I went on my first JDate date a few years ago.  It was the easiest date I ever got.  All I had to do was look up girls of my age in my area, and then contact them.  This is something that would have not been possible if the only tools at my disposal were myself and the world around me.  I had lived 20 years with myself and the world around me, and the world was not enough.  The world has these barriers that are often close to impossible to break down.  For example, how do you walk up to a girl you do not know and not only talk to her, but maintain a conversation that is interesting enough to sustain her interest without having to pay her?

I was still on my high from joining JDate, and figured that since it was so easy to get a date, the date itself would be equally simple.  Therefore, I sort of half-assed it.  I didn’t dress up very nicely.  I only brushed my teeth twice.  I didn’t wear cologne (although I never wear cologne).  As a side note, sometimes girls don’t like dudes in cologne.  Is that a correct assumption, or have I been making a horrible mistake my entire adult life?  Anyway, I didn’t put much into preparedness.  What I didn’t realize was that I was about to meet a person with all of the complexities and intricacies of any carbon-based life form.

Five minutes into the date, I had nothing.  I actually tried to see how much time I could take up by laughing for no reason.  Then, I decided that she would be the perfect guinea pig to hear material I was planning on using for my amateur stand-up comedy debut.  After I had exhausted my five minute routine, I figured that I would use the date as an opportunity for a free psychiatric session.  I told her all of my insecurities and fears.  After the date, which involved a little bit of drinking, I figured that I had just conducted a perfect rehearsal of male to female interaction. What I didn’t realize was that in the previous scenario, the male would be akin to a crazy homeless person, and the female would most closely resemble a woman sitting at a broken traffic light after having given the man a dollar without realizing she’d be sitting there for a long time.  She had given me the dollar, but I insisted on annoying her until the traffic light was finally fixed.