by Paul Ryan

I love bad dates. I enjoy every horrible minute of them. With each unfortunate event - whether it's me forgetting my wallet, or my drunken bar date picking a fight with an entire softball team - the smile on my face just gets bigger. I know this attitude sounds odd, but I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for enjoying awful dates: I'm an attention whore.

My hobbies and interests aren't always interesting to others, so I prefer to entertain people with true stories. Nothing impresses people more than a great story, and disastrous dates are the best stories of all. Blind dates are especially perfect, because I have yet to be involved in one where the other person wasn't absolutely terrifying. If a thought like, "Sweet mercy, her facial hair is more convincing than mine," pops into my head, I know I've got a winner.

Getting hooked up with a freak completes the most difficult qualification for a satisfying date story. People don't want to hear about unfortunate events. They want to hear about unfortunate people. Jerks, psychotics, cross-dressers, agoraphobics, practicing Nazis; these characters are the sugar added to the blind date coffee. Without them, a story is dull and flavorless. Some bad dates may be caused by a random act of God or a clumsy waiter, but a true villain must be the main character in the story, not just an unfortunate stooge. We must get to know the villain and allow ourselves to hate them with passion and vigor.

I'm not sure if my worst date contained a villain. If I had been hooked up with a serial killer or someone who cheerily admitted to drowning a kitten that morning, the villain tag could have easily been applied. However, that's not usually the case. Everyone has flaws, and most of us spend a great deal of time trying to disguise them. We get so good at hiding our quirks that others can only judge the charade we put on. So how do we spot a villain?

Movies make it seem so simple. "Oh, the villain is the guy in the black hat who's been killing people." Was my date a villain for being, to put it kindly, different? Was I a villain for even considering her one? Is there such a thing as a villain at all? When we turn on the news and see some people receiving awards and others being locked in prison, is there any proof that the incarcerated are actually worse people? Perhaps the idea of villains just has us all jumping to conclusions, desperately searching for a reason why a date was so bad that it ended at 7:30 pm.

Which mine did, coincidentally.

I met Amber on an internet dating website. The fact that the last sentence includes the words "internet dating" should be the first hint of trouble. I'm embarrassed to say I tried internet dating. In fact, I'm terrified to admit it. Internet dating is so defective that no one wants to admit to it. I've never told my friends or family about this date, because I can't figure out how to do so without sounding pathetic. Saying you find dates on the internet is like telling someone you dig through garbage dumpsters. Sure, you can probably find a lot of good, useful, or even valuable items in dumpsters, but no matter how well you rationalize it, you're still digging through garbage.

The general stereotype behind internet dating is either you're so hideous that potential mates are terrified of you, or you're the town whore and everyone else in a 30-mile radius refuses to date you. The whole process seems based on deception and the idea that the farther away someone lives from you, the less likely they'll be to notice your flaws. So if you've gained some weight over the years, you post a photo of yourself from five years ago, and if coitus with you is easier to attain than candy on Halloween, you pretend you're a free soul who doesn't care about society's standards.

I'm neither chunky nor loose in the morals department, but being somewhat anti-social, internet dating just seemed easier to me. Or so I thought. I can't say I hated Amber after meeting her in person, and I can't say she was exactly a villain, but she was very good at deception, to the point where I wasn't sure whether to be horrified or impressed.

Amber seemed nice in our e-mail conversations, and was attractive in her photo. She was small, with strawberry blonde hair and an intriguing smirk. The photo she posted online looked like a glamour photo from one of those makeover places at the mall. Her pouty lips and sharp, glaring eyes caught my interest. She hadn't listed her age on the website, but I mentioned I was 25 years old, and she said that was perfect. I was starting to feel very good about this date. I knew what she looked like and had written back and forth with her a few times. Most promising was the fact that she lived in a rural area two and a half hours from me. I assumed, or rather hoped, that she used the dating website because her rural location didn't allow her to meet many people.

