Adam. Oh, Adam. My very first date on Match. Being my first attempt at getting back in the dating game, saying I obsessed over what to wear was an understatement. If I had any idea that the date would last no more than 20 minutes, I would have saved myself some time and discomfort and worn my PJs.

I will never forget him. Not because he swept me off my feet, or because we had some magical romance that changed my life. I will never forget him because the level of sheer rudeness he managed to muster in the span of 20 minutes was so shocking it was burned into my brain. Because of him I nearly ran home and cancelled my subscription that same night.

I should have known a little better. Anyone who refused to speak on the phone, only preferred communicating via text, and cancelled our first Saturday evening dinner date two hours in advance to reschedule for Sunday afternoon coffee should have immediately thrown up a red flag for me. Speaking to Adam was like being on a game show, with an endless stream of questions coming in. Now I enjoy a good round of questions when you are trying to get to know the basics about a person but this is best done in person, not through 100 rapid fire emails. Plus, I never knew if I had the right answers. His first email started with complimenting me on my seemingly “sunny disposition” and that I could not possibly be from Florida because I looked too sweet and sincere to be a Floridian. Being naturally cynical, I couldn’t decide if he was joking or if he meant it so in the interest of giving this online dating thing a fair shot I took him seriously.

So what went so wrong? Walking up to the coffee shop, I spotted him sitting on a bench outside. By the way, it has to be said that coffee dates are for losers. Coffee dates are what you do when you are so unsure about someone that you can’t even commit to sitting across a dinner table from them for an hour and a half. Or you are taking so many girls out to dinner that you can’t justify spending money buying an actual meal. Screw your venti latte. When are you buying me dinner? I like steaks or anything with cheese in it.

It wasn’t until he spotted me and stood up that I realized I’d just been duped by a classic online dating mistake: he was short. Really short. Like, six whole inches shorter than me. Short guys don’t necessarily bother me. In fact, the one man I fell in love with from Match (aka, the Married guy… story for another day) was two inches shorter than me. Short guys work harder – at everything. I love a nice short man. But when you state you are two inches taller than me in your profile, you aren’t just short. You are now a short little lying douchelord.

And the voice. Good God, the voice. I now understood his refusal to talk on the phone (yes, he refused when I asked if we could talk before our date). It was as if Gilbert Godfried, Fran Drescher, and that Asian guy from The Hangover were all mixed together in one voice box. It assaulted my ears so badly that I had to try to avoid flinching when he said hello.

We walked over to the line to order some coffee, and he asked me about what I do for work while we waited. I’m not a fan of talking shop, especially on a first date so I kept it short and told him I did marketing and graphic design for an insurance company. I hadn’t made it all the way through my first sentence when I noticed him roll his eyes. I asked him if there was something wrong, and his answer was so shockingly hilarious and rude, that I laughed at first. “By the time you get around to describing what you do, I’m going to NEED this coffee.” He then feigned a fake yawn, as if I was boring him to sleep.

Wait…what?

Am I opposed to a first date kiss? Not at all. In fact, it can be very enjoyable at the end of a nice night in which there is good conversation and mutual attraction. But when a lying, self-centered dwarf forces his tongue down my throat against my will 20 minutes after meeting me, I am opposed. I am VERY opposed. I am even more opposed when he pulls back, gets an arrogant smirk on his face and tells me, “Wow, you need some work on doing that but that’s ok, we’ll practice a lot.” Uh, no the fuck we won’t.

I promptly stood up and told him I was not feeling well and had to go home. He sprang up and said that was a shame, and that he’d had an awful stomach bug that had just ended earlier that day, and he hoped I wasn’t getting it too. He then offered to walk me to my car, but I didn’t answer because I was too busy actually running across the street.

Two days later, as I hugged my toilet bowl after throwing up everything including food I ate in 2007, I cursed Adam’s name and swore I would take this as a hard lesson learned on date number one.

Unfortunately, I still had so many lessons to learn.