Hello, welcome to the Drabblecast, episode 469.

The Drabblecast is an audio fiction magazine that brings strange stories by strange authors to strange listeners,

such as yourself. I'm your host, Norm Sherman. This week on the show, strange dating.

And trust me, as someone currently trying to do it again myself, all dating is strange as

f***. So this week on the show, just dating. Do you like dating? Don't lie. You hate that shit.

It's an unpleasant precursor that you have to trudge through on your way to both downtown pound town,

and not dying sad and alone town. What do you think the most impressive thing about you is?

Your butt, your mole, your position on some corporate ladder, your sense of smell, your sense of humor? Well, maybe, I don't know, probably, but probably not as much as you think. That doesn't mean your sniffer isn't great, so your mole isn't as sexy as you think it is. It's exactly as sexy as you think it is. As you think it is. But this isn't about you, sucker. No, you've already got you. You don't have to worry about impressing yourself because you already know how much you suck and how awesome you are still despite it somehow. The stuff this other set of eyeballs with a different name sitting across the table from you sees when they see it is what they see, seen the way they see it.

Which, who knows what that is?

Nobody, literally nobody knows what that person's thinking or what's going on there.

Hell, for all you or anyone knows, they're a complete psychopath, and maybe you don't want to know.

Eh, you probably want to know.

Point is, it's nigh impossible to accurately gauge your own looks or personality,

and a lot of times qualities that actually interest other people can sometimes be very different than we think.

And it's in this crazy setting that you both hope to at least make a pretty good impression no matter what,

but hopefully

an even better impression than maybe you deserve. Because building a relationship is often

what you expect the end game to look like. Or like a big heist or something. I don't know.

And here's the rub though. As much as dating sucks and as much as we can't wait to just

find someone who's cool enough

to put up with us and vice versa, so we can put an end to all this madness of let's meet

here and hang out even though I can't know your potentially psychopathic thoughts.

...