Dating is frustrating at best and a piss-covered dumpster fire from hell at worst. Enough failed Tinder dates, and a girl really starts wishing she could just get rescued. How does that ’80s song go again? You may think you need a hero or a Hercules or a white knight upon a fiery steed, but even supermen aren’t always perfect.
Captain America
You don’t usually stop to chat with street canvassers in the city, but his shoulders are practically busting out of that green vest, and you are a weak human. After convincing you to register to vote (even though you’d never really bought into a “broken system”), you convince him to have a drink with you. You thought his boy-next-door routine was cute, but he texts like your grandmother and talks a lot about his “friend” Bucky — like, a lot. He tells you about punching Nazis, and you ask, “Oh, at Berkeley?” His perfect, chiseled brow furrows, and he says, “No, in Germany.” Sure, you enjoy a little old-school charm, but this is next-level.
Thor
It was the hair that did it. He takes you to a show at the Fox Theater, where the band plays mostly versions of what you think is “Immigrant Song,” and everyone in the crowd has wings on their head. It’s weird, but you can get down with weird in the name of running your hands through a living shampoo commercial later. You invite him in for a cup of coffee afterward, which ends up being a mistake. Not because the sex is bad — if it didn’t make you sound like a Sex and the City cliché, you’d call him a god — but every time he has something to drink, he shatters the cup on the ground and yells, “I like it!” which has put you in a serious coffee-mug deficit.
Hulk
Your best friend works in one of the research labs at Berkeley and offers to set you up with one of her coworkers. You figure, why not? Tinder hasn’t been working, so why not try the coveted romantic Best-Friend Setup? The guy, Bruce, is nice enough over dinner. He’s soft-spoken and a little twitchy, but he’s a research scientist — awkward and nerdy is the name of the game. It’s toward the end of the meal when you ask what he does for fun, and he says he can’t really get too excited about anything — especially if there’s a chance it might make him angry. You change the subject to the weather and count the minutes till the check comes. On your way back to your car, you wonder if you didn’t just escape the opening sequence to a Lifetime Original movie.
Deadpool
Just…why? Between being 45 minutes late, showing up with a sword strapped to his back and shoving so many chimichangas into his mouth that you think half the restaurants in the Mission must now be suffering a shortage, this guy seems hell-bent on making you swear off dating forever. During a lull in the conversation —“conversation” being your stunned silence while he chews on his chimichangas — he stops and asks, “Do you want to see something nuts?” You should’ve said no, but your give-a-fuck meter is so broken at this point that you kind of just want to see what happens. Chimichanga poised near his mouth, he holds up what looks like one of those tiny plastic doll hands poking out from the sleeve of his jacket. “Wanna touch it?” he asks.
Excusing yourself from this shit show, you stop at the bar on your way out and order a shot of tequila. The liquor burns a little going down, and you remember what your mom said when you told her, at the tender age of eight, that you were in love with Batman: “Baby, you gotta be your own hero first.” Maybe you’ll buy a cat suit and pick up Krav Maga. Anything’s better than this.
