Trivia Night Anyone?

I’m a trivia queen: crossword puzzles, Jeopardy, Sporcle, bar trivia—you name it, I love it.

So when I was at bar trivia the other night with friends, I realized something. Since I’ve lived in NYC, I’ve been on 3 trivia dates with 3 different guys. For each relationship, which were at various stages (first date, summer fling, exclusive), trivia was the last time we’d see each other.

It wasn’t trivia itself that ended things, of course. For the first date trivia, there were drunk girls next to us who kept interrupting our (very dull) conversation. At trivia with my summer fling (who turned out to be a complete fuckboy, but that’s neither here nor there), he took out his phone for the first time after 8 dates, signifying the beginning of the end. And it was when I was sitting at trivia with the guy I was exclusive with that I realized I didn’t see this going much further.

I’m not sure why this seemingly meaningless date activity has marked the end of so many relationships. I could guess — is it that I judge people on their intellectual abilities based on their trivia skills, which I know is completely ridiculous and slightly insane? Is it that I select this type of date to avoid conversations I don’t want to have? Is it that I just want to play some trivia and it just happens to be at the wrong time? — but for now, I’m just going to avoid trivia dates with potential suitors until I get to the bottom of this.