When Your Date Thinks Your Career Goals Are Hilarious
I was 21 and sitting at a bar in Harlem, on what will go down in history as the worst date of my life. Worse than the one where I joked that my friends called me “Bladez with a Z” and my date took me seriously. Worse than the one where my date explained the pitfalls of feminism to me. Worse than the second date with that guy. Worse than the date with the dude who tried to hypnotize me.
The problem with actual-worst-date wasn’t that we had no chemistry — though we admittedly had none. The reason this date has lived on in infamy is that my ill-fated suitor laughed at my dreams for being too big.
This took me by surprise, to say the least. Here we were, doing our stilted ice breaking, and he asked me where I saw myself in 10 years. Standard stuff. He knew that I was in grad school for science journalism, so I didn’t think my answer was that interesting: I said I’d be a staff writer at one of my favorite science and tech magazines. I probably mentioned one in particular by name. I said this casually, confidently, because this was the career path I was on.
He laughed.
“Well, I guess everyone needs a dream,” he said.
Let me tell you how he said it, because it was fascinating: He didn’t think he was being mean-spirited. He thought I must be joking. He was laughing along.
He didn’t seem to notice that I froze up and shut down. I cut the date short, claiming I had an article to work on, and spent half an hour being icy but polite before making my escape. I managed to walk right by him twice in the next half hour, making it comically clear that I was doing nothing journalistic whatsoever with the rest of my evening, but that’s another story for another day.
As a woman, I’ve certainly had people condescend to me before. But for some reason, this nameless, faceless dude is the chip on my shoulder. Something about his complete obliviousness — the way he was sure I couldn’t be serious — has stuck with me. This wasn’t a man who wanted to put women down: He was a self-proclaimed feminist and probably a very nice guy. But he’d managed to size me up and discount me so much in that first 45 minutes that he couldn’t fathom my success in a very reasonable career goal.
This story has a satisfying conclusion. I got my dream job in two years, not 10. I didn’t end up at that particular magazine, but I found myself running a blog at a publication the likes of which I never dreamed of working at. Luck has been on my side, but I’ve also worked myself silly — just like I always have — and I’m good at what I do, which doesn’t hurt. And I realize now that I was actually underestimating my own potential when I answered that doofus’ question. And I did it on purpose. I didn’t want to sound arrogant. I wanted him to like me. But my demure response was not demure enough for him.
I am not a confident person. There are a million things about myself that I can’t even pretend to feel good about. But thanks to that one horrible date, I’ve never again failed to be proud of my work and the progress I’ve made in my career.
Living well really is the best revenge. But since I’ll never speak to that random date again, throwing my beer in his face probably wouldn’t have hurt.
