Redneck

I've made a hard and fast rule that I don't date men from the town in which I live. I've given fair shots to a few in my past: the son of a local pizza shop, my mother's landlord, a waiter at a restaurant. They all turned out to be (to put it kindly) racist, pickup truck driving, gang signing rednecks.

But a few weeks ago there was a correspondence entertained between myself and the owner of a local coffee shop down the street from my house. The proximity worried me, but I figured if the emails were promising, then I might be willing to try it out. They weren't. He mentioned something about taking seven years to finish community college, all because of the English 101 he couldn't quite pass, and how he loved it here and never wanted to leave.

I was an English major. My favorite class ever was Literary Theory. Also, I have a VERY specific five year plan that involves me getting the FUCK out of this god forsaken town as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Needless to say, I never emailed back.

But then last night, as I was pulling into the gym parking lot, a man in an enormously offensive white pick up truck with disgusting details from 1987 was leaving, and as he leaned out the window to look both ways, a cigarette dangling between his two fingers, I realized it was the owner of the coffee shop.

This, my friends, is why I don't date anyone from this town. This is why I have struck out into the world of internet dating, if only to escape the absurd men in the immediate surrounding areas: