Page 36 of It's Not PMS, It's You

A couple of sips of my iced tea and I was out of there.

Barney stared at me, frowning. “I don’t know if I’m imagining this or not, but I seem to be getting a very negative vibe at our table.”

Nooooooo. You don’t say.

“What gives?” He gestured to me and then back to himself. “I mean, we have so much in common and it’s easy to talk to you.”

I choked on my iced tea.

He shrugged. “What’s your beef with me?”

I wiped my mouth and set down my napkin. “That! You’re obsessed with relating everything you talk about to food.”

“I’m a chef! Chefs talk about food!”

“But are youreallya chef? Come on.”

“A pastry chefbakes,” he repeated. “Bagels are—”

“Baked. I know. And you said you were a restaurateur. Where did you get that from?”

“Iama restaurateur.”

“You own a bagel shop, Barney. You even said so yourself.”

“Potato, potahto—”

“I was very clear that I was looking for a man who was upfront with me. Did you even look at my dating profile? Or did you just look at the pictures?”

He considered the question and scratched his chin. “Here’s the thing . . . it’s like when I go to the movies, I rarely watch the trailers ahead of time because it spoils the experience since they always show the best parts. It’s the same thing with the online profiles. I would rather skip all the words and sentences and descriptions because people write whatever they want on those things anyway. I mean, I put long-term relationship, but I’m totally okay with something more casual, if you know what I mean.”

“At least you’re finally coming clean about your dishonesty. Is that what you want? Do you wantme? Can you see us together?”

He leaned forward, like he thought I was asking seriously.

What a douchebag.

“Oh, yeah. I can picture us together. I’mverygood at visualizing.”

“Well then . . . picture me walking out of here without you and never seeing you again. Can you picture that?”

“I prefer not to.”

“You don’t have any other choice.” I opened up my purse, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and dropped it on the table. “Good luck, Barney.” I stood and walked toward the door.

“You forgot your free bagel!” I heard him call out as I cut between a few tables and practically sprinted toward my car in the parking lot.

“What a waste of time,” I mumbled to myself as I got in my car and put on the seatbelt.

I don’t like wasting time.

When I wanted something, I made a plan.

I went for it.

And I always got it.

I wanted love, but I wasn’t off to a good start.