Name: Cumin Man
Introduction Platform: Bumble
Age: 59
Relationship Status: Divorced 2ish years, two adult daughters both living in big cities
Job: Some kind of tech marketing, but unemployed
Lives: Like two miles from me
Length of Date: 1.5 hours
We Did: Drinks in a nearby hotel bar (??!!). I thought this was weird. He lives so close to me and there is this big shopping and entertainment district where he’d suggested we meet, which is totally fine because there are many, many restaurants and bars and other places we could meet. It was just weird to me that he wanted to meet at the lobby bar inside the Westin Hotel? I mean, there are worse places, but it literally felt like I was on a business trip. There were dozens of businesspeople who were clearly on business trips and we were sitting there like we were just happy houring together at the bar after a days’ work. Fine. No biggie. Except I did kinda make a deal of it, calling the above fact out. Oh well.
He Looked: Whoa. The dude was way jacked (as in, ripped…as in, lots of veiny muscles in his arms). I could see it because he was wearing a decent short sleeved tee. I was surprised to see such veiny muscles. His photos make him look like a thin-ish, bespectacled, borderline nerdy but very healthy guy who knows how to dress nicely. I went back and looked at all of his photos. They were all of him in long sleeves and long pants or jeans. Not a dealbreaker AT ALL. In fact, it made me know that he takes care of his body. But it also made me feel like maybe he was more of a meathead than his photos let on? But more than how he looked, I should add a subcategory here - How He Smelled: When I got to the “hotel bar” where he was sitting, he went in for an introductory hug and he smelled just like I’d opened a giant package of cumin! It was an overwhelming smell and it actually kind of gagged me! This morning I Googled “When someone smells like cumin” and what do you think turned up? B.O. That’s what turned up! The dude has major body odor. And what could likely cause that? It could be that he eats weird food (though we discussed diets, see below), but I’m thinking maybe it’s the workout gym rat thing and all the stuff that goes with it - supplements, etc? Maybe he’s a big testosterone dude? I wouldn’t put it past him. Anyway. I digress…
I Looked: Black flirty dress with full and fluttery skirt that I’ve had for ages. I bought it maybe 15 years ago in Shoreditch, London and it’s served me quite well. And with my newly thinner bod I was really feeling myself before I left. If you know me on IG, you may have seen my selfie in my stories. Yes. Feeling that good about it.
Convo: So before I talk about convo, I want to talk about something that really rubbed me the wrong way in the literal sense. As I went to sit down, and you know I was wearing a shorter skirt, as I lifted my leg to take a seat on the barstool, Mr. Cumin reached out his hand and rubbed his finger along my VERY FRESH SCAR from my still-healing skin cancer surgery! It’s still a very sensitive and it sent like a little shock through my body as he touched it! Like, WTF dude?! And the fact of the matter is, it’s on my fucking THIGH! Like, what on earth gives you the balls to think it’s okay to touch my thigh before I even sit down?! Was I inviting that touch with the fact that I’d worn a shorter skirt that exposes said scar? Maybe to someone who freaking KNOWS me. But this dude just nonchalantly reached over and rubbed my fresh damn stitched up leg!! It shocked me, but I don’t think I let it show. I settled in and we got to talking. It was a decent conversation until he started talking about his divorce. Maybe I should mention the fact that this guy is South African? Or maybe it doesn’t matter? But I’ve had interesting experiences with South African men and they all seem to stem from anger issues. Granted that’s ONLY been my personal experience, but it’s what I know of men from SA, so I hope I’m not offensive when I say this. I just…have that bias. Anyway, his divorce sounded brutal and he was clearly still angry about it. But then he talked about his brothers’ divorces (he came from a family with FIVE boys), and sounded even angrier. This is the stereotypical South African misogyny that I’ve come to know coming out. THEN he was wearing some kind of sports bandage on his arm and I asked him about that and he got real angry about that too and told me the story of a botched surgery and how he was pissed about that and how messed up his arm/nerves are now. And then I tried to turn the conversation to health and diet and nutrition - he clearly eats healthy (at least he LOOKS like he does, although he smells pretty rotten) and we almost got into an argument about red meat and the fact that I don’t eat it! It was a weird conversation all around, but it wasn’t combative or super tense - it was just…I don’t know. Odd. At odds. Odd.
High Point: The yummy non-alcoholic sparkling minty lemonade drink
Low Point: The smellz. I will never whiff Mexican food in the same way!
How It Ended: He finished his bourbon straight up and called it. Almost mid conversation he was like, “Okay. Why don’t we end here?” Fine. Good. Again, nothing ugly about it. Just. Done.
Chances Are: No. Though I thanked him for the drinks and sent him a link to something we’d chatted about after we said goodbye, he didn’t respond.
Date Rating: D-
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