Mr. Unavailable #185: Slow and Steady Wins the Race, and Other Benefits

See The Voice, Cracking the Code, Quasi-Quadrille, Imperfections and Cheap Empanadas for the background on this one.

Over the next few dates, I’d like to say I didn’t go crazy again. Sadly, that was not the case. Some days I was fine, some days I was not. Before date #5, I texted Kevin.

Me: I’m depressed, I can feel it slipping away between my fingers.

I was referring to my sanity.

Kevin: Hey, Crazy. You okay. Okayish?

Me: You were unavailable, so I took Eva’s advice. I don’t feel good. I may need serious triage tomorrow in the form of a phone consultation. I also may be smoking a pack of cigarettes on top of my bronchitis. Is that a bad idea?

Eva’s advice had been thusly: #185 was probably waiting for me to show I liked him and reciprocate, she said, so I needed to let him know that I would reciprocate. She suggested an email. This is the same Eva who borderline-stalks all of her crushes. If she weren’t so cute, she’d be on the receiving end of multiple restraining orders. I followed her advice and the email went like this:

Hi, You.
 I had a great time, too. I was really happy that you came over. Maybe you can tell already, but I'm just terrible at. this. stuff. All that is to say that, at the risk of sounding corny, I really like you. And, although I haven't taken it's temperature, I'm pretty sure your voice can melt butter. Don't know if I mentioned it, but I possess the same melting point as butter. So, now, when do I get to see you again?

His reaction:

Aw, shoot, you've got me acting all shy and blushed first thing in the morning. To be honest, I can't really can't tell you are terrible at this stuff. In fact, I don't think you are. Also, I am happy to melt you as long as you reconstitute so we can do it again.
 What do you say we do Friday night? 

While it went well, I was left feeling like it wasn’t necessary for me to do that. Maybe I was pushing things. I wanted to take it slow, so why put feelings on the line? Or maybe I just felt exposed. Vulnerable. Yucky.

Fortunately, the next few dates cruised along in slow gear.

Date #5: We met in Soho and went to an Italian place for dinner, eating at the bar—my new favorite thing because we got to sit close—then we went to the Little Cupcake Shop for cake and then, instead of running off to catch his train, he walked me home.

Date #6: We met up at the New Museum and hugged, deeply, any spare moment we could. We grabbed burgers at Bareburger, warming up from being out in the cold, and he came over for ice cream and a make-out session.

Date #7: We met for Thai food in the West Village after work. I even brought him a fancy coffee from Blue Bottle to be a little more give than take. We hit Café Anjelique for dessert and he caught an early train home.

After date #7, I went nuts. I did the math. Early train home+a certain tone of distance in his last few emails+he mentioned he had Friday dinner plans on Wednesday but then said nothing again about them=He had a Friday night date with another woman.

I spent that Friday evening having a meltdown at a gallery opening with Eva. Fortunately, the art was terrible and the gallery was filled with a bunch of burnouts stuck in 1995, so, when a fight broke out, I started to feel better. Someone threw a beer bottle that shattered the front door of the gallery and my own aggression found a blessed outlet.

By the time Sunday rolled around, I was feeling more composed. I suggested ice skating. “Yeah, let’s do that,” he said he said over the phone. He asked if I wanted to meet him at Penn Station. I agreed, annoyed. I called Kevin on my way to meet him.

“He wants me to meet him at Penn Station because he can’t be bothered to come down and pick me up,” I said.

“Um, I think he wants you to meet him so he can see you sooner,” Kevin said. “He wants to see you sooner.” I hadn’t thought of that.

We met up in the Chase Bank vestibule at Penn Station and headed to Waldman Rink in Central Park, lining up at the admissions booth. It turned out #185 had never ice skated before. Fortunately, he was more than game. As he splashed out about $70 for admission and skate rental for both of us, I draped myself lovingly around him. 

We put our skates on and slid slowly onto the rink. He not only had the coordination of a five-year-old but the gusto, too. He barreled around the rink in a prolonged controlled fall, smiling and laughing the whole time. And when he did fall, he got right back up again. He even made friends with the kids in the rink.

“Are you OK?” one seven-year-old girl asked him. “How many times did you fall?” Clearly, she knew how to spot someone on her level.

“Four,” he said.

“Oh, I’ve fallen like 20 times,” she said, unimpressed.

“See,” he said to me, “me and kids are like this.” He pointed two fingers at his own eyes and then turned them toward mine. In other words, he was saying, he knew they were on the same level, too.

