KICK THE CAB

Similar to the OBT, in dating, eventually, every date kicks-the-cab, or has a kick-the-cab moment, as one girlfriend of mine calls it. This means that eventually they all do something, which ends up being a deal breaker. Something, which is inexcusable. Something undeniably wrong. Something that you feel in your gut. And once he does it, you know, you have to break up with him. Let me explain by telling the story of the original kick-the-cab incident.

I work with the hearing impaired. I never dated a patient before, nor did I ever want to. I mean, I’m working all day. I’m not sitting there, scoping out the patients for potential dates for God sakes! But then Patrick walked into my office. He was tall, dark, handsome, and deaf...not that there’s anything wrong with that. I worked with him as a patient that day, all the while being totally attracted to him. Is that wrong? It seemed so. The session went really well. Chemistry seemed to be happening. Although he seemed to have some emotional issues, I set them aside.

Next day, he sent me an email asking me to accompany him to the San Genaro feast. I agreed. He picked me up from work on the scheduled day. It was a beautiful September evening. He drove us down town. The feast was fun. Although I’ve been a New Yorker all my life, I’d never been.

I really wanted a blue ice. So he bought me one. We were just walking and talking. After a while, he told me my tongue was blue. I took out my compact out check things out, and not only was my tongue was blue, but so were my teeth and my lips. Now, I love the color blue obsessively, but that was nasty. Especially for a first date.

Then we went into a sweet Italian restaurant in Little Italy and had dinner and a little wine. Afterwards, went on the ferris wheel, where he kissed me. Then he won me a stuffed animal at the fair. I mean, what could be wrong with this guy? Nothing! Everything went really really well that night. He followed up the next day with a sweet email. Perfect.

So, needless to say, we started dating.

I thought things were going well. We got along great. Went on fun dates. He was respectful and kind. But I must say, I started noticing a few things that made my ears go up. For example, one afternoon, he showed up at my job complaining that he couldn’t hear the same through his hearing device. I checked him and spent a little time with him, even though I was quite busy. He was upset due to the situation and was mostly quiet. I had turned around to pick something up as I was working with him, and he said, “I guess you don’t wear a thong.” I turned around, “Excuse me?” (But I heard what he said.)

He said, “Oh nothing.”

He apologized the next day.

Another time, he had taken me to an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. The food there is amazing, but it’s a bit crowded with families. Tables were very close together and the patrons were getting very loud. Some people bumped his chair several times during the dinner. He looked like he was going to snap and have a fist fight at any moment.

Note to self.

We continued to date casually. It wasn’t getting serious. And even though those incidents did occur, I still liked him.

We texted and emailed a lot, since he couldn’t use the phone. While texting one night, we were really just bullshitting back and forth. All of a sudden, he texts, ‘I love you’. I wrote, “did you just tell me you love me on text?”

He responded, “Yes.”

Well, I had a real problem with that. You don’t tell someone you love him or her, for the first time, on text! What the heck do you do with that? You know, at that time, we didn’t have querty keyboards. We had tiny phones, and you had to press the tiny keys a million times in order to get a word out. But even if not, I just think it’s poor dating etiquette. And although I was upset with that, I continued to date him.

Don’t worry. I’m not going tell you about each and every date we had. Just this next one. I don’t remember the details about this next date with Patrick. I do remember it was December. It was going to be the last time I saw Patrick before I went on a business trip to Europe. We’d gone out on the Upper East Side, for dinner and drinks, and Patrick was walking me home. We began to cross the street when a screeching cab suddenly quickly turned the corner in front of us while we were crossing. We stopped. The cab stopped. Didn’t hit us. But Patrick then proceeded to punch and kick the cab while it passed, while cursing and screaming. Once the cab passed, I remember he turned and said something to me in a sweet tone. Like nothing had happened.

That was it. He kicked the cab! I didn’t say anything. But I felt it in my gut. And this time, I wasn’t going to ignore it. I was afraid of him. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t tell him how I felt. But I knew then and there, that I was never going to see him again. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And I wasn’t going to hang around to see the flames.

He kicked the cab! A deal breaker for me. I know myself. I can’t be with a violent man. Some people can. Some men are violent towards others but never towards their significant others, so they stay. Me. I can’t be around that.

Someone else’s kick-the-cab may be something else completely. Now, they don’t have to actually kick a cab to have a kick-the-cab moment. Kick-the-cab can be any action or comment, which is so horrible that it’s a deal-breaker. Or which is the last straw. The moment in which you know that you cannot take anymore. The moment, which you know, you are going to break up with him. At which you know you are never going to see him again. We all have them. We’ve all been there.

What’s yours?