Mr. Unavailable #148: The Back-Up Planner

See George W.’s Doppelganger for the background on this one.

#148 was doing everything right. He texted the day before our Saturday date to firm things up.

#148: Hope u had a good week. So tmrw let’s meet at ipudo at 8. If the wait is crazy I got a backup plan

A backup plan? Who’d have thought that that would ever occur to a thirtysomething New York male—well, I didn’t, but, clearly, it’s possible.

I put on a girly coral-colored sundress and flowery sandals to counteract how comparatively overly put together I felt on our first date. Waiting in front of the restaurant, I was nervous. Would I like him when I saw him again? And then he came out of the restaurant. Oh, he’s cute, I thought. I can do this.

“Our wait is an hour and a half. They’ll buzz this thing when our table is ready.” He held up a big plastic coaster. “I know of a bar around the corner. We can go for a drink there until it’s time. Or we can go with the backup plan. Another ramen place nearby.”

“I’m up for a wait,” I said.

“OK, we’ll just come back in an hour,” he said.

Set among the sports bars and movie theaters of the southeast Union Square area, the bar around the corner was one of those finds that people like me can never find again—people like me who only have enough room in their brain to store one joke at a time. People like me who get lost in the West Village even after being in New York for a dozen years. People like me who are so distracted by their internal relationship thermometer (How do I feel about him now? How does he feel about me now?….And how do I feel about him now?) that they forget to keep track of where they actually are.

All I knew was that we were below street level in a place that felt like an old speakeasy. And I was feeling like I liked him and like he liked me. Because he was a sound-engineer guy, we talked about music and the opera and commercial tracks he’d produced. After an hour, we headed back to Ipudo and worked our way through the crowd to find out how close we were to getting a table. #148 was hesitant. I sensed fear. It was as if we were in the wild and I, the lioness, was watching her potential mate hunt wildebeests with the lion pack. Except, instead of barreling ahead to sink his teeth into the targeted wildebeest, he slowed down, looked around hesitantly and let the rest of the pack take down its prey.

Here, the hostess was the prey. He held back. I was an unimpressed lioness. A seat in the bar area open up and I went and sat down, leaving him to find his courage.

Eventually, our table was ready. My feelings about him remained mixed. On one hand, I was impressed by his knowledge of ramen and all its trappings; he’d spent some time in japan, so he knew his noodles and broth. On the other hand, when he leaned close and put his arm on the back of my chair, I felt myself shrinking away from him. They’d seated us at a sort of low bar in front of a mirror. I avoided looking at our reflection. I wasn’t crazy about what I saw.

After dinner, he suggested a bar on 2^nd Avenue. On the second floor above a store, it was something out of Casablanca. He asked me if I wanted a drink. I said yes. And then he kissed me. As soon as he stepped away to wade into the crowd at the bar, I turned and groaned and spotted about five other guys I’d rather be kissing. He eventually came back with the drinks and found us seats by the pool table, winning some ardor when he rustled up pool table time for us. I tried to talk myself down:

OK, Tara. Now, look. If you were at this bar and you saw him from across the room, would you think he was cute? I looked at him as he leaned over the pool table to make a shot. Yes, you would. Still, I found myself steering clear of his kisses. A little while later, he walked me home and I gave in to a minor make-out session in front of my building. It was underwhelming. His tongue lashed all over like a dog working out how to eat peanut butter.

He asked if I wanted to get together on Thursday for a sound installation at the armory. He wanted to go because he was flying to Europe on Friday and would miss it otherwise. Again, he had a plan—a third-date plan. I was impressed. “That sounds like fun,” I said.

Signs of Hope: I knew that, if he hadn’t been available to me, I might have found him attractive.

Red Flags: I was having a hard time finding him attractive.

Turning Point: The kiss. If only it was good…

Diagnosis: For him: He seems to like me. He seems available.

For me: But do I like him? Or is this what my unavailability looks like?

Mr. Unavailable #149: Miracle on 51st Street

Vital Stats: 37, 6’. Worked in sales. Aesthetic: Dressed to impress, summer version. Demeanor: “I’ve got this covered.”