We decided to get together for a matinee showing of a movie, a late afternoon date. If everything went well, we'd continue hanging out all night. It was a long drive to her place, but I had no problem with it as long as I ended up with a good-looking girl on my arm. So on a snowy Saturday afternoon, deep in the dregs of a bitter Wisconsin January, I dug my car out of the remains of the previous night's blizzard and set off for my "blind date" of sorts, armed only with the information and photos Amber had wanted me to see.

After two hours of driving, I left the main highway and descended into the small towns of Wisconsin's countryside. As I drove through the thin roads of each quiet town, few of them surpassing the 100 mark in population, I became increasingly nervous about what I was getting into. Each town of rugged, worn buildings seemed to have few, if any, people in them. When I did pass people, they smiled and waved as if I had known them for years. I wasn't sure if they were just being nice, or warning me that they could give police a good description if I started trouble. I realized I was introducing myself to a small town culture I knew absolutely nothing about.

In big cities, there's young people everywhere. In smaller towns like these, young people don't seem to exist, at least not on their own. In my carefree way of making decisions without thinking them through, I hadn't asked Amber about her living situation. Did she have her own place, or were the stereotypes about rural people living with their parents really true? I was prepared to deal with a less than adequate person as a date, but I hadn't thought about dealing with suspicious parents. How would I feel if I were a father, and my daughter was going out with "some guy" she "met on the internet."

I passed a sign marking 10 miles to Fall River, the town where Amber lived. My grip on the steering wheel tightened. I was no longer optimistic about this date. I didn't want to go through with it at all.

It wasn't until I looked in my rearview mirror that I noticed for the first time what I would look like to these people. My black shirt was tight-fitting, with a light scent of cologne. My dark, high-priced blue jeans were flawless, without even a trace of wear, as if I hadn't done a moment of hard work in my entire life. My button-up overcoat extended nearly to my knees, and made me look like a lawyer. I was dressed like a spoiled city boy who sat behind a desk all day.

"I'm doomed," I said to myself. I was so worried that I was tempted to stop at one of the gas stations and try to find a cowboy hat, or anything that would alter my appearance. The next 10 miles slipped by faster than I wanted, and the car felt like a sauna set permanently on high.

It was 3:30pm when I came to Fall River. I was on "Main Street," but there was nothing "main" about it. This town was barely a town at all. Open space was the one thing the city had in abundance. Steel silos replaced the old wooden and stone buildings I had seen up to this point in my drive. One was marked for a cattle company, another for tractors. A large, square concrete building that looked like a storage center was labeled as the police department.

A mile into the city were houses, all of them aligned on the same street, set closer together than most big city buildings. It was a nice day, but no one was outside. I had seen ghost towns in South Dakota that looked more lively than this one. The businesses in town, mostly small time stores and bars for local drunks, all looked dark and closed. Either everyone had gone to bed at 3 pm, everyone was already drunk at the bars, or the town had been deserted. I desperately hoped for the third option.

Winter was not a good color for this sleepy town, and the deeper I drove, the more it showed. I turned right near the end of town, left at a church, and left again before rolling down my window to make out the numbers on the houses. Amber's was the first house, and the driveway was empty. Getting out of the car, I studied the area for an "escape from an angry father" route before knocking on the door. Nervous, I stared at the ground until someone answered.

Appearing at the door was a young girl who looked of early high school age. She was shy and giggly, and when she smiled, her purple braces showed. Just as I was about to ask if Amber was home, the young girl spoke.

"Hi, I'm Amber."

I twitched involuntarily.

If people could change their physical properties by sweating, I would have oozed into a puddle on the porch and escaped through a sewer grate down the street. Shocked into silence, I stared at her with wide eyes, like a drunkard who had just been punched in the face. All that escaped from my mouth was a barely audible laugh.

