Dating : Horror Stories: Dating While Gay

Scabbers: Oversharing Is Not Caring

The last tale isn’t even one of a bad date, technically, since we never met, but his story is worth telling. His name was Scabbers, and I matched with him a year out of college.

Scabbers and I had the rare sort of Tinder chemistry that only comes around once in a blue moon. He was cute, he was in medical school, and our conversation flowed as smooth as a river. He made me laugh.

Everything felt natural and easy and good.

We chatted for a few weeks on Tinder, both of us having a great time and never having to force anything. I was getting a little bit impatient, because I kept suggesting that we meet and he kept suggesting that we wait because he always had other commitments.

At one point, I put my foot down and basically told him it was pointless to keep chatting so much if we were never going to meet. I was trapping little Scabbers in a corner.

That’s when Scabbers unveiled his trump card. He said, “I have scabies.”

Knowing Scabbers and our witty banter, I naturally thought he was joking. I made some remark about how I thought that was a disease pirates contracted in the 1600’s.

But then he told me he was serious.

We were supposed to get coffee, so I was unsure why this disease was relevant. Did he plan to fuck me in the single-stall restroom while the barista called out an order for Ophelia outside the door, thus infecting me with this ancient and venerable disease?

Then Scabbers started going into detail about where the scabies was on his body, why he contracted it, how he was treating it, when it would be cured, etc. I felt like a health clinic administrator.

Suddenly I lost my appetite for coffee, and my appetite for a date with Scabbers.

Maybe Scabbers was a catfish and he had to get out of meeting me — but I really don’t think that was it. I think he was trying to be honest about something and he came off a tad (or, like, a lot) too honest.

In the grand scheme of things, Scabbers wasn’t so bad — just strange.