Batman; why you should never date a superhero

I returned from my walk this evening to see my message light blinking. I figured it was another one of those messages about my car warranty expiring but instead it was Batman. Just when you think it's over...a superhero never dies. He just waits for his prequel. His message acknowledged that it had been over a month since we last talked and I thought it was pretty obvious after the weirdness of the last time we went out there was not even enough friendship material to sustain contact. Batman was my shot at doing the opposite of what I would normally do, to go out with someone I didn't think I would feel a connection with. I know I have a tendency to skip to the end and I wanted to challenge myself to be more open and more willing to try things even I didn't think they would work out. My instinct about my attraction to Batman was right on. I did plainly tell him that I had no romantic interest in him and he responded in a mature reasonable way that he understood there were no guarantees when you go out with a person that there will be a spark and that he would be in touch. Weeks later, he called to see if I was available to hang out and I said yes, thinking we were on the same page with regard to romance. Not so much.

Even though I made a point to pay for my half of everything, I still ended up getting an awkward and unsolicited massage while we sat outside at the Art Museum. He told me that my skin looked like peanut butter and that he had not forgotten that thunderstorms were one of my turn-ons. I'm not even sure how thunderstorms came up but after his comment about my skin, I do recall a discussion about how much we both like peanut butter and how I even have two jars at the house, such is my commitment to not running out of it.

Awkward teenage moves aside, we also did not have anything in common. I was singing along to some music he was playing in the car. He's a music teacher and it has been my experience that some people who are really into music really don't appreciate listening to other people sing along. My brother is one of those people but mostly just because he's mean. His favorite way to get me to shut up was to ask me who the artist was of the song I was singing and when I replied (Oh, it's Weezer), he would say, "Exactly." Touche! So instead of asking Batman if it was irritating him that I couldn't help singing along with Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson (who can?), I told him how my brother discouraged me from singing along just like I just told you. He didn't get it. He thought first that my brother didn't like Simon and Garfunkel, then he thought I didn't like them, then we just kind of dropped it because we just weren't getting there from here.

He also said one wildly inappropriate thing while we were going through the museum that just floored me. We were approaching a section and before we arrived he mentioned there was a painting coming up where it looked like someone was receiving "oral pleasure" (his words and that was already bad enough). We get to the painting and it is a depiction of the Virgin Mary's ascent to heaven. I shit you not. So, yea... I'm not hung up on the Virgin Mary but that observation should have been made with his 'inside voice'. The voice no one else can hear.

I'm not sure which of my signals were mixed, the part where I literally said that I had no romantic interest, or the part where I reinforced the non-date nature of our outing by paying for stuff. I think with superheros, my agreement to go out with him at all was enough. I think he was confident I would be no match for his smooth moves and charm. The massage ended as awkwardly as it started and I felt like it was a good time to go home. I did not hear from him again until today. I do not understand. The only plausible explanation (to me) is now that we've actually committed to this being spring (the weather has been very schizophrenic), perhaps everyone is looking for someone to breed with.