Life can be a cruel trickster. If you're nervous about something, and you try to think up as many horrible outcomes as you can, the actual result will almost always be even worse that anything you thought up on your own. This was one of those moments. I had thought up the possibility that she was unattractive, or deranged, or living with protective parents who carried concealed firearms in their own home, but not the possibility of her being too young. What was I supposed to do? Take her to Chuck E. Cheese and pay for Skeeball? This wasn't a date. This was babysitting. Had I just been tricked into watching someone's kid for free?

We had been standing at her doorstep for 30 seconds without me speaking a word, and the situation was getting awkward. I tried moving my jaw up and down, but only a stutter came out. Amber's smile faded, replaced by a look of confusion. I stuttered some more before finally managing to speak my first sentence to her. "Ready to go?" I cheerfully shouted. Certainly, this was not the best opening line for a date. "Hello," "Hi, I'm Paul," or "You look nice" would have been better, but I figured it was more polite than my first instinct, which was to turn around and run like hell. We stepped into my car and I drove away slowly, praying I wouldn't be pulled over by a cop and charged with lolita crimes.

This was the first time it had ever taken me a full two minutes to form a coherent sentence, and it occurred to me that Amber probably thought I was mentally challenged. Not mentally challenged as in, "He's antisocial and weird," but mentally challenged as in, "Is it safe for him to be driving a car all by himself?" In most dates, my goal is to have a good time. With Amber, my goal was to form a series of complete sentences, convincing her by the end of the date that I was a fully-functioning member of society. Unfortunately, my next sentence wasn't much better than the first.

"Soooo, how old are you?" I asked, an obvious look of terror in my eyes. Amber seemed slightly offended by my transparent question, but looked relieved that I was able to speak. She said she was 19. I didn't believe her for a second. Being a trained journalist, I probed further, asking if she had a job or went to school. She said she had no job, and was repeating her senior year of high school. This was one of the details she had neglected to tell me when we talked online. As a result, my third sentence was even worse than my second.

"Do they even get internet out here?" I asked, a little too much frustration in my voice. "I mean, Jesus."

Luckily, she laughed, agreeing it was a small town that she didn't plan to stay in for long. Now that we finally had something in common - our mutual hatred of Fall River - I took full advantage of this fact, spending the next few minutes insulting her hometown in every way possible. The conversation was finally going well, and the more we talked, the more at ease we both became.

"Yeah, so everybody at my school thinks I'm a big slut," Amber suddenly blurted out, with no provocation on my part whatsoever.

Was this a joke? Was I on a candid television show with a camera hidden in the steering wheel? What can you possibly say as a response to something like that? If there's any phrase that's inappropriate for a first date, it's "Hey, I'm a slut." I wasn't sure if she was coming on to me, trying to get a reaction out of me, or trying to end the date. Panic overcame me, and I gave the only response I felt wouldn't get me in trouble.

"Yeah, me too," I said.

Never mind that I hadn't been in any sort of school for two years, and had readily admitted over e-mail that I hadn't gone out with anyone for a while. Amber didn't respond. She only kept staring out the window. I could see her puzzled look in the window's reflection. She had probably expected me to give her sympathy and join her in hating her classmates, but instead I had lobbed her weird comment right back at her. "Yeah," I thought to myself. "Take that, freak."

The rest of the ride to Madison, the location of the nearest movie theater, was quiet. I'm not sure what Amber was thinking about, but I spent most of my time gauging her weirdness against other people I had dated. Her pubescent look and purple braces had her lingering near the top of the list, but the slut comment cemented her as number one. I cursed my luck. Here I was, stuck in a car with some weirdo who I fully expected to either attack me or offer me methamphetamine at some point during the date, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Was she thinking the same thing?

She was first to break our silence, but not until we pulled into the movie theater parking lot. It was to ask if I was paying. She described the hassle she normally had getting carded at movies. Still suspicious of her age, I took advantage of the subject and casually asked if I could see her driver's license photo. I claimed it was to see if she looked like her photo, but it was easy to see I wanted state-certified proof of her age.

