After the emotional whirlwind that was my visit with the
Italian, I thought it best to dive right into the dating scene. I decided to be
proactive and meet up with a couple of match recommended guys. I was beginning
to realize that it was best to meet up quickly and not spend too much time
chatting details via email otherwise upon meeting, I’d be forced to stare
blankly with nothing else to talk about because we’d already exhausted our
charming second grade stories about accidentally sitting on a pencil. Yes, that
happened, and yes, I often say things deemed inappropriate by others. For this
reason I sometimes try to overcompensate by showing off a stronger personality
than I’d like to. If my biceps
were as strong as my personality comes off, they’d ignore the words coming out
of my mouth and just rub oil on me.
I’ve learned that although I say things that I shouldn’t and
make bad jokes, I also shouldn’t censor or change what I say just to get
someone to like me. I want to be with someone who is either amused by me or is
ready to bring the sass right back. Perhaps unconsciously I’ve known this and
thereby turn up the personality dial a few notches on the theory that if my
date can handle me in the extreme, then he can most certainly handle me on a
normal day. On my next two dates I exercised this theory.
Broadway Producer walked in apologetically explaining that
he’d gained 20lbs since he posted his pictures but that he was on a new diet
allowing him all the protein he wanted. I barely stifled a bad gay protein joke
as he told me about his job and high salary while snagging every piece of
salami on a meat tray too quickly to find any of my quips amusing. I got to eat
the cashews on the tray, as they weren’t listed in his all meat diet. I began
to feel that he was more interested in the meat tray and his successful life to
pay any attention to me at all, which is when I decided I could be completely
honest. After his boastful career update was complete was when I thought it
would be fun to talk about how I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of
my life. I’ve learned that nothing turns off an ambitious, career identified
person more than someone who is unemployed and having an existential crisis.
I knew that I
didn’t want to see him again and wanted him to decide the same thing about me
so I tried to make that decision as easy as possible for him. Although the
thought did occur to me for a second that maybe I should keep him as my
boyfriend for the Producer contact…These thoughts occur sometimes but my conscience
always gets the better of me as in the case of the other Match.com perspectives
like the flight attendant who’s frequent flyer miles had me chat with him for
several more emails than I regularly would have or the boring 40 something
Doctor who wrote more words in his emails than he had hair on his head. In the
back of my skull I have a Jewish mother shouting, “Doctor! He’s a doctor!”
which is weird because I’m neither Jewish, nor has my mother every expressed
any interest in my dating life.
Broadway producer turned out to be a bust, but I
optimistically made an early afternoon coffee date with the first guy who
actually looked like his pictures.
Composer walked in after first casing the joint 10 minutes
before our date. He was easy to spot with the scruffy red hair and distinctive
glasses. He almost looked like a hipster version of Ron Howard. “Happy Days”
Ron Howard, of course, not present day as I don’t have daddy issues. Before
starting his interrogation-based questioning of all aspects of my life, he
insistently pursued the “meeting” that I had in East Midtown before our date at
11:30am.
Composer: “So what were you doing down here?”
Composer: “So what were you doing down here?”
Me: “Oh, just a meeting.”
Composer: “What kind of meeting? What do you do?”
Me: “Oh, I’m a singer.”
Composer: “So were you at an audition? What auditions were
over here?”
Me: “No, not an audition. Just a quick meeting. No big
deal.”
Composer: “For what? What were you meeting about?”
Me: “THERAPY! I was at therapy, ok?! Me and my
Therapist!...ahem…so yea…”
Composer: “oh….how was it?”
I responded with some joke about how it’d done me a world of
good since I was ordered there by the judge to deal with my rage issues. This
of course was completely false, but probably not the type of joke to start off
a date with. Although, who wants to start the date with the admission that they
just finished with therapy? Sliding his chair back a few inches, Composer proceeded
with the rapid-fire part of my date questioning. We started with where I was
born, continued through my formative years and finished the water boarding with
where I wanted to be in the next five years. I ignored the existential part of
the question and simply said, “New York.” The whole interrogation was over
within 30 minutes and we both found ourselves in the awkward position of trying
to continue the conversation. What else is there to talk about when I can write
a 300-word biography of you already. It’s all surface and I have no amusing
anecdotes to tell or ask you about as I feel that an anecdote wouldn’t compute
in his world. The most interesting thing about him was that he was rehearsing a
musical that he composed starring a Broadway star that I pretended to know as I
usually do by saying, “hmm, yes, I know the name. Beautiful voice.” The musical was a comedy about Cancer,
which of course was too tempting for me to not make a terrible joke. Note to
self: don’t make jokes about Cancer or molestation…they don’t go over well. I
brought up religion and politics in a last ditch effort to get some sort of
passion out of this guy, but alas after 43 minutes, he looked at his watch and
suddenly realized how late he was going to be to his next appointment. I didn’t
ask what the appointment was, but I could only assume it was therapy.