Though I was impressed with how intrepid he was, that wasn’t translating into a desire to tear his clothes off. He was more dorky than adorable as he wobbled around at around 6’5” in his skates, his face in full Wallace-and-Gromit ecstasy.

Maybe it was just a phase and my mild repulsion would fade. I took a few steady solo laps around the rink and we de-skated shortly thereafter. We headed back down to the East Village for dinner at Frank’s and, sitting across from him, warming up, having food in front of us, watching him lean his fist on his leg in that way that inexplicably turned me on, attraction returned. We talked about how neither one of us was up on our Oscar movie watching, specifically Argo and The Master.

“Want to go on Wednesday?” he asked. I smiled. I don’t know why it always stuns me when a guy I’m dating suggests another date.

“That sounds great,” I said.

Signs of Hope: The dates keep coming.

Red Flags: 1. Occasionally, my interest flags. At least I knew enough to know it’s usually a passing thing. 2. This isn’t the first time he’s indicated he and kids are on the same level.

Turning Point: Dinner at Frank’s.

Diagnosis: Slow and steady not only wins the race but also falls down less.

Mr. Unavailable #185: Cheap Empanadas

See The Voice, Cracking the Code, Quasi-Quadrille and Imperfections for the background on this one.

Two or three dates into any dating situation, me going insane is pretty much par for the course. Somehow, over the Saturday and Sunday between dates with #185, my brain persuaded me that he was losing interest, or freaking out and backing away, or deciding that he didn’t want to splurge for yet another date.

This was, of course, more a reflection of my own self-worth and freaked-out-ness. But I didn’t know that yet and nothing could have convinced me he was thinking otherwise. Even the email he sent me on Monday—parsed and diagrammed and subjectively translated below—was unable to quell me.

Hey, [Not a more affectionate “Hey You.” This meant he was keeping his distance.]
How is the pajama life? Are you in the middle of nap #1 right now? [Usually much more clever than that, he was feeling lackluster about me.] 

So I was thinking of going to this empanadas bar in the east village...a place i went several years ago and loved. It's really small and if it's packed people are sitting on top of you...so if we are not feeling it I'm sure we can find something that suits us a bit better. [A cheap empanadas bar? Where people will be on top of us? Where he probably went “several years ago” "with a girlfriend." He was going to make swift work of the end in a safe, crowded setting without making a big monetary investment.]

What do you think? [Such hesitance showed he was tippy-toeing around me—you know, because hell hath no fury…]

I arrived at the empanadas place at the appointed time and not only was he not there, but the place was closed for renovations. I waited out front. I was trying to appear collected but seemed to be having trouble normalizing my breathing. Then I saw him approaching.

“It’s closed,” I croaked at him breathlessly as the gap between us closed.

“Yeah, this wasn’t the place I was thinking of, so I was just walking up and down the street to see if I could find it. No luck,” he said. We embraced and pecked each other as if we were new to the concepts of hugging and kissing.

“Where should we go?” he said. I noticed he had no plan B. And he didn’t try to hold my hand or even link arms.

“We could just go to Café Mogador,” I said. Café Mogador, the location of many-a-failed-relationship dates. When we got there, he chose a table in the middle of the room, right out in the open, a very public spot if there were to be, for example, a scene. He asked me to hang his coat up for him behind my seat where I’d just hung mine. Wow, he really has stopped putting in any effort, I thought.

I ordered one of the more expensive entrees from the specials menu.

“So, how was your weekend?” I asked, keeping my hands in my lap. He leaned his fist on his leg and spoke, his voice casting its spell in person for the first time. And the last time, I thought. I guess he’s going to wait until after we eat. Now that he was about to become unavailable to me, he seemed more attractive, more manly. 

We ate and talked and I began to wonder if I might be wrong. I reached my hand out to my water glass and he touched it. And then he held it.

Ohhhhhhh, I am crazy.

Finally, I began to relax.

After we ate, he said, “I thought we might go get a coffee. There’s The Bean across the street.”

“Oh, I was going to ask if you wanted to come over for coffee or tea at my place.”

“Let’s go,” he said, and then, in what seemed like one movement, he paid the bill, got out of his seat and took both of our coats off of the wall.

The next day, I texted Kevin, who’d been kept apprised of my pre-date freak-out.

Me: I got my mojo back. Phew. That was scary for a second.

Kevin: Oh no!!!

Me: Wait. Why oh no?

Kevin: How much mojo are we talking?

Me: Medium?

Kevin: Ohhhh! Okay.

Me: Thank god he’s goofy looking.

Signs of Hope: Let me explain that last text: It’s good that I find him goofy looking because that tempers my crazy.

