Mr. Unavailable #80: The Booty Call

This is a Mr. Unavailable flashback, circa Summer/Fall 2002.

Vital Stats: Lawyer, early 30s, 6'. Aesthetic: He had short, wavy sandy hair, was thin and was generally a put-together--yet casual--lawyer with a button-down shirt, glasses and anything else you'd expect from a lawyer gone casual. Demeanor: I could see how this guy could have been a one-time nerd but, having gotten his hands on a J.D. and some booze, had fashioned himself as a sexier, more suave version of his old self--until he'd had too much booze.

First Date: We met via online dating site Nerve.com, ironically (i.e., see title of post), back before it was known mainly as a hook-up site. We arranged to meet up at a restaurant bar in Soho.

First Impression: When I walked in, it looked like he'd been there for a while and was already chatting with an attractive blond. She seemed disappointed when I walked up to him; fortunately, he didn't and she went away. He was extremely flirty. I was wearing sandals and he said he thought I had cute toes. We were maybe 15 minutes into the date when he said, "I have a crush on you." After that bar, we went to the Apartment, one of the first bars to make difficulty in finding it cool. You know: it had no sign, so you had to know where it was. He knew where it was. We walked in and got a table and he ordered us a bottle of Cristal. He was drinking Belvedere on the rocks, too.

It turned out he knew the business magazine I was working at at the time, so we chatted about that and who knows what else, drinking all along, and, soon, of course, he needed another drink. But, in order to get it, he needed the waitress' attention. She was attending to a nearby table, so he leaned over, reached out and--quite drunk by now-- tugged her skirt. The waitress turned around, clearly furious, and told him that he was not allowed to do that kind of thing. He looked stunned and then apologized. I could see the little tiles of right and wrong slowly clicking together in his sluggish brain as he realized he probably shouldn't have done that.

Now looking back, the whole evening was a bizarre mishmash of chemical instability. At one point, and I forget when--possibly at Apartment--he told me he was bipolar. And at another point, he started talking about his father and how he could never measure up to his expectations. All he wanted was his father's approval and he could never get it, he said, and then he started crying. Real tears. Streaming down his face. Not sobbing or anything, but definitely full-bore tears. As the hours passed--after telling me he had a crush on me, tugging the waitress' skirt, crying and ordering the Cristal--I was way too fascinated to be horrified.

Then he asked me if I wanted to go home with him. It was easy to justify after a bottle of Cristal. I hadn't had a one-night-stand in a few years. Plus, I'd been online dating for about a month and been hearing hook-up stories so figured it was time for me to join the game. This was how I rationalized it anyway.

A few weeks later, he called me, we chatted for a minute and then he asked if I wanted to come over. Ah, my first official booty call. And this was in the days before texting, so it was actually a call.

Signs of Hope: For a relationship? None. For drunken booty calls and bizarre nights on the town? Many.

Red Flags: Everything about this guy was a red flag, but I didn't care.

Turning Point: There was no real turning point, the whole thing was a one-way ticket to Nowheresville.

Diagnosis: For him: Clearly, at one point, a shrink along the way had officially diagnosed him bipolar; unoffically, he needed way more help than he was getting from that shrink.
For me: It was 2002, way before my therapy days, but, clearly, I could have used one.

A few months post-booty call: I ran into him at a gathering of like-minded downtowners. We sheepishly approached one another and said hello, asked each other how the other one was. It was extremely awkward. I ran into him a few more times after that and then never saw him again.