We’d made plans to meet on Wednesday after work. I suggested the Rink Bar at Rockefeller Center—partly because I wanted to be outside on a nice summer night and partly because I worked at 50 Rock by 51^st Street. All I’d have to do was throw on lipstick and take the elevator down six flights.

I texted him when I got there. He said he was on his way. I ordered a seltzer with lime and fidgeted in my seat. The sun was sinking over the plaza and the Rink Bar DJ played some Pitbull or Flo Rida or Rihanna—my recent faves. The scene was set.

#149 walked up. Trim, tall, confident, faintly tanned, suave in a pale, linen suit and scruffily groomed with a short-trimmed beard.

He moved a stool close and sat down, his legs straddling me. He touched me as he spoke. Every gesture of his met a limb of mine. My leg. My arm. My hand. I caught him scanning me—up and down. He had that energy. The kind that made me sit up and pay attention. The kind that told me to be on alert because something really exciting was about to happen. I tingled.

Two years ago, my interpretation of the tingle would have been “attraction.” I would have hung on his every word, been thinking about how I could ensure that he would like me. What would I say, what would I do? But from where I was sitting this day—maybe because of all I’d been through, or the decision I’d made to find something of substance—my interpretation of the tingle was “flee.” Like an organ transplant gone wrong, my body was rejecting him. My body was telling me to run.

We continued talking, sharing where we were from, where we lived, sisters, brothers. It was all fairly routine get-to-know-you chatter, but I had the unmistakable sense that he wasn’t really there.  Like part of his mind was working at hiding his true self. If he even knew what that true self was.

Remembering his comment about his ex-girlfriends from our phone call, I attempted to snap him into the moment. “So what was that thing you said about your ex-girlfriends? That they were reclamation projects?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. Whatever barricade he had up was now breached. The floodgates opened and I felt the surge of an oncoming over-share. “The reclamation projects...that was a nickname my best buddy came up with…there were two of them…there was the kind of bad one and then there was the really bad one...major drama…the first one I met at a bar…”

He went on. And on. I lost track of which ex-girlfriend was which, but the upshot was that one of them was a stripper, one of them was dangerously jealous, neither of them ever had any money and both had gotten kicked out of their own apartments. They’d, in short order, moved in with him. Eventually, a level of crazy intolerable to even him developed and he had to kick them out. As he spoke, I pictured an interchangeable pair of scantily clad brunette vixens, drunk and holding old-fashioned telephone receivers into which they were threatening suicide.

“Want to get out of here?” he said, looking itchy.

“Sure,” I said.

“Let’s go to Del Frisco’s.” At Del Frisco’s, he asked what I wanted to drink. “Not another tonic water,” he said.

I nodded.

“Do you not drink at all?”

I shook my head. For the first time, he exhibited a degree of gravity. I got a glimpse beneath the surface. “I don’t know if this is going to work,” he said.

“We don’t have to stay,” I said, smiling. “We could totally go. It’s fine.”

“No, let’s stay for a drink. We might as well.”

I laughed. “OK.” Whatever kind of dissociative disorder he may have had, I really didn’t care what he thought or even what we did. He was a traveling circus attraction and I was along for the ride. I knew he’d hang around only as long as the circus was in town, and that, after tonight, I’d probably never see him again, so I said, “Just so you know, I am pretty much the exact opposite of one of your reclamation projects.”

I left it up to him to decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing. He said nothing about that, but his appetite for sharing—about his foibles, his troubles, his dad issues—was insatiable. He revealed information about online dates he’d been on and how some of the women looked thin in their photos, but when he met them, “They were, well, a lot thicker.”

There were a few more women who were more “thick” than advertised. Such talk segued into a description of tactics that helped him get out of dates as quickly as possible. “Usually I’d just come up with some reason I had to leave—I had to work early, or that I thought I caught a stomach bug. I could tell that they were into me, but I had to get out of there.”

“Hey, are you hungry,” he said after we’d neared the end of a second round. I must have passed some kind of thin/thick acid test. “Want to get a burger? We could go to P.J. Clarke’s.” He took my hand as we left the bar and held me close when he hailed a cab.