Red Flags: There’s always a chance my intuition may not be entirely out of whack.

Turning Point: When I asked if he wanted to come back to my place for coffee.

Diagnosis: Despite what my head tells me, everything is turning out just fine.

Mr. Unavailable #185: Imperfections

See The Voice, Cracking the Code and Quasi-Quadrille for the background on this one.

#185 emailed me on Monday:

As I lie here in bed staring down my first work week in two weeks I realized that I could really use something to look forward to. So, with that in mind I was wondering if you want to get together later in the week, maybe grab dinner after work on Friday? If not Friday, any other night would work just well.
 *insert cute owl and cat Friday night pizza sketch here*
 I hope you had a nice end to the weekend and that your start to the week is great.

Four days later, it was raining when I met up with him at Mexicana Mama Centro. I'd been sick that day but my fever had broken and I managed to dress festively in a red crocheted skirt and a striped strapless ruffle top. As I approached him in front of the restaurant, he broke into a smile. Wallace-and-Gromit-ey though it was, it was hard not to like. He held open the door for me and let me have the bench side of the table.

I was more excited to see him than I thought I’d be. He seemed so much more virile than I had remembered. We ordered, talked, held hands nervously across the table. Toward the end of dinner, I was perspiring. Whether it was due to the cramped restaurant, nerves or being sick with the flu-like thing going around, I could feel the sweat running down the back of my neck.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. So thoughtful. So take charge. We went to Think for coffee a few blocks away, impulsively holding each other in line, getting lost in whatever we were feeling. The cashier snapped us out of it. “What are you having?” #185 stumbled toward the register. So imperfect of him. So relieving for me. We sat at a table in the back talking until the shop was about to close.

Seeing him under somewhat harsher lighting—big, red, shiny face and all—I regained my composure. He began to tell me a story about a woman he barely knew who had fallen in love with him. He went into more detail. She was crazy, a little bit of a stalker and legally blind.

Ohhhh, that’s why she fell for him, I thought. I couldn’t help myself from thinking it. It was the "legally blind" part of what he said. She couldn’t see him. She fell for his voice. It happened to me every time I talked to him on the phone. A spell was cast by phone that disappeared in person.

He ended the story with a moral of forgiveness and compassion. It was a she’s-just-a-human-suffering-too wrap-up that helped excuse however egotistical the story had originally sounded. I shared a story of a friend who’d done me wrong in return and we both got to feel like we were on the karmic high ground. Just about then, chairs started going up on the tables and he realized he needed to catch his train. Out on the street, we huddled, kissing under his umbrella.

“When’s next?” he said eagerly.

“I dunno,” I said, knowing only that suggesting the next day would be too much. “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday?”

He considered Sunday and then said, “Monday?”

“Monday it is.”

We groped at each other for a few more moments and then parted ways.

My new habit of not even offering to pay—and my propensity for overthinking everything—had me on edge. I sent him a text an hour later to make sure I’d covered my bases.

Me: I don’t think I thanked you for the lovely hot chocolate. So, thank you. For that and the lovely conversation.

#185: You are welcome. It was my pleasure to be sure. Thank you for breaking fevers, letting me drag you out on another gross night, that lovely face, the thematic continuity of your outfit. Everything. My conversation is only a reflection of who I am with.

It was practically poetry.

Me: You are so sweet.

One would think that with things ending on such a high note, I would have spent the next three days in a state of euphoria. Not so. Instead, I went insane.

Signs of Hope: I was attracted to him…

Red Flags: …but then sometimes I wasn’t.

Turning Point: When he excitedly said, “When’s next?”

Diagnosis: We were both pretty excited.

Mr. Unavailable #185: Quasi-Quadrille

See The Voice and Cracking the Code for the background on this one.

I sat on a bench inside the vestibule at the J.P. Morgan Library playing Words With Friends and feeling apprehensive. I was about to see #185 for the first time in almost three weeks and was worried I wouldn’t find him attractive. Although I’d felt several degrees of chemistry on our first date, I’d also decided that, regarding looks, he had goofy ones.

While he was gone, he kept up the courtship. He texted a week into his trip: “Buying a ridiculously expensive coffee in the Phoenix airport and thinking of you.”

