“Curly, why don’t you have a date tonight?” asked Willie his best friend. They found themselves at Willie’s family’s thanksgiving dinner, and Curly happened to be the only one without a date.

“Well it’s thanksgiving today, and everybody’s busy with their own families. Don’t try to give me a hard time. You know how I get when I’m trying to meet someone new. I’m picky sometimes.” Curly responded.

Willy’s girlfriend Gina changed the subject. “Curly, have you seen our baby yet?”

“You don’t have a baby.”

“Yeah Willy and I are a mommy and daddy now. We got a German Sheppard last week.”

“That doesn’t count. Not only did you not birth that thing, it has a tail. Do you call everyone with the same last name you meet your sister? They actually probably are more your sister than that dog is your son.”

“Whatever Curly don’t be in a bad mood cause you can’t get a date. If I were you I would spend a little less time being picky and a little more time on being likable yourself.”

“Maybe I will, as long as any date of mine doesn’t think she’s a mom for having a pet that takes an hour a day worth of care. That’s about as big of a pet peeve as it gets for me. I might be able to put up with a sneezer, or a foot tapper, even a close talker, but never that. Okay Gina, you know what you might be right. I’ll try to meet some new girls and cut them a bit more slack than I normally do. Plus hey, I might even get myself a date for your Christmas dinner”, Curly replied.

“Ha-ha! Good luck with that one,” Willie said laughingly, “the day I see you with a girlfriend you can stand for more than three dates will be the day you can read peoples minds.”

Curly wanted so badly to prove his friends wrong. Where better for Curly to meet somebody then at his favorite bar Shenanigans? After about an hour or so of pregaming with Brew the bartender, an absolute bombshell walks in. Curly already knows he has to try and talk to her. He knew he could put up with her a bit more using the fact that she looked like a supermodel as her slack. Curly introduces himself with a smile. She seems to be a little impressed with him, especially after he told her he was a stand up comic. She introduced herself as Brooke. After talking a while, Curly became more and more interested in asking her on a second date. Right before he could ask though, she turned away and sneezed the loudest, masculine, man sneeze he had ever heard. Curly was astonished. He thought to himself “I could find a way to put up with that. I mean this is a pretty run down bar. I’m sure there’s a lot of dust in the air. Its Completely acceptable.” He decided he could give her another shot. She was gorgeous and totally worth the extra effort, even for Curly.

Now of course she has to walk away and leave the table to wash her hands, or at least grab a napkin. Of course not. That would be way too cleanly. Instead she acts as if there weren’t a pound of snot in her palms and chooses to wipe them under the table. Curly being the germaphobe he is, he just cant let it go.

“Did you really just wipe your snot all over your skirt?” Curly accuses his date. She was speechless.

“Are you kidding me?” she responded. Her face reddened. Curly sat embarrassed for her even though he didn’t do anything wrong.

“Yeah you heard me. You sneezed that monster out of your nose and proceed to wipe it clear across your legs. How am I supposed to hug you goodbye knowing your skirt might stick to me, or shake your hand knowing I might contract swine flu?”

“Wow Curly,” Brooke responded,” You have to be the biggest jerk I’ve ever met. First of all the seasons are changing which is why my nose is a bit stuffy. Second, I do not have swine flu. And last, I put my napkin on my lap just like any other person with good table manners would. I tried to be discrete as possible while wiping my hands off.”

Curly was stunned. He had no idea what he had done. Finally a girl with amazing looks and legitimate table manners walks away from him all because he jumped to conclusions too fast. Curly realized he had to stop being so picky and accusing and be a little more lenient with dates.