Most people are eager to get their driver's license at the age of 16, but Amber had apparently gone three full years without a need to drive anywhere. She had an identification card, but not a license. Her photo on the card looked like a prostitute's mug shot, complete with a grotesque sneer aimed at the camera. This was what the cute sneer in the glamour photo I had seen looked like in real life. I turned the card in the sunlight to inspect for proper watermarks. It was real. I felt a sense of relief for the first time all night, hoping this would be the last time I felt it necessary to card a girl I was dating.

The drive to Madison was 30 minutes, and both Amber and I seemed happy to spend the next few hours in a dark theater where conversation was forbidden. The movie she chose for us was "Meet the Fockers," a selection I immediately despised her for. January is never a good time for movies. The studios use the coldest months of the year to dump bad movies on an unsuspecting public that has little else to do with their time. It was a Ben Stiller movie, and at the time, he was at his greatest point of overexposure. Though I didn't check, I was pretty sure every movie in the cineplex involved him in some way.

I disliked her choice but paid for the movie anyway, less for chivalry than to avoid the embarrassment of a 25-year-old having his date get carded at a PG-13 movie. The theater was crowded, full of middle-aged couples. Though I was three hours from anyone I knew, I slid low in my seat, trying to hide myself. The theater lights dimmed. I did not attempt to put my arm around Amber. She didn't seem to mind. An air of exhaustion had fallen over us when we reached the theater, and the drive had felt like an eternity, so it was only fitting that the movie we were watching was guaranteed to feel like another eternity.

You can always tell a date is going poorly when neither person wants candy or drinks. It's as if not going to the refreshments stand will somehow shorten the date. Neither Amber nor I wanted anything, and she even went so far as to not remove her coat while watching the movie. This made me feel guilty when I put on my own coat afterwards, extending our date by four seconds.

The drive back was rigid and formal. We didn't like each other, and the tension in the car was thick enough to strangle us both. Not a word was spoken the entire ride. Just pure, unspoiled silence. Even the radio, which was low and mumbling, the way an old man would set it when he wanted to doze, didn't soften the discomfort. Our only saving grace was the weather. The cloudy day made it dark early, which meant we had no reason to look at each other. The two of us just stared straight ahead, listening to the remains of the snow on the highway sloshing against the car tires.

Then, just like that, we were at her house. Perhaps not talking made the ride easier, or perhaps God himself had pity and sent us forward in time through a well-placed invisible wormhole. I pulled into her driveway, asking if I should walk her to the door. Surprisingly, she said yes.

Even more surprisingly, she invited me inside, and walked in without waiting for me to respond. Not knowing what else to do, I followed. The scene that appeared before me was one of the most frightening I've ever experienced. I've seen college houses that have never been cleaned. I've seen the apartments of old ladies who have ten cats and are half crazy. I've seen garbage dumps. However, I've never seen a messy house quite like Amber's.

Nothing was on the walls, on shelves, or in cupboards. Everything was on the floor. Everything. VHS tapes, books, pictures, clothing, lamps, pillows, an ironing board, cereal, bowls, CDs, notepads, wire hangers, gigantic posters, hair products, birthday cards, makeup kits, unrefrigerated food, a set of curtains, and large boxes of even more crap. If this had been a basement or a storage room, I wouldn't have been concerned, but this was the living room. There was a couch and a few chairs in the room, but you had to squint to find them. I asked Amber if her family had just moved into the house. They hadn't. On my way to the couch, which was covered with an afghan that I estimated hadn't been washed since the late-1960s, I stepped on something that was either an unused feminine product or a stuffed animal. I dared not investigate.

The only thing not on the floor was the television. Amber's 16-year-old sister sat on the couch, eyes glazed over, staring at the TV. Comically, this girl actually looked older than Amber. She was watching an Amanda Bynes movie. I wasn't sure of the title, but the plot involved her becoming a princess, and having to adjust to life in an elegant castle. The irony was stunning. I never found out the name of the sister, who only gave a knowing glance to me before returning her gaze to the TV.

