She started speaking.

[Sorry for off-topic, thought people might enjoy the update.]

With my anime preparation from both Hexbear and Wikipedia in-mind, I embarked on to my dinner the other night rather confident and dressed well, but a little nervous. When I arrived to pick her up, she came out slightly overdressed -- that was no issue to me, and I am not really one to judge someone's outfit. However, she saw I was a slight notch below that level of dress and began profusely apologizing: I tried to calm her by telling her it was alright, but to no avail. She invited me back inside to meet her mother while she got changed in to something else.

She changes and we go out to my car. I drive, and I shit you not: she literally does not stop fucking speaking. When I say "does not stop speaking", allow me to clarify; what you may think is that she talked for 5 minutes but rested for another 5. This was not so; she legitimately never stopped talking. She was essentially a auctioneer in her ability not only to fill her lungs in milliseconds but my entire ear with words. She told me precisely how to drive. She yelled at me where to turn. She screamed at me that I was driving wrong. She raised her voice in one word and lowered it in the next.

After asking me if I like anime, I respond and she lists off every single anime she likes -- all 40 of them -- and she asks me, finally, what anime I like. I respond truthfully and say I've read JoJo's. She makes a disgusted face. Alright. We're dealing with things here. I say I've been thinking of watching Evangelion, since the art and allegories interest me.

She says she doesn't know what that is.

I was completely baffled.

I said: Neon Genesis Evangelion.

She said again that she has never heard of it.

I thought I was being high-level trolled. Hours removed from this moment I have still pondered it and my bafflement has remained. Her answer swims before me as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep women feel eating in them; no answer, no turbaned Turk, no 14-y/o EVA pilot, could have smote me with more seeming malice.

This generally set the tenor of our dinner, as she talked about herself for the next 2 hours. She revealed absolutely everything about her life; ex-boyfriends, ex-dads, ex-girlfriends, ex-bosses, anime and conventions and how alcohol affects her and cosplay. She tells me about her fetish for yaoi. She told me that she was physically 22 but felt she was mentally 15. I am rather uncomfortable! I must repeat again: she never stopped speaking. She never asked me anything about myself.

I honestly worry people might think I'm being cruel by posting this, because it was simultaneously amusing to me but honestly kinda sad. I legitimately felt bad for her, because it was clear no one had ever taught her differently or that she should not be this way. Not only because absolutely nobody will put up with being nearly-screamed at for 2 hours straight, but because of how incredibly vulnerable it leaves her to abusive people.

I was able to maybe get in 200 words over the course of the night. My preparation was for naught, as was my tasteful sleeveless turtleneck. At the end of the night I dropped her off, and she continued happily on, ignoring that I had not even asked to walk her to the door or follow-up, and only I am alive to tell the tale. I remembered the words of one commentator, who said: "Just ask her about her favorite anime, I'm sure she'll be glad to tell you," and chuckled as I drove away. Boy, did she!