Dating Ell-A: Please Don’t Kiss Me

He was the man of my dreams…probably because I hadn’t even met him yet.  So I guess you could call him the “potential” man of my dreams. I try to walk into each first date thinking, “This date won’t suck.” Optimistic? Sure, but I always try to be more hopeful than hopeless.

I met Chad – we’ll call him that because, well…that’s his name– through a friend of a friend and decided that, even though he was in the biz, there was the ever-so-slender chance that he might not be exactly the same as all the other entertainment guys I’ve dated (e.g. needing their mysterious prescriptions to get through the day).

After calling to ask me out, Chad suggested a great new place that just opened up on Sunset. It’s always a good sign when they at least have a plan for the date and you don’t have to hear, “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” The new restaurant sounded good to me, so we agreed to meet for dinner at 8:00.

While selecting just the right dress for dinner (sexy, but not too sexy), I went through my pre-date prep ritual where I reminded myself of why I needed to be excited for an evening that usually consisted of, in most cases, spending two hours of talking to a complete stranger and eating calories that are hard to burn off at the gym.  In this case, it boiled down to four words: tall, dark, and undeniably handsome.

Dating “industry” guys in the past had left me a little pessimistic about the internal qualities I would discover underneath that handsome face, but at least Chad was a “producer.” And, as long as “producer” wasn’t code for porn producer, his vocation at least ensured that I wouldn’t be sitting across from a talent agent, a non-published writer, or a never-in-work actor.

One fun date isn’t too much to ask for, right? Even if the date sucked, I’d still look fantastic.

At the beginning of dinner, we were covering everything from politics to literature (he actually read books — score!) We didn’t even have any of those awkward pauses where we searched for the next topic while looking like a sweat-covered contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire trying answer the $1,000,000 question.

I took the first bite of my steak and looked up, ready to spout a witty comment about the sauce, but then I noticed Chad’s teeth. They were black along the gum line.  And when I say black, I mean black. As in blacker than kohl eyeliner black.

I tried to ignore this and concentrate on the good conversation we were having, but by the time we were digging into the crème brulee, I realized that I hadn’t said a word in the past ten minutes and had no idea what Chad had been saying. And I really should have known what was coming out of his mouth since I hadn’t been able to avert my eyes from that area since I first noticed the oral aberration. I was transfixed on the disturbing decay!

The check finally came. After paying the bill, we walked to the valet.  As we were waiting for our car, Chad went in for a kiss.

Needing to think fast, I blurted, “Oh, I can’t.  I just had Restylane injected earlier today.”

“Sorry.” He said, shrugging his shoulders. “Hate when that happens.”

So do I… I was already sure we wouldn’t have another date because I could not let his teeth be anywhere near my lips.  Perhaps I should actually get Restylane tomorrow and develop a new close relationship with an “available” dentist.