TMI City

Mark’s profile was wordy. Possibly the lengthiest of any I have seen so far. We’re talking detail upon detail about his life, character, profession and goals. Typically overly thorough profiles are a turn-off for me but he had an eloquent writing style and included many interesting reveals. For instance, he mentioned that he had five sisters. A man who grew up with a boatload of gals has got to be a unique human being. I had two; between the three of us we had enough estrogen to kill a horse. I was curious to see how Mark turned out.

When he messaged me he didn’t send the quick “let’s grab a drink”, rather he wrote a manifesto about a fedora he recently purchased. “I look terribly handsome in this hat,” he confessed.

I’m a sucker for a good hat and a man with talented writing chops so I wrote back, “I wouldn’t mind having a drink with you and your fedora.” He explained in his next message that fedoras don’t drink and neither does he so we settled on an afternoon tea. Although I didn’t exactly see it in his pictures, he described his looks as “a cross between a vampire and Johnny Depp”. I’m addicted to True Blood and I’m a woman with a pulse so clearly I was intrigued.

I got to the coffee shop on time, ordered a tea, and took a seat. After waiting ten minutes I saw a tiny man with a fedora come in, he didn’t resemble Johnny Depp but I got what he meant by vampire when he removed his hat and revealed his pale complexion and red eyes. Yes, red eyes. The whites of his eyes were blood red.

I tried not to appear too shocked, but it was a condition that deserved an explanation. We quickly introduced ourselves, he said that he must have allergies or an infection but promised it wasn’t that he was “higher than Snoop Dogg”. I made eye contact, which is the normal thing to do, I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable about his condition but apparently my manners backfired, “Would you mind not looking at me directly?” he asked. “I’m feeling very self-conscious about my eyes.” I offered him up my sunglasses but he declined.

“You’re disarmingly beautiful,” he told me. Before I could respond he excused himself to the bathroom where he spent at least ten minutes. I considered getting up and leaving but he gave me the best compliment of my day so I stuck around. I looked at the cute college girl beside me who was politely pretending to type away at her computer but was very clearly eavesdropping on my encounter. She was doing a terrific job of stifling a laugh.

When Mark finally returned he jumped right in to telling me his life story. The whole story. He started at age twelve and worked up to his current position in life at thirty. The only break he took was to play with a dog that came in. He got on his hands and knees in the café and scratched the golden retriever’s belly and baby-talked to him. Me, the owner, the dog, and the college student all exchanged “WTF?” looks.

His story was highly emotional, he began with a rough up bringing, a girlfriend who got him evicted, a failed attempt at college, and it ended with him getting fired from his hospitality job yesterday. I wasn’t sure if the tears he was wiping from his eyes were from the hardships he faced or the puss from his infection.

It was a lot of information. Too much information. I was deep in TMI city. I’m all for being in touch with yourself and your emotions but on our first coffee date I didn’t need to know most of the goods he was dishing out. Not to say he wasn’t interesting, he certainly was but some of the things he told me would have taken me months of bonding to share with someone, and as we know, I’m an open-deck of cards as is. I like a man with sisters but maybe he had too many sisters.

He sent me a message after our date, in his manifesto style, from the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Besides the eye infection it seems he’s also caught a bout of love fever for yours truly. If you take out the time that I waited for him, our date lasted about thirty minutes, in those thirty minutes I probably talked for five of them, yet he wrote me a two page letter about how “rad” I am and the true “connection” he felt. Mark was a nice guy with a cool fedora but he is certainly not my cup of tea.