Page 32 of Bad at Love
“No one does. They’re always so surprised when I tell them. But like I said, it applies to people too. Maybe people look at, say, you and assume that you’re just coasting along, they don’t know the struggle or what you’ve gone through in the past to get there. They look at this car and they don’t know it was a gift from Daryl.”
“It was never a gift,” he says sharply. “It was a set car and he got it for me to win favors with my mother, to pretend he was a good guy. It didn’t work. That’s why I had to buy it from him. It ate at my soul to drive it around otherwise.”
His jaw is tense. Whether the date is fake or not, this is the kind of topic we talk about when we’re drunk or tired at two a.m., not before a fun evening.
I switch the subject. “Did you know that there’s a queen, the drones and the workers. The drones are the males, who make up a very small percentage of the hive and they have zero purpose except to mate with the queen. They do shit all and when they’re done, the workers, the females, will literally drag them out of the hive and kick them out if they don’t leave voluntarily. They kick them out to die.”
“Is this a metaphor too?”
“Sometimes…”
“Is this what you’d actually talk about on a firstdate?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He raises his brows, gives his head a shake as he glances at me. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah,” I repeat, feeling defensive. “So? It’s interesting.”
“It’s not romantic in the slightest.”
“Romantic?”
“Marina, we’re on a date. A date means you’re interested in someone romantically, hopefully sexually.”
“I can’t talk about the bees? Just the birds and the bees?”
“Cute. But I’m serious. This kind of stuff, as interesting as it is…I don’t know.”
“Well what else am I going to talk about?”
“If you don’t know, then this is your problem. Damn it, Marina, I think I’ve figured you out already and we’ve barely been on the date.”
I cross my arms and huff, “Well gee, we might as well turn this car around and go home because you’ve just solved all my problems.”
He sighs. “Come on.”
“I’m just being myself.”
“It’s a game. The dating world is a game. You can’t show all your cards on the first date.”
“Guys should know who I am and what they’re getting into. If they can’t be supportive of my bees…”
“You’re scaring a lot of them off, okay? I’m sorry that men can be easily scared like that but it’s a fact. We’re the lesser species. If you throw something quirky and scientific their way, that might make you seem like you’re a lot of work. And yes you should be yourself but on a first date, talk about other things.”
“Shallow, boring things?”
“You’re being so stubborn right now.”
“And you think you’re some sort of expert on dating.”
“You know I’m not.”
I give him a steady look.
“I’m not,” he repeats. “But I am a man and you agreed to hear me out. And yes, you’re definitely hot enough for guys to overlook your crazy bee thing and other quirks, but being hot only gets you so far and if the guy doesn’t think he has a chance in hell of getting laid, then he’s going to bail.”
Everything he’s saying is absolutely infuriating, I’m practically grinding my teeth together, my fingers are digging into the seatbelt. “You’re a pig.”