Amber offered to give me a tour of the house. I took a long look at the living room I was sitting in, and noticed a half-eaten sandwich smooshed into the corner.

"No thank you," I replied.

She insisted, so I followed her into the kitchen. If the filth in this house was a living creature - and I suspected it was - the kitchen was the creature's lair. Every surface area in the room was filled with dirty plates, bowls, and pieces of silverware. The sink was full, the counter was overflowing, and the floor was so cluttered that you could barely see the kitchen tile anymore. There was only a small line to the center of the kitchen that was free of clutter. Even if the cupboards were being used, they couldn't possibly have held all these items. It was an impenetrable fortress of unwashed kitchen products, and I felt like I should have been paying admission just to see it. Like the world's largest ball of twine, this had obviously taken a tremendous amount of time and effort to create. What on Earth did these people do? Buy new dishes every time the old ones got dirty?

At that point, I realized I had forgotten to close my mouth. It was probably hanging near my knees. Amber eyed me suspiciously. "Are you one of those people who has to have everything clean and perfect?" she asked. I laughed.

"No, are you kidding? You should see my place. It's worse," I said, lying through my teeth yet again.

Amber's parents were nowhere to be found. When I asked about them, she said her mother was at a boyfriend's house. I thought about the mess, and it occurred to me that my childhood house would have looked the same way without an authoritative figure around. The mess was terrible, but at least there was an explanation for it. If my parents had split and my mom spent most of her time elsewhere, leaving my brother and I alone, we probably would have trashed our house, too. Most kids were only allowed to keep a messy room, but here, the wreckage had spread throughout the entire house.

I hated to assume, but most of the cause and effect of the entire household seemed clear. With her mom gone, Amber was likely one of the few girls at school who didn't have to sneak off with boyfriends. It was easy to see how her reputation among the kids at school came about. At this point, I suspected Amber was using the online dating service for the exact reason I had always joked about with my friends. No one at her school would go out with her because of her reputation, so she used the dating service to find people who would.

I can't describe how badly I wanted to leave.

What was my duty in this situation? In society, people are supposed to act polite. Would it be bad for me to walk out before the house tour was over? Was it my duty to stay and try to help her improve herself? Did she need to improve, or was I just being a stuck-up jerk?

We've all heard or read about troubled kids, and everyone seems to have an opinion on how to fix those situations, but none of that knowledge helps when you're suddenly planted in the middle of it. The versions played out on television and in movies are unrealistic, but easy for more fortunate people to discuss. We sit around our living rooms, shake our heads at other people's problems, and offer solutions like, "The mother needs to shape up," or "That kid should get a job and get out of there."

Those suggestions are worthless. Who's going to tell the mother to shape up? I certainly wasn't going to wait for her to come home. Who's going to successfully turn Amber into a hard-working student? I was just some guy she was hanging out with, one whom she didn't even seem to like much. Who was I to even complain about her situation for her? This was her home, and maybe she liked it. Who was I to claim her situation was bad? People may crave sympathy, but they hate pity, especially if it's in error. Double that if it's a complete assumption coming from some lousy date.

A twinge of guilt hit my stomach as I realized how shallow I was being. I hadn't said a word, or even hinted to Amber that I thought she was in a bad situation, but I felt horrible. It was partly because I felt bad about assuming, and partly because I knew I wasn't going to offer to help. No matter what I did, I wouldn't leave with a clear conscience.

Amber seemed uncomfortable, so I smiled and asked to see the rest of the house.

The upstairs hallway was thin and surprisingly clean. I imagined this was because, over the years, family members had unwittingly kicked all their belongings downstairs into the living room, and had never bothered to bring them back. The door to Amber's room was closed, though no one was in it. This habit has always alarmed me. Keeping a door closed when no one's inside usually means there's something inside worth hiding. With Amber, I figured almost anything could be in there. Drugs, booze, a vicious dog, bags of money from a bank heist, her biological father tied to a chair. These were all possibilities.

