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You look out the window as his sleek, luxury car pulls into your driveway. During that casual encounter at a mutual friend’s party, you didn’t really memorize every detail about him.
As you watch him walk up the path to your door, you notice that he is tall, well dressed and looks promising. In fact, he looks so good that you ditch the old dress and pull out something a bit more chic.
He’s polite and deftly opens the car door for you. Since evening traffic is fierce, he’s focused on dodging automotive mayhem until you arrive at the restaurant. It’s a trendy place that you’ve read about in the local paper as being where the action is on Friday night.
“So far, so good,” you think, “this could be a really great date!” And then it happens. From the moment he orders appetizers, he begins to argue with the server. He criticizes the food preparation method and complains about the table location.
In less than ten minutes, he’s gone from charming to crabby right before your eyes. Even after the food issue is settled, he’s still griping about it and recalling every disappointing restaurant experience in his past.
You try to change the subject and he slides into critical mode about the next topic, too. The breadsticks aren’t even cold yet and you realize that you’re on a date with Mr. Obnoxious - what can you do?
If only you could get back home to soak in a warm bath and sip some herbal tea, your evening would improve a hundred percent. The question is, how can you ditch a bad date without being rude or hurting his feelings?
The easy way out is to pretend to be ill and ask to be taken home before you throw up on the leather seats of his prized car. Or you can take the chicken way out by excusing yourself for the ladies room only to keep on walking out the back door to the nearest taxi stand.
That’s not exactly polite, no matter how bored or uncomfortable you may feel. The way to leave a losing date is to be honest. No, you don’t have to call him a crashing bore or a narcissistic irritant and slam the door on the way out.
You can wait for him to take a breath from talking about himself to say, “I can tell that you’re passionate about your job, but I think we’re at two ends of the spectrum here. Want to cut the night short and head on home?”
You’re taking the responsibility for saying that you don’t relate to him so he can accept that as your fault and go on about his egotistical ways. If he’s been drinking, taking drugs or acting in a rage, then don’t let him take you home.
In fact, don’t leave a public place to go anywhere alone with him. Just walk away from him toward a crowd and call a friend or a taxi to pick you up. Going on a date is a two way street - either of you can pull the plug on the date at anytime.
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