Mr. Unavailable #111: The Make-Up Date

See Could it Be?, It's Not Him, It's Me, The Recovery, We're Just Not That Into Each Other and The Continuation and The Curse is Broken, Unfortunately for the background on this one.

Date #7: Toy Story 3 at the Zeigfeld Theater.

I was still extremely angry from his flippant cancellation of our previous date but was trying to move forward and let it go since he did offer up something of an apology. When I walked up to him, I tried to hide my irritation but kind of failed at it. "Are you OK?" he asked. "Sure," I said. We went into the theater and sat down. I noticed hostility in my voice when I spoke to him. I think he noticed it, too. I had him get a shitload of concessions from the concession stand (popcorn, soda, SnoCaps) and we settled in for the movie.

Signs of Hope: Sitting there in the dark, I have to admit I was dying for an innocent grope. It took a good twenty minutes but finally his arm came over the armrest and rested on my leg. I wrapped my arms around it. I felt better.

After the movie, I was myself again. He suggested getting a drink and I suggested we head to the Oak Room at The Plaza and pretend to be from somewhere else. We determined that neither of us knew how to do accents and he said, "Canada?" We laughed the whole way there. It took me a while to finish my diet Coke from the movie but as soon as I was done, he threw it in a trash can, and then he held my hand.

Having done a drive-by with #100 several months before, I led the way through the front door of The Plaza to the Oak Room. We chatted at a window table like, well, like two people on a great date. He even asked at one point if I wanted kids. I said I didn't know. He said he could go either way. Then we talked about what a hindrance it would be to have kids. Relief. And then, all on his own, he said, "So, I suppose I should call you at some point." I didn't even have to ask.

Red Flags: At the Oak Room, he asked me my least favorite date question: "What are you passionate about?" I hate that question. I wreaks of self-importance, of someone who doesn't think they're passionate enough about anything trying to prove they're passionate. "I hate that question," I said. I tried to explain why and then appeased him by giving him a laundry list of passions: travel, helping people, etc. How one comes across as humble when answering that question, I certainly don't know.

He was strangely quiet when we left The Oak Room. "This was a great way to make it up to me," I said, trying to coax some language out of him. Still, he was distant. I asked him to walk me to the subway. Unable to take his silence, I said, "So, what's this thing about how you get affectionate when you drink?" Finally, he gathered me up and we stood lip-locked on the sidewalk on 6th Avenue. "Can we be together sometime soon?" he asked. "Yes. I think that would be fun," I said.

Diagnosis: It was all good. Although I need more euphemisms for kissing.

I figured out later that his silence was likely due to the turning of his mental wheels as he was thinking about how, exactly, to be with me, since we were all the way up on 60th Street and the nearest bed was on Third Street and something needed to be spontaneous about the whole being together thing. Nothing is spontaneous about agreeing to hook up and then traveling 57 blocks.