LA JOLLA, CA–Wrongly advised by friends and family to “just be himself,” local tax attorney Marc Scanlon, 34, ruined a first date with Rachel Loftus by doing just that, sources close to the never-to-be couple reported Monday.
“Marc was really nervous that Rachel wouldn’t like him, and he kept obsessing over his appearance, his hair, what he should wear, and how he should act on the date,” said Glenn Carlson, 40, a coworker of Scanlon’s at the law firm of Jenkins & Straud. “I told him not to worry, that he should just be his true self and everything would be okay. Turns out, that was bad advice. On a first date, Marc’s true self is pretty much exactly what most normal women don’t want.”
Divorced since 2001, Scanlon met the 29-year-old Loftus through mutual acquaintance Barbara O’Neill. Thinking the two might make a good match–despite not knowing much about Scanlon personally–O’Neill set the pair up on a blind date.
The date was, according to Loftus, one of her worst ever. Sources say the blame lay in Scanlon’s ill-advised decision to put pretense aside, revealing his true identity and destroying any chance he might have had with Loftus.
“I’m glad he felt comfortable being himself,” said brother Chris Scanlon, 39. “But when you’re in full-blown mid-30s-crisis mode with misogynist tendencies and a desperate, neurotic need for approval, maybe ’the real you’ is not the best thing to put forward.”
According to reports, Scanlon’s profound insecurity led him to monopolize the first 45 minutes of conversation, talking about nothing but himself. Worse, his inability to get over his divorce prompted him to meticulously detail every phase of his failed marriage.
“It’s totally understandable that he’s still feeling hurt and emotionally shaky from the breakup,” Loftus said. “But that’s the sort of thing you should keep buried deep down inside when you’re first letting someone get to know you.”
“Sure, in theory, a guy should be able to relax and be himself,” Loftus continued. “But when you have such issues about aging that you show up to a date wearing a Billy Joel ’River Of Dreams World Tour’ concert T-shirt under your sportjacket, you’re putting up a neon sign on your forehead that says, ’Do Not Fuck Me, Ever.’ I mean, this guy’s a tax lawyer in his 30s. Did he think he was coming across as rockin’ or something? Please.”
Loftus added that, while there is nothing inherently wrong with a date mentioning that he attended Yale University, bringing it up every 10 minutes is probably not a good idea.
“Yale this, Yale that,” Loftus said. “Any way he could work it into the conversation, he would. It was so obvious that he was clinging to his Ivy League pedigree out of insecurity, as a way of making himself look like an intelligent man of substance. It really just made him look like a dick.”
Scanlon’s inability to self-monitor further turned off Loftus when he disclosed “way, way, way too much” about his opinions on sex and relationships.
“He must have thought the honest approach would make him look like an open, non-uptight kind of guy,’” said waitress Susan Sanders, who served the pair during their excruciating two-hour dinner engagement. “Sexual frankness and maturity are great, but there’s such a thing as inappropriate personal revelations. Do you really need to mention on a first date that you’re ’totally cool with porn’?”
Those close to Scanlon report that he remains unaware that the date was a disaster, leaving repeated messages on Loftus’ voicemail asking when they can “hook up” again.
Carlson predicted, however, that Scanlon’s insecurity will soon begin to steadily mount with each passing day his calls are not returned, and that, inevitably, he will launch into an exhaustive self-pity session over Loftus’ rejection of him.
“I’m sure Marc’s next date, whoever she may be, will hear all about it–if he ever gets another date,” Carlson said. “If he does, I’m going to suggest he try being nothing remotely like himself.”