Once more, he’d arranged a two-part date. “I’m not typically Museum Date Guy," he emailed, "but when I saw some of the drawings they have at the Morgan Library, it looks like it would be amazing." The museum was to be followed by dinner at a Turkish restaurant in the West Village. I looked up the restaurant—Casa Le Femme—on Yelp. It was a pricey middle-eastern place with mediocre food that sported belly dancers and the chance to eat under tents. Once more, I suspected he’d Googled “romantic West Village restaurant.” The tent thing worried me. Either he had a silly sense of adventure—a good thing—or, like something out of a terrible dating guide, he seriously thought a tent was a brilliant method of seduction.  

Since he’d made an effort to plan the date, I made an effort to dress for it. I went with a 1940s look: blue suede and ribbon heels, a blue fitted skirt, a black belt and a tight black square-necked top. I’d also hot-rollered my hair into a style reminiscent of Rita Hayworth.

Temporarily stumped by my Words With Friends game, I glanced up and saw him approaching the entrance to the museum. He was perhaps goofier-looking than I’d let myself remember, but there was something easy about his presence, so, as I hugged him, I thought, “I can do this.” The “I can do this” meant: I can spend the next hour or two with this guy and then, if need be, re-evaluate. He got the tickets, checked his coat and then turned and saw me with my coat in my hand. “Oh, er,” he muttered, “sorry I’m not thinking.” He was red, but I couldn’t tell if that was from embarrassment or his natural color. Either way, he was nervous.

We picked up a map and stood facing each other in the middle of the museum’s atrium trying to determine where to go first. He’d gone for an urban lumberjack look: black jeans and a brown suede vest over a gingham shirt with sleeves rolled to reveal the pushed-up arms of a cream-colored long underwear shirt. The vest drew attention to his narrow shoulders, but the rolled sleeves/long underwear look exposed a bit of forearm. I liked me a bit of forearm. I also liked me a bit of tall. And he was tall. Not quite six feet by my estimate. Tall made up for a lot with me, including goofy-looking and narrow-shouldered.

We toured the museum as if in a dance—a quasi-quadrille that ensured physical closeness remained limited. We’d enter a room and then one of us would let the other move ahead. A few moments later, whoever was behind would catch up and we’d stand together for another few moments in front of a painting or display case making sardonic wisecracks until one of us—usually me—couldn’t take any more proximity. I’d move ahead to the next piece of art and then he’d catch up. Eventually, we’d move into the next room and do it all over again.

As we entered the Beatrix Potter exhibit (perhaps we were really there for that?), I stopped in front of a wall displaying the description for the room. #185 stood a few steps away and said, “You go ahead and read that and I’ll just stand here and look at you.” There was no focusing on words after that. I smiled at him and began our next little dance around the room.

We made quick work of the rest of the museum, hailed a cab to the restaurant and were an hour early for our 7:30 reservation. Wisely, #185 hadn’t reserved a tent. That might have freaked me out. But I’d slowly become accustomed to our closer proximity and the waiter told us if we got the prix fixe dinner, we got a tent.

“I don’t mind springing for the prix fixe,” #185 said.

“Let’s do it,” I said, smiling and bouncing up and down in my seat to punctuate my vote.

We moved to the outskirts of the main room to a round table behind a sheer pink curtain.

I learned a great deal about #185 over the next few hours. He was good at telling stories, enjoyed making silly jokes and knew how to be a gentleman. About halfway through dinner, he leaned in and kissed me. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he said. I’d been unsure about how much I wanted to kiss him, so I was glad when he just went for it. I liked it.

On our way out of the restaurant, he fumbled the coat check again. This time, he tried to give the coat check lady a tip and she ignored him. He was embarrassed. Especially, I'm sure, because he knew I saw.

“Was I not supposed to tip her?” he asked.

“Some places you do, some you don’t. One never can tell.” I tried to strike a supportive tone.

On our way to Casa La Femme earlier, we’d spotted a bakery. Now, we retraced our steps to track down some dessert. Using his GPS and our combined (poor) senses of direction, we walked up and down Charles Street but were unable to find it. Because we’d locked lips, I was jonesing for some hand-holding. It wasn’t forthcoming. Feeling a little lost now for two reasons, I took both matters into my own hands, put my arm through his and said, “Let’s just go Rocco’s.”

At Rocco’s, between bites of shared cheesecake and bits of conversation, we gazed into each other’s eyes and smiled, saying nothing. Breathing ceased. Thoughts disappeared. I knew he felt the same. “I got nothing,” he said.

Signs of Hope: He texted after the date: “Thanks again for tonight. I really enjoy spending time with you and I could not figure out how to say that in a less corny way.”

Red Flags: Just hold my hand, god damn it.

Turning Point: When he kissed me.

Diagnosis: For him: Maybe "corny" equals "available." 

For me: Corny is working.