The true reason her door was closed, as I should have expected, was childish sibling rivalry. My brother and I learned to get along by the time I graduated from junior high school, but Amber still felt the need to aggressively protect her belongings. The best method, she had decided, was to guard her room like a 10-year-old with Tourette's syndrome. A piece of paper was taped to the door with the warning "STAY THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!!!!" scrawled in thick red marker. It was disturbing, but I felt a little pride knowing I was now definitely the least psychotic of the two of us.

Her room was very normal, typical of someone still in high school. Posters of pop stars lined the walls, and her bed was girly, but not enough to make the room uncomfortable. I was disappointed, but in a different way than during the rest of the date. After walking through this house of horrors this far, I craved more thrills. I had long ago decided to treat Amber's house as a tourist attraction, and seeing her simple, normal room was like watching Geraldo Rivera open Al Capone's safe and find nothing in it. It was empty, with no bank heist money or corpses in sight.

Her room was nothing more than another reminder that she was still in high school, and I had no place in her house or her life. It was time to go, and when I announced my departure, Amber seemed very excited by the idea of me getting the hell out of her house.

Down the stairs, a quick wave goodbye to her comatose sister, and I was out the front door and into the chilly darkness. Amber didn't bother to walk me out. Now that the uncomfortable atmosphere had lifted, the town seemed peaceful. With the stars blinking softly in the deep black sky and the entire town silent, I kind of liked the place. Everything looked different at night. The area appeared rustic rather than rundown. Seeing the difference was like watching a quiet old man laugh at the fast-moving city folk who don't realize the jems of the area are only revealed to those who stop to notice them.

The brisk, cool air reminded me of quieter times spent around a campfire or sitting in the dark on someone's front steps. It was moments like this that a neighborhood consumed you, and it was why many people chose to stay in rural areas. In fact, I figured the whole disastrous evening may have been worth it just to witness a summer night in a quaint little midwestern town.

"Cut it out, you bitch!" shouted Amber, who was inside the house fighting with her sister.

Then again, I thought, maybe this town was just a dump. Either way, I wasn't sticking around. It was time to head home.

I stopped in Portage, WI for a bite to eat at a small cafe. Portage was more suited to the term "quaint" than Fall River. This city's main street was icy and beautiful, with interesting little shops and locally owned eateries. One side of the cafe I had chosen was a poorly-lit bar, filled with the stereotypical crowd of small town drunks who either stared blankly ahead or rested their heads against the bar. The other side of the small building was the cafe, where the dim lighting seemed more affable.

This was the perfect place to sit and mull over the evening. Was this bad night just about Amber? Was I also at fault? I had acted frigid and uninterested from the first moment. Perhaps Amber was at home telling her sister how weird and unbearable I was.

Villains and heroes are a part of all stories, but the designations are only truthful in fictional ones. In a movie or television program, we expect to be told who's right and who's wrong. Here in the real world, we have to decide on our own, and most people probably don't give it enough thought.

We all have nasty traits that we rationalize to death, and sometimes these traits even make us unsure of our own non-villain status. If someone has bad social skills and is stuck in an unfortunate situation, are they always just unfortunate? Is there a time when the less fortunate can be described as weird without an asterisk being placed next to the label? What if their own faults prolong their unfortunate circumstances? Are they stupid or just naive and in need of help? If someone is immature, fails a year of school, and has a reputation for sleeping around, is it safe to think poorly of them, or are we supposed to not hold anyone liable for their faults?

Perhaps most importantly, should I feel bad for doing nothing more than wincing and walking away?

Pointing out a villain shouldn't require a degree in psychology, but it often does. At least police officers have laws to guide their decisions. Daters have to judge based solely on weirdness and the problems caused by it. Amber had weirdness in spades, but as I sat in that cafe, waiting for the waitress to bring my sandwich, all I could think about was the bad taste left in my mouth.