We trudged slowly through the snow between bare black trees creaking in the wind. Within minutes, this had secured its place as the strangest first date of my life. It felt less like romance and more like some low-budget survival challenge.
Trying to keep things conversational, I asked what he thought of the weather. I did my best to sound relaxed and upbeat. Barely able to get the words out, he muttered that it was “invigorating.”
Watching him deteriorate was both funny and, if I’m honest, a little alarming. His face had nearly stopped moving altogether, frozen into a stiff expression of suffering. Only his lips still worked, and even those were turning blue.
Still, in spite of the obvious misery, he kept pushing his philosophy. In a strained voice, he said he loved winter for its harshness, because it tested people and revealed what they were made of.
I nodded under my giant hat as if I agreed. But I was ready to return to the subject that had brought us here in the first place. I steered the conversation back to his theory about women being materialistic and asked him to explain it more clearly.
I told him I was genuinely curious. Why, exactly, did buying a simple hot coffee count as proof that a woman was greedy? I looked at him and waited.
Speaking clearly seemed to cause him actual pain. Every breath of cold air scraped at his throat. But his convictions apparently mattered enough that he pushed on.
Shivering hard, he explained that real relationships should be built on sincere mutual interest, not on what one person could get out of the other financially. If a woman couldn’t enjoy a walk without asking to be taken somewhere warm, he said, that told him everything he needed to know.
In his system, a woman who wanted comfort on a freezing night was automatically selfish and transactional. After listening to this little manifesto of thrift, I adjusted my hood and offered one small dose of reality.
I asked what, in his opinion, a woman should do if she simply preferred not to come down with pneumonia.
That practical point bounced right off him. He snapped that those were just excuses people made when they lacked character. Then, immediately after saying it, he gave a loud, miserable sniff through his half-frozen nose.
