You know what I strongly dislike?

I really really strongly dislike when men pull the sneaky surprise date move. Allow me to illustrate (although I'm sure the explanation is unnecessary, as it's happened to almost everyone who dates men. This shit is epidemic):

I met a man at work last week. My mentor and I stopped downstairs for coffee and ran into this guy, an employee of our agency and casual friend of hers. We made small talk, discovered we knew some of the same people (not uncommon in this incestuous field of mine) and that we had both earned our masters degrees from the same program (albeit about 20 years apart). I gave him my card . . . which is what you do when you're a few months into your new career and making new professional acquaintances.

Nothing about this interaction said "romance" -- he's a coworker, and he's significantly older (like, 25 years). It literally never crossed my mind that this was anything but a new work connection. He emailed me a short time later and suggested that we go out to lunch sometime this week. Again, nothing unusual. In fact, he went out of his way to explain that he always takes new employees out, and that he wanted to pick my brain about the suitability of a girlfriend of a mutual acquaintance.

Okay, as I'm typing this, I'm beginning to feel like a fool, like perhaps it was screamingly obvious where this was headed. . . but I'd sooner assume that my stupid, beer-guzzling, racist uncle was coming on to me than this dude. Suffice it to say that it was not on my radar.

So we go to lunch, and it's creepily date-ish. Over the top. He wants to take my arm walking to and from the restaurant. Insists on opening all of the doors. Helping me with my coat. Paying for the meal. And so on. Talks about the two of us going out this weekend with that acquaintance and said girlfriend. But here's the thing: STILL postures about giving me Agency advice and making professional connections, never comes right out and says that he's got lovin' on his mind. Which leaves me in that awkward awkward limbo. I feel like a self-involved bimbo for presuming that he's interested when he's not explicitly said so and when there are totally reasonable, plausible explanations for his every move.

And yet. . .

Yet I'm also totally on edge, uncomfortable, creeped out, and not enjoying myself in the slightest little bit.

Anyway, that's probably where it would have remained, except that my mentor came into my office this afternoon, closed the door, and tried to gauge the temperature. (She's a god-send, that one!) Turns out that he called her right after we met to ask all kinds of questions about me and happened to mention how attractive he found me. She wasn't about to meddle, but I think that she wanted to give me a heads-up, particularly when she heard that he'd taken me to lunch.

So, I recognize that I should just laugh this off -- not a big deal, right? But it infuriates me. Men seem to do this all the time: orchestrate one-on-one meetings which they bend over backward to set up as Not Dates, and then expect you to just fall into their arms once the two of you are alone. (These men, incidentally, often seem to be the ones who make up the Nice Guys Finish Last chorus, which fact perhaps helps explain my irrational anger. That cliché annoys the ever-loving piss out of me).

How difficult would it have been to call me up and ask me on a date straight away? I could have politely declined, and no one would be the worse for wear. It's still not the end of the world -- I'm just going to have to *gulp* be a grownup and have one of those dread uncomfortable conversations. But the whole scenario has left me a bit creeped out, inexplicably angry, and unfortunately wanting zero contact with someone who could and should be a lovely work friend.


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Now I'm just going to be bitchy. When did it become socially acceptable for a man old enough to have sired me (at a respectable age, no less) to make a play? I mean, dude is RETIRING this week. For the love. . .