Mutt 'n Jeff Part II

This is a continuation of yesterday's post, wherein a guy named Mutt took a made a huge assumption that I was his main squeeze.  He was in the friend zone and didn't even know it.

What made me think of him in the first place was my eavesdropping on two young ladies who were discussing what made a man an undesirable date and therefore an undesirable boyfriend.  The funny part of their story is they were talking about the one girl's brother .  Some of the things they said made me think of Mutt.  He obviously had no clue.  It is also interesting to note that what was true a bazillion years ago is still true today.

What makes a man an undesirable date according to the modern young woman:
He takes you where he wants to go part I.  Apparently the girl's brother takes all his dates to a sports bar rather the girl likes sports, greasy food, and brew or not. Also he isn't attracted to the type of girl who likes sports bars so it is a lose-lose situation. One time the brother took his date to a BBQ place which flopped since the girl was a vegetarian.  It never dawns on him to ask his date where they'd like to go.  This didn't make me think of Mutt because we just went to lunch from work.  We had a limited options and frankly that's how it went when people went to lunch from work.  "I'm going to the Tex Mex place, wanna come?"

He takes you where he wants to go part II.  The brother would take his dates to movies and again not ask their input.  He liked typical guy movies with explosions, superheros, battles and gore.  He always managed to pick inappropriate movies for his dates. One inappropriate movie choice was taking a girl whose brother was a quadriplegic due to a car accident to some smash 'em car chase movie.  The date got up and walked out.  Mutt once asked several of us to a movie after work and I said I could go as long as I was home by 8:00.  I wasn't worried about the content of the movie as my friend Ed (remember him from last post?) and I went to random movies all the time.  Mutt said we were going to see Dances with Wolves which he had seen previously.  At a few minutes to 8 I got up and walked out the movie theater.  Mutt made a huge scene in lobby about how could I not finish the movie?  I told him that straight up I had to be home by 8 and now I was going to be late.  He said he told me what the movie was--like I should have just somehow magically known that it was over 3 hours long.  Dances with Wolves in an inappropriate movie choice if you have time constraints.  Making a scene in the theater lobby until they ask you leave isn't exactly going to win you points on the dating front either.  Another coworker, Mary, was with us and wondered why Mutt vanished.  She knew why I did given the time.

He acts like you can't do common every day tasks.  The brother has a belief that everything he does is superior to the way a girl would do it and that women needed input from him to do it right.  The girls didn't give specific examples but were making jokes like, "No, babe, this is the correct way to brush your teeth." One time a group of us went to lunch and Shanna drove. She barely put the car into reverse when Mutt started hollering about looking out for the cars behind us.  No, there wasn't a car racing down the parking lot; he was talking about the cars parked behind us in regulation parking spots.  You know, like there is in every parking lot everywhere that anyone has ever parked in since they learned to drive.  Yeah, Mutt, I think people know how to back their own car out of a space.  

He plays practical joke at the girl's expense.  The brother once barreled his car through a huge muddy puddle and used the electronic window open to open his date's window so she got thoroughly splashed.  He laughed and laughed at her then spent the evening telling everyone at the sports bar what he had done to her and how funny it was.  In fact, he whooped it up over that for days later.  He was also perplexed when she never spoke to him again.  Mutt played lots of little jokes on people and somehow they were never funny.  One time Mary was working on a document saved to a floppy disk.  He pulled out her disk and inserted a different one that he had slit with scissors.  Of course this new disk didn't work so Mary ejected it and freaked out when she saw the slit in the disk.  Mutt rushed to her aide, telling her to bring the disk to the computer lab so he could fix it.  We figured he'd muddle around a bit and give her the original disk back.  That would have been funny.  Mary was really freaked out about it so it was obvious the joke couldn't be taken much further, but oh no, he did.  First he dropped it and ran it over with an office chair.  He then put scotch tape on the disk and set it on fire (to "weld" it back together) which of course ruined the disk.  Mary was in tears.  Mutt didn't stop there. I don't know what else went on but another guy from the department called us to come get Mary.  She was upset, sobbing, and inconsolable.  Mutt wouldn't give back her original disk even after we demanded it back saying it was all a joke gone wrong.  He kept insisted her disk was the melted one.  Mary did eventually get it back  Mutt laughed and laughed about that incident, told everyone what a lark it was and brought it up for weeks afterward.

So there you have it, four things that make a man undesirable as a date, boyfriend, or significant other.  Obviously the brother is hopelessly single as of this writing.  There is no telling about Mutt, but I'm willing to bet that he's lonely and bald somewhere on this planet.  Now that I've thought of him and written about him I can go back to forgetting he existed.

The Fine Print: I often wondered if we turned Mary into a computer-phobe after that.  Peacock cards from Club Scrap from the non-inappropriately named kit "Peacock."