Curly decided he wanted something more than just a bar date. He needed someone he could have more in common with than the average bar chick. The best chances were online. E-Harmony at that. Curly had to change up a few things about himself on the application though. Body type: Long Tan and Handsome. This is clearly a lie because he had the hair of a clown and the skin tone of an egg. Personality: funny and outgoing. This described his party life, not so much his dating life. The last part of the application asked Curly the type of women he was interested in. He filled in, “I’m looking for a tall, cute, brunette who isn’t annoying in any way.” He figured he was done with the application after that part, so he went ahead and clicked submit. Within days his inbox filled up. After sorting through his response letters, he was finally ready to see a Taylor. She described herself exactly how Curly wanted. They decided to meet up at Frank’s Italian Restaurant for dinner the next night. Curly thought he had it in the bag this time.

After five minutes of waiting at the table by himself for his dream girl to show up, an unfamiliar, spiked haired guy with chin pubes walked up to the table.

“Why hello there! Are you Curly?” the man says to the confused comic.

“Uh. Yeah I’m him. Do I know you from somewhere?” Curly replied. The man laughed in a high pitch and did the little maneuver slyly putting his hand on Curly’s shoulder.

“Yeah silly, hopefully you know me from your inbox! I’m Taylor.” The very misunderstood date said to Curly as he opened his arms out for a hug. Curly’s face changed from confusion to one of utter disappointment. For some reason though Taylor had no idea this had all been a mistake. He then explained to Curly how long it’s taken him to find a good date on account of skipping parts of the application.

“Yeah, when you fill your application out you have to go all the way through or else they just fill your blanks in for you with anything,” Taylor showed him. Curly was more embarrassed than ever before and Taylor was yet to pick up on it. Before he knew it he was drinking a cosmopolitan with his male date. He insisted about telling Curly how his favorite movie was Brokeback something as if he needed to give Curly another hint. As friendly as Taylor was, he had to get out of this situation as fast as possible. He kept trying to fit his two cents into this conversation but Taylor kept going on about how much he liked karaoke and leather pants.

“Hi. Sorry I didn’t get much time to explain myself since you’ve been chatting my ear halfway off since we met. I’m Curly and as much as you may think this is a date. This is very far from one my friend. I like listening to the real artists sing their songs, sweatpants, and Bud Light, a real man’s drink. I’m more straight than the jacket they put on crazy people. You may be one of them.” Curly so rudely finished off his date right then and there. He never believed he would strike luck with a date. He could hardly attract the right gender.

Curly almost gave up on dating all together in frustration. He figured he would just continue on with his life and everything would fall into place. He began on his morning jog through the city and sees a great looking girl from a block away walking her dog. Curly finally caught up with her and introduced himself. Her name was Dana. She had long legs, dark hair, and a great sense of humor. That was always a bonus for Curly being a comic. They decided to head over to Smoothie King for a protein shake. She was extremely easy to talk to, expressed her hate for karaoke, and how her favorite movie was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Curly fell in love. She even sneezed into her hands and got up and washed them without hesitation. He was so excited he had to take her out on a date with Willie and Gina to show her off. She was more than happy for a second date, so Curly thought it was about time to invite her to Willie’s Christmas dinner.
“Isn’t she awesome?” Curly tried to explain to Willie and his girlfriend.

“Yeah, she seems real sweet.” Gina responded while Dana came back from the bathroom,” Her story about trying to save that neighborhood dog almost brought me to tears.” Curly had already heard the story and didn’t put much thought to it. Thank goodness Dana had to leave the table before he could finish the story. Willie and Gina happened to keep going on about how they couldn’t find their dog while she was gone. Curly continued to get fed up with all this dog talk.

Dana sat back down from the bathroom and started picking at her green beans.

“So we forgot to ask you two, how did ya’ll meet?” Willie asked the new couple. Dana looked at curly and told him she would tell the story.

“Well, it started the other morning when I was taking my dog, Precious, on a walk.” She stopped and paused for a second with the biggest grin Curly had ever seen. “Oh my goodness, I never showed you pictures of my dogs!” Willie and Gina were so excited while Curly sat there getting a little weirded out,”This one’s Precious, and Lovely, and Sweetheart. I feel like I could go for days.” At this point Curly was getting aggravated with all the attention she put on her dogs. “I was just so happy the day Princess was born. It was that day I became a mommy!” Curly had had enough.