Yak Balls

So last night I'm out with a couple of my former sorority sisters and one of them, Karra, is getting ready for a date the next afternoon (it was a lunch date because Karra's so popular she already had plans for the evening and other plans in the afternoon). Any talk of first dates naturally comes back to bad first dates, and oh my god have I had some doozies. The worst of these (which I am sharing here completely out of context at the insistence of LeeAnne who point blank told me my blog wasn't funny, but she would read it if this story was on it) is:

The Saga of the Yak Balls
(This one goes on to KJ and LeeAnne)

So like most everyone in these modern times I too am a casual internet dater. Meaning I go to one site and occasionally will chat with people there, and occasionally will go on dates with the people I chat with. I don't have a lot of patience for the crazies and the politics of online dating, but I don't have a lot of patience for the crazies and politics of any kind of dating. I'm getting a bit sick of it all at this point, because it's become clear that online dating has an over-abundance of wunder-geeks with peter pan complexes who wouldn't know what to do with a girl even if they were given an instruction manual written in programming code. Witness the fact that I had an actual boyfriend that I met on this site who never once in the entire time we were dating, including the first time I saw his apartment, cleaned his room because he "wanted me to know what he was really like". Apparently he was really a fucking slob. He also had two outfits total, one of which was a hoodie that said "I'm a rocker. I rock out." and the other was a t-shirt that said "I'm a rocker. I rock out." Clever boy.

BUT. We are not discussing him, gentle readers, we are discussing Yak Balls. My point in relating this initial piece is that in general it seems like many of the man-boys that one meets online haven't quite mastered the art of adulthood. They haven't even been able to free sketch the turtle on the back of the brochure to get into the art school of adulthood (that was a strangled metaphor, and you're welcome to call me on my cell phone to explain it to you).

So, back to the Saga of the Yak Balls. So I arrange to meet a gentleman who I have been speaking with for about a week for dinner. He picks the restaurant, a Tibetan place on Grand Ave that's known for serving exotic meats, like yak, goat, etc. He's been there before and speaks highly of the food, and I'm always willing to try something new and delicious. It's a first date in the late spring and I want to make a good impression (as always), so I wear a pair of black pants, a black tank top, and funky necklace and a little denim jacket. I look put together but not overly formal. It should be noted that I firmly believe in first impressions, and taking the time to attire oneself appropriately indicates that the meeting is important to the person because time and care were taken over one's appearance. I arrive at the restaurant and am sort of standing around, waiting for him, when I hear someone call my name. I turn around and I literally have to keep myself smiling and walking. The effort is massive, because this is what I am faced with: for our first date, the first time he meets me in public, the hero of our story chooses to wear cutoff shorts whose identity as denim or khaki was obscured by a plethora of paint spots which suggested he came straight to our date from working the paint mixer at Home Depot. Above the aforementioned shorts was a T-shirt with the Native American figure of Kokopelli and a tagline that read something like "Santa Fe, New Mexico" or "Kokopelli Festival 2003". Below the shorts was the horror of horrors, Teva sandals buckled over black socks. Who honestly thinks this is a good look other than fathers in 50's sitcoms? He is shirt was tucked in, so it was apparent to me that he actually did look in the mirror and think "Yeah, this works". Suffice it to say my first thought was not "I'd hit that."

This outfit was a cavalcade of horrors, but I spent a good 15 minutes of the date wondering which one was worse. It was like a neck and neck 3 way tie over which item I hated more. Eventually I had to give up, it was just too hard to decide. So we sit down, and immediately I realize that he is a Sweaty Man, the kind that sweats for no apparent reason while those around him are comfortable in sweaters and jackets. I can understand being nervous on a date, but this spoke to some sort of medical condition. I watched in horrified fascination as he proceeded to sweat his way all through dinner, so profusely that it was literally dripping down his face. How do you eat watching that? You don't, that's how, and here's why it's easy: I had never been to the restaurant before, so I naturally asked him what was good. We didn't have any other goddamn thing to talk about, so we had one of those painfully awkward conversations about what we were going to have. So when I ask him what's good he immediately says "The Yak Balls."

Now what do you think when someone says Yak Balls to you? You think he's talking about Yak Testicles, which is exactly what I thought. The fact that he continued to explain that they were more like ground Yak dumplings didn't mitigate the fact that I felt in my heart that what I had been told to order for dinner was the gonads of a Yak. But I ordered them, nonetheless, as he had suggested them and I felt it would seem rude and unadventurous of me to decline, and I am neither rude or unadventurous. We continue to sit in sweaty, uncomfortable halting conversation until the food comes (he was sweaty, I was uncomfortable). I should say halting, because everytime I tried to talk I was halted by more words from him. The man would not shut up. He just kept talking and talking and talking and for the life of me I could not get a handle on anything he was saying. He was so boring that I had forgotten how to understand English- I'm sure it was an instinctual coping mechanism. Now I don't wear a watch, but I found myself continually checking my naked wrist, to the point where it seemed like a tick. I went to the bathroom for a while to kill some time, hoping he might just leave, but there he was, grinning like an idiot upon my return.

Then the food came.

I cannot express to you my disgust with the Yak Balls. It should be noted that I eat raw meat, oysters, snails, truffles, frogs legs, and have been known to eat a deep fried worm on a dare (Ali...). None of these can compare to the culinary trauma that was the Yak Balls. They tasted like someone had taken ground pork, put it in a used sweatsock, boiled it in salty water, then wrapped it is gelatinous tasteless dough. Yummy. So I'm picking at my Yak Balls, and he looks over and says "Is something wrong?" Where do I begin to address the number of things that were wrong at this point? I settle for telling him that despite my best intentions, Yak Balls are not for me. He pays the check (thank God) and asks for a box, so he can take the Yak Balls home with him.

We decide to go on a walk around the neighborhood (or rather he decides, at this point I am resigned to my silent participation in the Date That Will Not End). We walk around a bit, him trying to take us farther and farther from the cars, me trying desperately to pull us back in that direction. After what easily seems like a decade of small talk, we thankfully arrive at the cars and I praise Jesus that the Sweaty Man does not go in for a kiss. I thank him for dinner and get in my car. I do not say anything along the lines of "this was nice", "we should do it again sometime", "give me a call". I am not a man. I do not "spare feelings" by lying. I just get in my car and drive home.

Once home, I change into my grubbies and then do a quick email check. Not fifteen minutes after we say goodbye Sweaty Man has sent me an email, in which he talks about what a great time he had, and how much he enjoys our rapier-quick banter. He must have been listening into another table, because the only rapier I remember was the one I was imagining plunging into his eye just to get him to shut the hell up for a minute. Finally he mentions that he would love to get together to watch a DVD. Now, everyone knows that "watching a DVD" is code for "coming over to make out in the dark". This is a) not a second date activity and b) not something I would be engaging in with Sweaty Man in easily the next billion years. How was this the guy that called me right away, that imagined chemistry great enough to suggest I would even kiss him on the cheek, let alone repeatedly and in my home? I had to put an end to it right there. I wrote him back and said that while he seemed like an interesting person, I wasn't particularly interested in seeing him again. I thanked him again for dinner and said goodbye. He wrote me back to say that while the outcome wasn't what he hoped, he appreciated my honesty. (Side note: Boys, let that be a lesson to you: if you don't want to date us, for God's sake just say it. We're not going to like it, but it's better than the Uber-limbo of the lie "I'll call you sometime" .)

At least he could take comfort in the left over Yak Balls.