Dating for D.C. Dummies

When I first read this week's Date Lab, I thought I'd found another winning couple. Then when I reread it a couple of hours later, I didn't find the couple nearly as annoying as I did the first time. But what the hell? It's a free blog entry.

Also, Todd's last name is Funkhouser, and I really wanted an excuse to type that out, because it's the greatest last name in the history of the world. Try saying it a few times. There's no way you don't feel good after doing so. Funkhouser. Funkhouser. Funkhouser. Awesome.

Todd: I got to the restaurant and had a beer at the bar. When Kim came in, the hostess pointed me out. She's definitely stockier than what I'm interested in. I knew she wasn't my type physically, but I thought maybe she'd be cool.

Kim: He could have stood a few more reps at the gym, but I thought he was very cute.

I don't know why people of either gender sign up for Date Lab thinking they're going to be rewarded with physical perfection. Frankly, if you don't recoil when you see your date, you should count yourself lucky. (That said, last week's couple was arguably the column's best-looking ever.)

But if we're going to give the prize for better looking of the two, Kim definitely wins. The photo the Post used in the magazine was (shockingly) not the most flattering, but if you look at the other two photos on the website, Kim doesn't remotely come off as "stocky." Todd just looks sort of like a bald Vanilla Ice.

Kim: He thought it was funny to take a picture shoving my head into his crotch. It was very juvenile. I went along with it to keep things light, but in the back of my mind I knew I was going to delete those later.

She has a point. But it occurs to me that if you're ever on a Date Lab date and you both realize what a horrible mistake you've made, and don't want to experience the subsequent public humiliation that comes with being featured in Date Lab, you should probably take nothing but photos where you're shoving your heads into each other's crotches, or similar vulgar poses. There's no way the Post would run them, and you'd be saved.

Unless, of course, the Post did run them, in which case...well, hopefully, your parents/employer/clergyman have a sense of humor.

Todd: You either get my sense of humor or don't. I describe [mine] as funny as [expletive] and hers as not.

You're losing me, Funkhouser. No one who describes their own sense of humor as "funny as [expletive]" is ever actually correct. It'd be like me saying that "I can dunk a basketball like [expletive]." It's a nice delusion, but it's simply not true.

Also, the people who really are "funny as [expletive]" are making their living as professional comedians or writers, not high school math teachers. (And how much does Todd wish the Post had waited just a couple more weeks to run this column? Then it would have been summer vacation, and his students would have forgotten about it by the fall. Right now, the Post Magazine is being passed around the halls of that school like it was a Playboy.)

He seemed like he was more interested in the experience of Date Lab than the actual date.

That's kind of sick. Who actually wants to experience Date Lab?

Date Lab is basically an admission of desperation. Waving the white flag. Looking yourself in the mirror and realizing that possibly the only thing standing between you and dying alone is the Washington Post. I can't think of anything more depressing.

Todd: She's nice and everything, but not my type. You guys kinda suck at matchmaking.

Jesus, finally, someone says it.

I wonder if up until now, the Date Lab people have been living in the same sort of bubble Bush was during his years in office. Like, every week, a Cheney or Rove-type at the Post walks into Date Lab HQ and tells the editors what a great job they're doing setting people up, and to keep up the good work, and maybe give them some Photoshopped pictures that are supposedly of former Date Lab participants getting married. And this was the first time anyone ever told them how much they suck at this.

Probably not. But it's fun to imagine.