Destruction Most Beautiful

Twenty-Two Dates and Four Kisses

Patrick — The Man Who Had It But Didn’t Know It

I agreed to meet him to prove to myself that yes, I can go on a date with a guy who is ugly, to try to prove to myself that I am not superficial. He was ugly in a kind of way that was almost attractive. He was nicely dressed. His trouser legs were very drainpipe’ey.

I tried valiantly to find common ground. He kept going back to the topics on which we disagreed (politics, for example) while I was trying to move on to a topic on which we agreed. I would’ve kissed him — he had a kind of nice energy if only he’d kept his mouth shut — when we hugged on parting but he didn’t make his move.

I sent him a mail thanking him for a pleasant coffee meeting.

He waited THREE WEEKS to respond.

“Never wisen up a chump,” my ex-husband used to say.

I wanted to tell Patrick that seven days is an aeon in the life of a hot chick and give him some dating tips. Even though he was desperately irritating, I felt a motherly urge to help him. He wrote that he was leaving the…