Dinner was more of the same. We were there, together, eating burgers and fries at P.J. Clarke’s. But it was as if we were at opposite ends of a very, very long table. There was a gulf between us that no amount of removed table leaves could close. It was fun running around the city with a cute guy and all—he grabbed me and kissed me on the corner of Broadway and 61^st—but I couldn’t get at who he really was. I doubted he knew. He got off the subway at 34^th Street, leaving me with ideas of coming out to his place in Weehawken, or hanging out in the East Village with his friend who owned the Belgian Frites place. I doubted I’d ever hear from him again. He was too elusive, too ephemeral.

I called Eva after exiting the subway at Bleecker Street. “A miracle has happened,” I announced. “I’m now actually able to spot unavailable men.” I hoped I’d never hear from him again. Because I feared I wouldn’t be strong enough to resist his unavailable allure.

Signs of Hope: Shockingly, after the date, #149 took several available-man actions, including texting me that night (I froze in conflicting feelings of fear and flattery.), calling the next day, texting the next, and the next, calling again. He was definitely keeping in touch.

Red Flags: In that week after the date, he had a lot of last-second plans for getting together, all of which fell through because, well, I had plans.

Turning Point: We spoke on the phone one Sunday night and he revealed to me more about his job woes and I proved an excellent listener. Or so I thought. He asked for my email address and then, after we got off the phone, I read it. The subject line was, “This you?” and the message read, “Ok, hello. This is me. Godspeed.” I never heard from him again.

Diagnosis: For him: Completely unaware and unavailable. As Kevin said, “He sounds like he said some kind of douche-y things.” And as I replied: “No, he IS totally douchey, and he doesn’t even know to hide it. It’s kind of part of his charm.”

For me: It’s a miracle. I can spot unavailable men.

Mr. Unavailable #148: George W.'s Doppelgänger

Vital Stats: 39, 5’11”. Audio engineer with his own commercial sound business. Aesthetic: He wore pale-colored button downs and pants, pale sneakers and had an “I just got off my bike” mussed look. Demeanor: Like he’d been through enough to know that he was in a good spot in life.

I arranged to meet #148 at Ost. I was nervous. I’d only been platinum for 48 hours, so I was still exceedingly self-conscious. I wore a strapless flower dress and black, heeled sandals to give my hair a full glamor effect. When I walked up to him on the corner of 12^th and Ave. A, I detected a look of satisfaction. Relief set in. We said hello and hugged.

Ost was closed for a private event so we went to Café Pick Me Up and sat out front looking at Thompkins Square Park. Looks-wise, there was something young George W. about him — square face and blue, squinty eyes. He was a lot thinner than he looked in his photos and maybe not as tall as he’d said he was. He was nice. He was normal. He was a Democrat. He was from Milwaukee but had been in New York — primarily Brooklyn — for years. He lived alone. In his own apartment.

As I sipped my coffee and he his beer, a drunk guy stumbled by asking for change. A homeless man walked by with his cart of belongings. A transvestite slinked past, giving him the eye. “I feel like we’re having a very East Village experience,” he said.

We were. And we weren’t. Because in a neighborhood teeming with red flags, there were none at our table. He was cute. And maybe a little nerdy. But engaged. I liked him. Not too much but just enough. At the end, he paid and we hugged good-bye in front on the café.

“This was fun. Would you want to get together again?”

“Yes, I would,” I said. “That would be great.”

I called Kevin later to admit my only hesitation. “I kind of feel too glamorous for him,” I said.

“Jeez-us!” Kevin said. “We’ve created a monster.”

The next day, #148 texted asking if I wanted to get noodles on Saturday. A guy who can plan four days in advance. It does exist.

Signs of Hope: He seemed pleased with me. I felt pretty pleased with him.

Red Flags: When Ost, which I had picked, turned out to be closed and we were trying to figure out where to go, he said, “Well, I don’t know. This is your neighborhood.” There was something in his tone.

Turning Point: There were no definitive moments during the date but perhaps he was growing on me.

Diagnosis: Potentially available.

Mr. Unavailable #147: Multiples of Trouble

Vital Stats: 47, 5’11”, manager of a consignment shop. Aesthetic: From what I garnered from his photos, there was something very Talented Mr. Ripley about him. Demeanor: Bad boy.

It was mid-August and I’d weathered a few far too self-introspective weeks with no boy interests and a slow approach to 40. I needed change. Maybe something daring. Maybe something out of my comfort zone. I called Eva, who was in hair school.

