The Worst Date I’ve Ever Been On

            “Hey, I’d love to meet up for sushi and then Afrojack at Surrender tonight.  Interested? Mike.” I rubbed my hung over eyes and looked at the text I’d just gotten – it was 1 pm – what was this guy doing writing me so early on a Sunday? I didn’t remember who Mike was, or what Mike looked like, but at 4 a.m., I remembered there had been a fuzzy shape that I’d enjoyed talking with, and I assumed that was Mike. No, of course I didn’t want to hang out with Mike. I ignored the text. I looked through my phone to see what actual person I could spend some time with that day.  Several hours later, when no friends had returned my texts, and I’d become hungry and wanted to eat free sushi, I texted Mike back.

            “Yeah. That sounds great! I’d love to see you! When and where?”

            I walked in to the lobby of the Cosmopolitan where I’d agreed to meet Mike. Not knowing what he looked like was a real problem now, and I looked around passively trying to see if anyone was looking back at me.

            “There you are, Leah!” a good-looking man, tall, with a weak chin, and brown eyes came over and gave me a hug.

            “Mike! It’s good to see you again! I had so much fun with you last night! Let’s get dinner!” We went to sushi at the Cosmopolitan, and Mike told me that he lives in LA but also promotes in Las Vegas. 

            Oh no! I’d accidentally agreed to a date with a promoter! This was going to be bad; the very skill set and personality necessary for being a successful promoter is the exact same skill set that’s necessary for being a complete douche bag.

            “Oh that’s cool!” I said as I ordered a second glass of wine from the waitress, “How do you enjoy being a promoter?”

            “I just do it for fun. I actually have a very large trust fund. My dad is basically the Bill Gates of wine.”

            “We have so much in common. My dad is basically the Bill Gates of Motown music,” I said.

            “Yeah, everyone’s always impressed by how wealthy my family is. He has a lot of money. He has eight houses, or maybe nine, I can’t remember. I’ll fly you to LA so you can go on my yacht with me. We can drink margaritas that our in-home chef makes. It’s really fun for my friends and I to float our yachts next to each other for parties. You’ll like it.” I would have bet money I’d borrowed, on threat of death, from a psychotic mobster on this kid being completely full of shit.

             “I look good on yachts,” I said.

            “He’s likely pathological and doesn’t even know he’s lying anymore,” I reasoned. “Which is good, because I won’t have to pay to see Afrojack if he thinks he’s rich.”

            “… We’d met at the Hamptons and became fast friends one summer.” I stopped looking for tell-tale liar body language, and came in for the end of the story Mike was telling.

            “The Hamptons are for the lower-income rich,” I countered as I swirled my wine around in its glass before inserting my nose to test the bouquet.
             “My family only vacations at a VIP resort we built for ourselves on our private tropical island. We only invite our most fabulous friends.” He hadn’t heard a word I’d said all night, therefore he nodded and smiled.

            “You're so interesting. Everything you say is interesting to me," Mike said. "Girls always try to use me for my money, you know?”
            “I want someone to like me for me and not my money,” he confided. What? He’d just talked nonstop for the last hour about how much money his family has and everything his dad owned. The only thing I knew about him was that he was “rich” and now he was saying not to like him for that. 

            We left dinner and stopped in at Marquee, where he promoted, to see LMFAO before heading to Surrender for Afrojack. The only song of LMFAO that I knew was Party Rock, and by the millionth time I'd heard it, I’d wanted to water board every last member of the group until they promised never to make more music. But Mike got us in for free, and we got to cut the line, and he bought me a drink, so that was easily the best part of the date. Mike knew a lot of people at Marquee that night, and he walked around introducing me to all of them as his girlfriend. As we’d walk away he’d tell me how the people who’d gotten discounted bottles from him that night were his best friends.

            “Usually, I’d offer to buy the next round on a date, but since you keep saying how rich you are, It be pretty strange for me to buy it,” I said when I’d finished my first vodka tonic.

            “Actually, that would be great if you could get the next round,” Mike said. Wait, what? No. What was happening? I thought he was trying to have sex with me, and if that was really the case, then there’s no way I should be paying for my own drinks! It's just wrong! You might as well ask me to tie myself up and put myself in your trunk.
            Please don’t misunderstand me; I typically fall in love with young, broke artists, and when I go out with them, at the end of the night, we split the check at Denny’s, and I buy us both ice cream. BUT if your entire game is to tell me how rich you are, and that by being with you l will be able to get a lot of glamorous free stuff, then you MUST buy all of my drinks. I bought us a round, and as I simmered about how unfair the world can be, Mike grabbed my hand.

            “Let me introduce you to LMFAO! I’m really good friends with the one guy. We’ve hung out a lot, and I helped book them tonight.” Mike attempted to dodge LMFAOs bodyguard, by their VIP table, but was stopped.

            “I know [DJ team member], can you get his attention for me?” Mike asked the bouncer. The bouncer went to tap [DJ team member] on the shoulder, and pointed over at Mike. [DJ team member] looked directly at Mike, maintained a blank face, and shook his head No. 

            Mike looked as though he had taken a turtle hit in Super Mario and shrank to half his previous size. Oh my goodness, that was so embarrassing – for me. I felt so bad for myself. I’d just gotten dissed by LMFAO. I felt dirty. I wanted to go home and scrub myself until I felt normal again - if that was even possible now.   

            “They aren’t even that good,” Mike snarled as he pulled me away, “They only have that one song and the rest of their music sucks.”

“Ah, at least he was humiliated,” I thought, "That's nice." He drew me to stand by a low wall. A group of good-looking club-goers walked over to him, said hello, and thanked him for the table. He introduced me as his girlfriend again. When they walked away he was smiling as though he’d just farted a rainbow.

“Wow, babe!” he said. "You must be so impressed by how humble I am! I'm good looking, and rich, and everyone knows me, but I’m still so humble! You must be so impressed!"

“It’s not humble to tell people you’re humble,” I explained. Mike’s face dropped in total disbelief that he'd failed to impress me. Maybe he hadn't articulated how awesome he was enough yet? Maybe if he talked about it some more...

We took a taxi down the strip to Surrender to see Afrojack and Feed Me. I really love these DJs, and I wanted to watch them that night, but when we were standing in line to get in to the club it all became too much. One more story about his fictitious wealth, or how his ex-girlfriend was famous for being on Nip/Tuck, or whatever it was – it was too much. I made up my mind. I quickly yelled I had to go, something about Cinderella and pumpkins, and ducked under the velvet rope before sprinting away in my heels. I was concerned he was going to chase after me. I paid $15 for a taxi back to the Cosmopolitan to get my car before driving to my friend Avalon’s hotel room to recount my gift from the comedy gods.

Mike called me the next day to invite me to lunch and later that night about a pool party he was throwing that weekend. What part of me sprinting away didn't he understand? I chalked it off as another Vegas lesson learned: there’s no such thing as free sushi.