Just call me "Elaine."

For those of you who were ever "Seinfeld" fans, you'll recall that Elaine was a chronic, neurotic dater. She would go out with a guy a few times, and then call it off when she realized that there was something so annoying about him, that it was a deal-breaker. I too have had my fair share of instances like this. In the past, I've stopped seeing various guys for the following reasons:

• I caught him playing air guitar...enthusiastically...in public.
• He knew way too many words to too many Limp Bizkit songs.
• After watching "The Godfather" together, he spoke in that Marlon Brando "Gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" accent for the rest of the night.
• He always smelled like Chinese food.
• He made this weird whistling noise every time he breathed through his nose.
• He didn't like cheese or vegetables (except for corn and potatoes).
• He was a ghastly speller and never read anything except "Playboy" and "Sports Illustrated."

I'm not proud of this, mind you. I realize that dumping guys for such seemingly insignificant reasons seems shallow and bitchy. But I look at it like this: Do I really want to spend a great deal of time--years maybe--with Whistly Nose or Air Halen? I don't think so. If I'm annoyed by it after only a few dates, I would become murderous after a few years. And I really don't want to end up in the big house. "I'm sorry Your Honor. I couldn't help myself. He just kept spelling 'your' when he should've been spelling 'you're' and writing "hole" for "whole," and he kept making plurals by using apostrophe s. Don't you understand? He HAD to die!"

So I've recently been going out with this guy who, on paper, is the catch of the century. And truly, he is incredibly nice. But he mumbles. And not just a little bit. A lot. For instance, last night, he cooked dinner for me, and I was seated maybe 3 feet from him at the kitchen table, and I must've said "Huh?" "What?" "I'm sorry...what?" "Come again?" about 10 times over the course of our meal. And despite my many years of rocking out, I am NOT hard of hearing. The mumbling thing is a potential deal-breaker.
And then there's the apologizing. If he's not saying "sorry" for mumbling, then he's apologizing for something else. For instance, I asked him to pass the pepper grinder last night, and he said, "Sorry. I didn't realize you couldn't reach it." Who knew that aplogizing when it's totally unnecessary could be so grating? I've even called him on it a couple of times, by saying things like, "You know, you don't need to apologize for the pepper being too far away for me to reach it. Really, it's okay." But the sorry-ing continues. I think I'm going to have put the kibosh on this whole thing before something horrible happens.

"I'm sorry Your Honor. I realize that sticking an ice pick in his jugular was not a good idea. But after 25 years together, I still couldn't understand what he was saying. And I'd told him that if he apologized one more time, I was going to kill him..."