That's Not Your Brother

When it comes to dating, I feel like the poster child for #aloneonFridaynight. Not only do I live in a small retirement town where the average age is "oh man, everyone's old enough to be my grandfather," but I'm also a lesbian. Typically, finding any sort of romantic connection feels completely impossible. The few times that I have found someone, they were "just looking" or "wanted to experiment." I'm not a science project, thanks.

Even then, those were all just annoyances. Despite me naïvely thinking that every date, no matter how bad, gave me some kind of experience point to my very low dating score, none of it could've possibly prepared me for #MyWorstDate ever.

I've been an avid user of a popular matchmaking site for many years now, so I've seen all the “women who like women” come and go in my area, with or without actually making a connection with them (hey, sometimes those profiles don't speak to me, you know?). So when someone new steps into the pool, I'm automatically intrigued.

When Claire (not her real name) popped up in my matches, I was not only intrigued by her photos, but how much we seemed to have in common. Nerd? Check. Likes cats? Double check. Isn't afraid of puns? She sent back some good emojis when I told her that bounce houses were expensive due to inflation. Triple check!

I was excited when she asked me out to a local restaurant after a few weeks of flirting over texts. I've always been a romantic, so of course as I got ready on that Saturday afternoon, I was idly daydreaming about love at first sight, of us not being able to keep our eyes from each other and talking late into the night.

Reality is always such a slap in the face.

I'm one of those people who is never on time—I'm early. So it wasn't too much of a surprise that I got to the restaurant before Claire showed up. The place was actually right near the beach, which would have been amazing, except it was horribly windy and I couldn't watch the sunset without getting sand in my eyes. And of course I'd left my sunglasses in the car!

A half an hour—twenty minutes past our agreed meeting time—went by before someone unrecognizable tentatively walked up to me and said my name. “Yes?” I replied just as cautiously.

“It's me, Claire.”

I realize that many, many people edit their photos and nobody looks like their profile pic. It's practically a given these days, but the difference in Claire's profile pic and seeing her in person was...staggering, to say the least.

But hey, I'm not a shallow person. Once I got over the surprise, I still figured this could go somewhere. I just had to get used to the real person in front of my face and not the profile I'd been chatting with. She even apologized about making me wait, citing that it was traffic. Totally understandable.

Until a guy a foot-and-a-half taller than her stepped up to us.

“This is my, uh, brother,” Claire explained. “He wanted to come with us.”

Had I been less besotted by my lovey-dovey daydreams, it would've hit me that Claire and this guy looked absolutely nothing alike.

“That's fine!” I was pretty sure my smile didn't reach my eyes. And sure, of course it was! I could absolutely understand wanting someone with you if you met a person you only knew from online. There were all sorts of weirdos out there.

...Except that usually the “chaperone” didn't stick around for the whole date, especially when it was incredibly clear that I was the same person, not to mention that we were in an extremely crowded public place. But hey, there's always exceptions to these things.

The restaurant was jam packed, and despite Claire assuring me that she'd made a reservation, nobody could find hers and she didn't really seem all that interested in having the hostess double-check. She suggested we take a walk on the pier while we waited for a table to open up.

Great idea! What could be more romantic than watching the sunset over the waves? Except for the fact that the dozens and dozens of other people still waiting for a table as well had the same idea.

It was still really windy and getting cold, which made conversation impossible. I tried to stand close to Claire, both for body heat and to maybe put some romantic thoughts in her head, but her brother was standing on the other side of her and she leaned in closer to him. Right. Well, at least this was a lovely place, even if I was wearing a skirt and constantly had to readjust myself so that I wouldn't pull a Marilyn Monroe.

Over an hour later, we finally got a table...in a crammed little corner that barely fit the three of us right next to the kitchen. The staff was so loud that I could barely hear myself think, nevermind try to talk to Claire. We were delegated to small talk about the menu and had to shout to get the waitress to hear our orders.

All of this could have been salvageable, especially since the food was pretty good. I could understand a busy restaurant, the fact that Claire seemed nervous, and that she wanted someone there in case I turned out to be an ax murderer. Plus, the weather wasn't her fault at all. I had to look on the bright side here.

The notion of doing any of that immediately started slipping away when Claire suddenly pushed her chair back away from the table—almost knocking over a waitress—and puked all over the floor, narrowly missing my shoes.

I have still never heard a room go into such a deadly silence so quickly as it did then.

Gradually, people pointedly looked away and the hubbub started up again. They moved our table so someone could clean, and the whole time, Claire seemed like she was in total shock. I kept asking if she was okay, if she wanted to leave, did she want to reschedule?

I will never forget the way my gut plummeted with what happened next.

Claire turned to her brother, eyes wide. “The pregnancy test must have been wrong! We're going to be parents!”

Error 404, logic not found, ha ha ha, I don't want to live on this planet anymore, what?!?

The two of them exchanged some hushed, excited whispers, and I was left wondering if I needed to call the cops. Eventually, Claire finally realized that, oh yeah, there was a third person here and I had been shocked into some parallel universe where things were completely insane.

“So, uh, he's not actually my brother,” she explained.

Oh. Oh God. At that moment, I was so relieved that I didn't even feel like questioning why someone who claimed that she was a lesbian on her dating profile had a boyfriend. Luckily—or maybe unluckily—she kept explaining.

“He's okay with me having a girlfriend, but he wants to make sure she's good enough for me. I was hoping I could find somebody before I got pregnant.”

This, despite the fact that she'd never given any indication that she was already in a relationship, despite that my profile said that I was strictly monogamous, despite the fact that, if things had continued, I would have eventually found out that this guy wasn't her brother?

“Well, uh, not interested,” I finally managed to say as I gathered my stuff. “Congrats, but I'm gonna go. Thanks for dinner.”

I barely remember driving home that night since I was still so shocked. I blocked Claire's number and profile and tried to put the whole thing out of my mind, which has worked pretty well so far.

But now, on the rare occasions another girl appears in the dating pool, you can bet I triple-check to make sure she doesn't have any “brothers” before we go out!