Ok. Some more stories.
You know how Chazal say “sheker hashein vehevel hayofi”? I once agreed to date a girl from out of town sight unseen for 2 dates (she paid for the ticket, so that was the rule). As soon as I saw her, I realized that this would be a date with neither sheker nor hevel. I was a mentch for both dates though, as it’s the proper thing to do. I did such a good job, at the end of the second date, the girl starts asking me hashkafa questions. I tried very hard not to dump, but sometimes you have no choice. So I’m speaking to the shadchan afterwards, who’s asking me why I’m dumping her. After all, she had gelt and our hashkafos were in sync. I started saying the usual bubbe meisah of “she’s a very nice girl but she’s not for me”. after a few uncomfortable minutes of this, the shadchan said “It’s her looks, isn’t it?”
Another time I was on a first date and having a good shmooze with the girl’s father. The girl walked in, I took a look, and I continued shmoozing with the girl’s father. She dumped me because we didn’t click.
Another time I’m dating a girl. I was told she’s “working towards a degree”. This was a bit of a caution flag, because the ages of the girls I was dating at the time usually had their chaspa be’alma. Well, we start off the first date, and she says, “Bloomberg is so stupid. he’s cutting money for the liberries [sic]”. So it’s a nice conversation starter, and I ask, “So how should he balance the budget instead?” She responds “Oh, I don’t know. It was something I memorized to sound intelligent”. Later on we played scrabble. Beli guzma, her biggest word was “Cat”. We still dated a few times- didn’t want to be too picky.