'Memba Them?

My sister dated for a pretty long time. While not as long as I have, enough to rack up a terrifying amount of blind dates. 

We all like to think that we evolve, that we are nice people, and that if we have ever failed in that inner belief, we pray, oh, how we pray, that the offended party has, please please please, forgotten about it. 

As my sister and I strolled leisurely on a Shabbos afternoon, I told her about a dating nightmare, which was all the more shocking since he had a prestigious position in a hotzy-totzy law firm; it wasn't like he was just shoved out into the world and was not yet schooled in common courtesy. 

"Oh, I learned that early on—all of the hot-shot lawyers I went out with were . . ." 

Her entertaining sagas come spilling out. 

"And that was nothing compared to the eye surgeon . . ."

A first date shows up at the appointed street corner and says, "Didn't you see me coming?" This was before FB, mind you; "I was supposed to say hello to every man wearing a kapul?" 

Then there was the prince who abandoned her on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street (twenty years ago!) in the dead of night, despite the fact that she had driven into the city to make his life easier. 

Then there was the one who was so absent-minded that she thought she was going to lose him in the next manhole. 

I laughed with her as we dissected these tales, disbelieving that these man-children somehow wed. 

After every date, I fret over every little thing I said, wondering if I had given a negative false impression of myself.

But after rehashing such episodes, I always think, I couldn't have left such a terrible, unforgettable impression as these guys did.