition. Thus, I did not have high hopes for the subsequent chapter.

I was matched up with this guy a few weeks ago who I thought was pretty cute, especially in comparison to the rest of the dudes on eHarmony. However, when I sent his picture to little sister E for her assessment, she didn't seem to agree.

E: He looks like a leprechaun!

Me: He does not!

E: Yes he does, you better watch out for him, I bet he's tricky.

Me: What?

E: If you go out with him, you'll have to keep an eye on him or he'll steal your money.

Me: Yeah I'm pretty sure that's not how leprechauns work...I think they just guard a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

E: But where does he GET the gold?

Me: I don't know, but he doesn't steal it. And even if he did, I don't really carry gold coins on my person on a regular basis.

(Side Note: I looked it up and apparently leprechauns acquire their gold through their day job of mending and making shoes, not stealing. However, they are known to be quite tricky so if you catch one, you need to hold on to him and keep your eyes on him at all times or he will fool you into turning away for a second and hide his pot of gold.)

E: Well, you should still be really careful. He might be a trickster. Are you going to go out with him anyway?

Me: I don't know, he's working late this week so we're trying to figure out a time. He was at the office until midnight last night.

E: Wait, what does he do? Outside of St. Paddy's Day parades and Lucky Charms commercials, of course.

Me: He is a lawyer! He is not a leprechaun! Stop saying that!

(Side Note: Is it weird that I find the making/mending shoes career to be more attractve than the lawyer thing? I mean, I have a LOT of shoes and I don't really require legal advice but fixing my shoes would actually bring something to the table...)

E: Well, I would still bring a friend with you. To make sure he doesn't trick you.

So, even though I didn't agree with E's opinion that eHarmony is a leprechaun, I asked my friend S to possibly screen this dude to see if he is, in fact, a leprechaun.

S: Well, how tall is he?

Me: His profile says he's 5'10".

S: Oh, then you have nothing to worry about! He's clearly not a leprechaun!

Me: I'm glad that you had to ask his height before you confirmed that he isn't a leprechaun.

S: Well, I had to make sure!

Me: Oh, man, what if he's Irish? Or he looks like this?



S: If he shows up and he has an Irish accent, I will laugh my ass off.

Me: If he shows up and he's Irish, I will have to run out of the bar.

After a few scheduling glitches, the Leprechaun and I finally got it together and planned on grabbing drinks on a Friday night while S and I were at a bar.

To prepare for the impending awkwardness and the possibility of meeting a real life leprechaun, S and I started downing shots so I was slightly toasted before he even showed up. Which in retrospect was a terrible idea because if he really HAD been a leprechaun I would have been too drunk to keep an eye on him until he led me to his pot of gold.

Anyways, he showed up at the bar and he was over two feet tall and his only magical power seemed to be that of being able to bring a conversation to an immediate halt with his awkwardness.

He wasn't exactly capable of carrying on a conversation even when given a direct question to answer and S and I continued to glance at each other over the table to raise our eyebrows at each other. And even more awkward, within half an hour he waved at someone across the bar and said, "Oh I invited one of my friends here," which he hadn't mentioned previously.

So his friend showed up with an entourage of six guys who sat down at our table, introduced themselves, and asked how we all knew each other. After a moment of silence, the Leprechaun answered, "We met on the internet."

And his friend asked me, "eHarmony?! Are you on eHarmony?!"

To which I had an entire group of guys turn to look in my direction and gawk.

"To be fair," I told them, "I am a writer and I was doing it as a social experiment so I would have writing material."

As everyone processed this, the Leprechaun asked me, "So if I had taken you out on a date and tried to kiss you, would it have showed up on the internet for the world to see?"

I blushed and laughed awkwardly (seriously, who asks a question like that in front of seven strangers?) and told him I was deferring to my counsel but I was going to plead the fifth.

More shots were consumed by the table and at this point, I realized the room was starting to spin and I wasn't going to be able to make it through the rest of the night if I continued to partake in shots. So I bowed out of the next few rounds, but it was already too late.

Now, this is totally my bad and I take full responsibility for what subsequently followed, but before Leprechaun had officially committed to coming to the bar, I had let my current boy toy, Yawn, know where S and I would be that evening. And through no planning whatsoever, we were at a bar across from the bar he was at.

So when he texted me to tell me he was coming to meet us, my alcohol-riddled brain couldn't think of one reasonable excuse to tell him not to come. When he walked into the bar (keep in mind, S and I are the only girls at a table of half a dozen guys and I am technically on a first date), he came over to give me a hug, sat down next to me, and introduced himself to the rest of the table.

The less-drunk part of my brain thought I could still get away with this if I played it cool and pretended he was just a friend and no one brought up e-Harmony again. However, I was much too drunk to be playing anything smooth at this point, and according to S, within five seconds of sitting down next to me, the rest of the table knew from our body language and the way we acted with one another that he was not just a friend.

S texted me from across the table, "Leprechaun looks sad. I think you crushed him."

Shortly after that, Leprechaun took off, leaving his friends with us, which was kind of strange, but I know now it's because one of the guys had taken a hankering to S and thought he could get somewhere with her.

A little while later, I got that impending feeling of doom, that I was not going to be able to keep down all the alcohol I had just sucked down, and I told Yawn, "I have to go home. Now."

The second I got through the door, I bee-lined for the bathroom and that was where I remained for the next hour. I remember thinking to myself, as I was hugging the toilet, that this was my punishment for having crushed someone'e soul and for dicking over a leprechaun. Those fellows don't take kindly to being messed with.

In addition to getting sick, I woke up the next day at the crack of dawn with a terrible hangover headache and lay there thinking that I had gotten what I deserved. Like seriously, if I was on a date with a guy and he brought another girl, well I would probably punch him in the balls. As my guy friend R later said to me while laughing at me, "Maybe next time, you shouldn't bring your boyfriend on a date."

Not being totally evil, I did (do) feel bad about the whole crushing of Leprechaun's soul and all, so I sent him a casual but apologetic text saying that I was sorry the evening had been awkward and perhaps we shouldn't have had multiple parties present. Unsurprisingly, I did not get a response and really don't expect to any time ever.

All in all, it wasn't my best performance, but at least I didn't get my gold stolen by a little bearded man wearing green.

And in case you were keeping score, it's now eHarmony: 3, Me: 0.