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A Date With Dionysus
Never fall for a pretty face.
Before I met Dionysus, I saw him in a TV show I loved as a teen. He was an actor through and through, the kind who preened at every hint of praise, and his voice alone was the kind of thing to inspire giggles from all manner of women who fell over themselves because of his charm.
I was not immune, of course. It was not rare for him to elicit a chuckle or two from me with his good-natured joking. But there was a dark side to him too: he was moody, quick to anger, and he didn’t like being challenged — particularly by women who tried to stand on equal footing with him.
But I admired him in my own way. We were quick friends, and I always appreciated his insight into various subjects. He was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for. What I longed for was to know the man behind the mask, but he never let me near enough to find out just what made him tick.
When he asked me out on a date, I figured I should give him a chance. Why not? Someone like him wasn’t supposed to be interested in a person like me. I was invisible, and no man ever looked at me with interest in his eyes.
“You would be prettier if you only lost a little weight,” he said on the date night in particular. Those words weren’t what he led with, but I felt the sting of them regardless. I ended…
