A Play Date Not Exactly From Hell

Yesterday afternoon, I got together with a guy to play. It was the first time we'd met, although we'd chatted extensively. He had wanted to take Cigi and I out for our birthday last New Year's Eve, but we'd both been down sick with bronchitis and so we opted out. This had been the first time that my schedule had cooperated enough for him to come down and play. He lives in the Chicagoland area (like so many of the men I meet and play with) so there was some travel involved. For me, the preparations were much more involved.
First of all, yesterday was y first day off in more than a week. Because of that, the apartment needed some attention. I worked until 11 o'clock Tuesday night so I couldn't do my housework then. With Cigi and our roommate both sound asleep, I thought it would have been rude of me to run the vacuum at that hour. So I got up around 8 am on Wednesday and went and got a haircut first. I hadn't had one since January and needed one badly. I got my usual pixie cut and then went to a nearby grocery store to get some quarters for the laundry. I had to have something clean to wear, after all, and laundry, along with vacuuming, dishes, dusting and the cat boxes all showed signs of my neglect. I got busy with the dishes first and then vacuumed in preparation for using the steamer on a couple of areas on the carpet. I wanted the place to not only look good but also smell good. I'm accustomed to the smell of four cats living in my two-bedroom apartment but someone else might notice an odor that I don't detect. So the carpet got shampooed.
After getting a load of laundry and the cleaning done, I had to color my freshly cut hair. I'm passed the point where my hair could be considered salt and pepper. It's more like mostly salt now with a little pepper left over. To be honest, if my play date was someone I knew well I might have skipped this step in the beautification process. However, I was meeting this guy for the first time and I wanted to look my best in order to make a good first impression. While I was sitting with hair color on my head, he called for the first time. He wanted to let me know he had gotten on the road late and that it would be later than we'd agreed on when he arrived. I wasn't too upset about that. I still had other things to do so this was actually advantageous to me. It seemed all of my play plans go like this: I spend part of the day getting the apartment cleaned up and the rest of the day getting myself prettied up. Of course, this part didn't take as long when I was younger.
About three o'clock he arrived. We sat on my well worn couch and talked for awhile--about things in general and Cigi's illness. She had decided not to join us that afternoon. She was having chemo the next day and wanted to rest up. She would join us later for dinner though. He was OK to talk to but his spanking technique was a major disappointment. I like the spanking to have a nice, brisk rhythm at some point, but he never got there. His philosophy, apparently, is to keep the rhythm choppy and "unnatural" (as he put it). His thinking is that if the spanking gets into a predictable rhythm then the bottom will anticipate the spanks and tense up. I explained to him that I had found the opposite to the be the truth. At least, in my own experience. Secondly, he didn't like to use toys. He considered himself a hand spanker. I really have no problem with this since some of my favorite spankers only use their hand. But his technique was just so unorthodox that I thought a toy might help. So I picked a nice leather paddle from the London Tanners and he did sort of develop a rhythm. But then he would stop spanking me and talk. I enjoy good conversation with my spanking but please don't stop spanking me. All in all, I was disappointed. But you have to expect that not every play date will go off without a hitch or be the stuff you dream about. There was nothing wrong with him that a little practice wouldn't help.
Play dates happen this way sometimes. I think I was a disappointment to him as well. I' not his preferred type, first of all. He likes subs (and small ones at that) and I'm about as far from that as you can get. I think my apartment was a disappointment to him, too. He lives in an affluent suburb and my threadbare little apartment probably didn't measure up. In fact, he told me that one of his townhouses is bigger than my whole apartment (and had a basement to boot). When we went out to dinner (to my favorite Chinese buffet) he wanted me to sit on one of the hard chairs that the restaurant has. But Cigi, quick thinker that she is, settled us in a booth with nice soft seats. Now the reason I didn't want a hard chair, as I pointed out to him, had nothing to do with having a sore bottom. I have arthritis in my hips and the cool, damp weather was wreaking havoc with it. He smiled knowingly, as if to tell me he knew the REAL reason I'd opted to sit on a soft seat: his spanking had simply been too much for me. Yeah, right. I think my pain tolerance disappointed him, too. I think it was much too high for his taste. I expect he wanted to hear me "ooching" and "owing" instead of acting like I wanted it harder, which he did his best to accommodate (with a large number of mishits as a consequence). I think he was more accustomed to playing with subs, who were less likely to point out the fact that some of his spanks missed the mark, than a bottom like me who's going to let him know that one or two were on the tailbone. In fact, he argued with me once, telling that one of the spanks I pointed out as a mishit was "nowhere close" to my tailbone. I told him I knew where it was and he'd hit it. I've had it broken before by a clueless top who didn't care. I wasn't in the mood for another trip to the emergency room. I think he sensed we just weren't compatible. He wasn't going to give me the kind of spanking I wanted and I wasn't going to be the kind of spankee he wanted. He did, however, get our car started. So I'm grateful to him for that. However, I don't think I'll be getting together with him again any time soon. It's not that I dislike him. It's just that our styles don't really mesh. He's one of the few men that I've just had no chemistry with.
Doesn't it sometimes just go that way when it comes to play dates? You spend a certain amount of time thinking about what it'll be like, you spend a lot of time getting your space and yourself just right and then things just don't go how you imagined it. I wouldn't label this one a disaster but it wasn't a success either. Ah well...live and learn as I always say.