“It’s time,” I said. “Let’s do the platinum.”

I’d wanted to do it for 20 years. Ever since I’d done a summer school paper on Marilyn Monroe’s death. Autopsy report and everything. Saturday, August 18, 2012, was the day. I went to Eva’s school on Union Square.

First, it was the bleach.

I’d like to say that I decided to go platinum and never looked back. But when she turned me toward the mirror after the bleaching process, I screamed. “Oh my god, what have I done?” My head was a yellow and white sopping mess, like pina colada sherbet—not the healthy, organic kind, the artificial Yellow Dye #145 kind.

“Don’t worry, I still have to tone it,” she said.

After she toned it, she turned me to the mirror and I screamed again.

“I think it looks great, let me just dry it and put some makeup on you and you’ll see.”

She was right. In a couple of hours I’d gone from room-temp network TV girl-next-door to smoldering cable TV reality star. I looked like trouble. I loved it.

Things on OKCupid were simmering, too, with three matches on deck: Mr. Unavailables #147, #148 and #149. Perhaps it was the new prospects. Or the theory that blondes have more fun. Or all the bleach I’d inhaled. But my introspection evaporated.

Eva persuaded me to let go of my aversion to talking on the phone before meeting online guys. “It’s a great way to see if you click.” From a couple of experiences a few years ago, I’d been operating on the belief that pre-date phone screenings didn’t work.

Experience #1: The 3D artist who said he flew airplanes and looked like Tom Ford. We got along famously on the phone, but when we met, things went from 3D to 1D. Fast. All I remember was how he bragged about being friends with Treat Williams. Treat Williams? Really?

Experience #2: In my head, I picture him as a cowboy. He was from the Bronx or Brooklyn or upstate and had some kind of outer-borough drawl. It turned me off. “So, would you like to get together,” he said. “Um, I get the sense we’re not a match,” I said. I felt bad. I wasn’t giving him much of a chance, was I. After that, I dispensed with the pre-date phone calls. For years...

...Until now. I talked to #147 on a Friday night. During our conversation, he billed himself thusly: “I’m the guy who says what everyone else is thinking but no one wants to say.” He sounded like my level of trouble multiplied by a thousand.

As for #148, he wrote back four days after I’d emailed him. Which is a really long time in online-dating land. I’d said: “I think we’d get along.” And he’d replied: “I think we would get along, too.” We made a coffee date for a Monday.

The third one, #149, wanted to talk on the phone, too. He sounded normal enough… talking about how he lived in Jersey, what he did for a living…however, his conversational filter had some design flaws. He let slip that his best friend had nicknamed his last two girlfriends “reclamation projects.” Noted.

Now back to #147. He was 47. Living on the Upper East Side. Managing a consignment store. All of that was fine. But he described his life as one big waterskiing/beach-house-hopping/pissing-people-off adventure. Where was the sense of responsibility? He was only capable of meeting up with me at the last second, and when we did finally set a date, he texted a few hours before with bad news. It went like this:

#147: Hi. So sorry. Owner acting up threatening to fire me or has. Have to deal with the situation. So so sorry.

Sure, I could infer his meaning, but I wanted him to come out and say it.  

Me: Canceling?

#147: I think I have to. Already called lawyer. Sorry. I would send a sad emoticon but not my thing. I was so looking forward to it.

Me: Yikes. Well, good luck with everything.

#147: Thanks. Will let you know.

[The next day.]

#147: Fired. How are you?

Me: Sorry to hear. Is everything OK?

#147: Yeah, it is not over in some sense. I have a contract. Promise to come next time.

[A week later.]

#147: Hi  how are you today

While his job drama may not have been over in some sense, his chance with me was over in every sense. I didn't reply. Did I really need to know about the lawyer? Or the threatening boss? Who knows if it was even true. Like Hitler said, if you’re going to lie, lie big (not a direct quote). 

Signs of Hope: Few. He was trouble from the start.

Red Flags: How he billed himself. And all his dramatic developments.

Turning Point: When I had to ask, “Canceling?” He couldn’t man up.

Diagnosis: He’s simply way too old to be a rebel.