The penguins will have to wait, and you need a therapist.

Hi. It's Friday night. I am not out on a date right now, even though I had a date scheduled with a seemingly very nice, successful, sweet, emotionally-open, intelligent guy who, depending on his eventual reponse may forthwith be referred to as a selfish, sizest, money-obsessed asshat. You will, of course, be required to agree me wholeheartedly in either case. (I will let you know as soon as I figure out which one he is.)

We had plans to the see the March of the Emperor Penguin movie, and he more or less blew me off when a friend (male, he claims, unless the friend is actually a girl named "Chad-" it could happen) rolled into town unexpectedly. He broke our date with a somewhat chilly email titled "The pengiuns [sic] will have to wait."

Oh-kay.

I emailed him back, saying I understood that these things happen, but I have to wonder if he's just blowing me off. In his original email, he said he was going out of town for a week starting tomorrow and said we could "maybe set something up" later. Most importantly, he did not apologize. He signed it "all the best." I was out of the dating scene for 6.5 years, but even I know that "all the best" does not bode well.

Now I'm a little worried that I was too harsh in my response. This was the first draft:

"F*ck off, you f*cking f*ck face. Sorry, my friend Gwen suggested I use that as my opener. I hope that big pile of money keeps you warm at night. There was a reason Scrooge McDuck was a bachelor.
All the best right back at ya,
Crestfallen Penguin"
(Special thanks to Gwen for writing most of it.)

My actual response was much, much nicer. No, really. It was. I promise.

This is the second Friday night in a row this has happened. I was supposed to go to Cosi with Aunt Flo last Friday, but he cancelled at the last minute because he decided he needed a therapist instead of a girlfriend.
Which is all well and good, in the end. At least tonight I managed to pull together last minute plans to hang out with a nice married couple. We went to Friendly's, the preferred chain restaurant of my adolescence.

Anyway, for those of you who are trying to keep track...
Up now? Sketchy Penguin.

On deck? A very nice, bleeding heart liberal law school student who is currently out of the state until the middle of August. We've sent a bunch of emails, and he seems like he might be worth meeting for coffee. However, in the most recent message, he revealed that his father is a former Prophet of Doom who has abandoned his predictions of apocalypse in favor of the pursuit of immortality. Apparently his dad is using himself as a "test case" as he attempts to prove "that one could live forever, physically, given adherence to some vague conditions of which [his son] is unaware." Also, Law School Boy never believed in Santa Claus, as his father thought it was a "Satanic fiction." Perhaps most disturbing of all, Law School Boy has never seen nor heard of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.