Guest post: The Morrigan's nightmare date, Part II

Part I is here.

His face goes beet red and he turns to one side to respond. 'Uh, I'm at the restaurant now' which elicits an almost instantaneous response of 'We'll be right over.'

'WE'LL BE RIGHT OVER'???

Has this become a party? I'm just here for a platonic lunch and ONLY out of politeness because really, all I want to do is just go home, Avoid the Drama and sleep. I feel so dreadful by now that instead of selecting something from the menu, I'm considering asking for a priest. We order our food and talk.

He's still not at all inappropriate, at least not to my face. But I'm not liking that 'We'll be right over' thing and I'm having dark suspicions about the fact that (a) it's less than 12 hours since I've seen this man and a number of his friends already know about me (b) they think he picked me up (c) they know that we were meeting at this place for lunch (d) they will apparently be arriving to join us. I notice with alarm that although the sun is barely over the yardarm, this guy's already drinking.

Strike one.

Not ten minutes later, his best friend shows up and inspects me as if I were about to go up for auction. He likes what he sees to such an extent that he attempts (take a deep breath now girl) to give Adam a high five at the table with me sitting right there.

And although I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and he's not directly responsible for his friend's appalling conduct, I'm not inclined to be all that generous, so this definitely counts as strike two.

WTF did this man say happened between us? He walked beside me for 4 blocks. That was IT. I have yet to shake his hand. Lunch was agreed to on the basis of the 'Friends only' caveat and I was EXCEPTIONALLY explicit about that.

His friend retreats, but not far. He sits at the bar some 10 feet from our table to watch us have lunch. This swiftly becomes not only irritating but unnerving as his friend (Brad) is constantly (a) drinking (b) on the cellphone juggling women and giving us 'progress reports' on how well he's doing with each of them.

By this time, I cannot imagine what the look on my face is like but I don't think I'm smiling. Adam leaves the table, walks over to Brad and says something. Brad goes outside for a while. Adam returns to the table and orders more alcohol.

I'm losing track of how many strikes we're at by now, but at the very least we're coming up to the seventh inning stretch and it's not going well for him at all.

Lunch (which was very good) is over and he asks if I would like to see the patio for a minute. I would rather just kill myself and be done with it, but polite to the core, I agree. I bring my diet coke to the patio and he orders *another* beer. With a shot to go along with it.

Then the rest of his friends start arriving, all saying some variation of 'Wow – is this the one? Score, dude!' right out loud in front of me. They attempt to impress me with tales of their recent trips to Hooters. Adam is not saying much and I'm saying NOTHING. He's shrinking visibly into his seat as his buddies continue to arrive and congregate at the table. Soon, there are 8 of us there: me and Adam, Brad, Brad's DAD and 4 of Adam's other friends.

They are saying things to me like 'Yeah, he said you were smoking hot, but man, you're so hot he must be paying you.' Clearly, this guy (a) is convinced that I'm out of his league (an opinion his friends share) and (b) has spent the night working the phones.

This leads me to believe that he has described me as so scorchingly hot that not only his friends BUT ALSO THEIR FATHERS have called bullshit on him to such a degree that honour requires that he produce me so they can see for themselves.

What follows is 20 minutes of relentless sexual harassment at the hands of his friends, which Adam does not even attempt to intervene in or stop. Uh, buddy, one of your friends just suggested that I was a prostitute and you don't have an opinion on that? He sits there mute and keeps trying to make himself smaller and smaller but doesn't ask anyone to shut up or leave and continues to drink. In fact, the drinking accelerates.

While it was an interesting anthropological exercise, I've been completely silent throughout it and after the said 20 minutes, I cannot take anymore for fear that this is the thing that will finally trigger the start of my killing spree, so I get up. 'Well, sounds like you guys have your afternoon planned. Have fun.' – a booze filled day of boating to take in the delights of a strip club there and a return trip with a hold full of smuggled alcohol – and I take my leave. There is a chorus of 'give her a kiss Adam' as I stand and prepare to depart, but by this time, Adam seems to understand that he will never lay eyes on me again if I have any say in the matter and has values his life sufficiently not to make the attempt. He knows he's blown it big time but I'm not sure he's clued into the fact that it's because he's invited the entire town out to gawk at me, insult me and stare at my breasts. I leave. He does not even try to make eye contact, but stares sheepishly into his beer as I depart and does not follow me (and I was half afraid he would).

This man does not have my number (thank God) and only the sketchiest idea of where I live. Given this horrific turn of events, I can no longer write at the same restaurant I did. That's no great loss but now I'm on the fence about going to the pyromaniac festival on Saturday night because I told him I would be there and I GUARANTEE he - and all of his friends - will be there looking for me.

Clearly, he could not believe his luck and although he did seem nice one-on-one, I'm going to give this guy a wide berth. The nonstop drinking, the incredibly boorish friends and the big mouth in this very small town add up to strikes one to three inclusive and I don't need to go there. Lunch was enough to persuade me that I've seen all I want to of Adam.

Unbelievable. I have *got* to get out of this town.