Mr. Unavailable #145: Mr. Vocabulary

Vital Stats: 6’4”. 200+ lbs. Environmental construction salesman. Divorced with one child. Living in New Jersey. Aesthetic: Normal suburban guy-wear—cargo shorts, polo shirt. Demeanor: Normal enough. Nice enough.

What Happened: I must be in a phase where I think the right thing to do is to go for the safe guy, meaning someone I’m not terribly attracted to or can even imagine kissing—ever. It reminds me of the time I was in sixth grade and depressed. Not knowing that I was depressed but knowing that I was somehow “off” or “wrong,” I thought that, as a pseudo punishment-slash-betterment effort to “right” myself, I should only listen to classical music. It was like I was in a self-made dry town—no more booze, drugs or rock ‘n’ roll. I’d get home from school, put on classical music, lie in bed and feel…nothing.

#145 arrived with similar excitement. In his online profile, he seemed…nice. In his messages, he seemed…bland but nice (“Hi. We seem to have a lot in common. Would you like to talk?”). And in his photos, he looked kind of like a big, furry bear—but a nice one. He didn't inspire me, but maybe dating him would be the right thing to do.

Our email exchange was becoming dangerously close to my four-exchange quitting point, especially since his messages were growing increasingly longer, explaining the exact reasons and circumstances under which he was transitioning from construction to environmental building sales, how he ended up in New Jersey, blah, blah, blah.

He snatched things from the brink of extinction when, at the end of message #8, he asked if I wanted to meet for coffee. I replied, ignoring the two paragraphs preceding it that detailed his exact career trajectory, saying, “I’d love to get together for coffee. How about Saturday at 3:30?”

On Saturday afternoon, as I approached him in front of Colombe on Lafayette, my new default online date coffee place, I saw that he’d buzz-cut some of his beariness, revealing a cute face. After a series of physically disappointing mister unavailables (too scary, too tiny, too not attractive to me) in the month or two before, I thought—and in my real voice not my inner cheerleader voice—Oh, maybe I can do this.

He was big, bigger than what I’m usually attracted to, but he’d recently been divorced so maybe he’d put on some poundage in his distress and sadness. Maybe I was the girl who would bring him renewed happiness and inspired weight loss. He regaled me with stories of his old days in the East Village—the low rent he paid, the crazy parties they’d had—in the same building the restaurant Saxon and Parole now is, where rents probably now surpass the $5,000 mark. He was interesting, smart even.

He asked if he could walk me partway home. At the corner of Bowery and 4^th St., we stopped to part ways. “I’d love to get together again sometime,” he said.

“Yeah, that would be fun,” I said. I put out my arms to give him a hug and he moved in, his lips heading straight for mine. I turned my head. He got my cheek. We said a few more parting words and he leaned in again. I realized he was going to persist so I let him land one on my lips.

I didn’t like it. At all.

“It was not cool,” I told Kevin later at coffee. Kevin cringed, recognizing the male gaffe. “It doesn’t sound like he was reading you right. But not just that, he just generally needs to play it a little cooler.”

#145 said he’d call me the next day about a date for later in the week. And he did. We arranged to meet at the Noho Star on Thursday. Shallow me was excited to have a dinner date with someone tall, so I got dressed up and put on heels. Waiting for him at the restaurant, I was nervous. My original interest in him had been predicated on past disappointments, so I knew that a lot would be decided the moment he walked through the door. Then he walked through the door. I felt nothing.

I just had to make it through dinner, but everything he said annoyed me.

“I’m the guy who uses big words. Some people think it’s pretentious but I just have a copious vocabulary,” he said. I internally rolled my eyes.

He also revealed that he hadn’t gained weight as a result of his marriage falling apart. “I’ve always been big,” he said proudly, comparing himself to his regular-sized brothers, who I then began to wonder about. My legitimate opportunity for an out, though, came when he said he moved out of the house in February.

“So, you’re not divorced yet?”

“No, we’re separated about five months…but it was over a long time ago.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was so recent,” I said, hoping he’d remember the faint tone of disappointment when I declined his next date request.

We finished dinner and he walked me home. This time, standing in front of my apartment building, I knew there was no way I was going to let him sneak a kiss on the lips again. He must have sensed that I was drifting away from him because stood there throwing out ideas for future dates as if throwing out little life preservers. I felt too bad to let him drown right there on my doorstep, so I quietly acted as if I was taking his ideas under advisement, “Oh, that sounds like it could be fun.”

He called me a few days later and I let it go to voicemail. He wanted to see what I was up to that weekend. After gathering advice from a few male friends of mine, I didn’t call him back. “He’ll get the message,” one said. 

But #145 persisted. He texted a few days after that to see if I wanted to get together. I was in the car with Nora and Eva on the way to a Williamsburg party when I got his text. Unsure of what kind of response to compose—I didn’t want to be too harsh or too explain-y or too apologetic (I mean, it’s not like I was breaking his heart)—the four of us parsed together a reply: “Hey! Thank you for your message. It was nice meeting you but I don’t think we are a match. Take care.”

Despite the copious vocabulary at his disposal, he didn’t respond.

Signs of Hope: I really meant it when I thought, Maybe I can do this. It wasn’t just my internal cheerleader talking.

Red Flags: At no point did I even vaguely consider making out with him.

Turning Point: When he walked into the Noho Star. No matter how much I try to talk myself into liking a guy, if it’s not there, it’s just not there.

Diagnosis: For him: My gut says he was less available, or “safe,” than he maybe seemed and was really casting about for something with any woman other than his ex-wife-to-be.
For me: Maybe the lesson in all this is: No more safe guys? 

Mr. Unavailable #143: My Inner Cheerleader

See The C Word and Real or Reflected for the background on this one.

After our Sunday brunch/Met/PR Day Parade date, #143 and I kept in touch through Words With Friends—a game at which I was killing him. When the next Saturday rolled around, I wondered why I hadn’t heard from him. I messaged him over WWF to ask how his week was. He replied.

#143: Did you get my email?

I hadn’t. He re-sent it to a different email box. When I got it, the formerly missing email asked if I wanted to go see Speigelworld. As we know, I looove Speigelworld. Everyone had busy schedules, so we set the date for Friday.

On Friday, nearly two weeks after our first date, waiting for him in front of the broke-down Speigeltent situated in a random parking lot in Times Square-slash-Hell’s Kitchen, I summoned my inner cheerleader. You may not think he’s cute when he gets here. But that’s OK. You’ve gone back and forth on guys before and they’ve sometimes become really attractive to you. Eventually.  

Finally, he appeared. OK, this isn’t so bad. He was in a polo shirt and khakis and had a messenger bag slung across his back. You can work with this. We hugged. While it was true he looked acceptable—cute-ish, even—an unacceptable scent was emanating from his facial area.

Judging from the heavy, earthy aroma (dirty-earthy not fragrant-earthy) wafting from his mouth, he’d begun his day with coffee and proceeded to drink coffee for perhaps a great portion of the day. It’s entirely possible he’d even inhaled a good dose of city dirt and truck exhaust, too, because he said he’d been on a job site most of the day. Maybe he hadn’t had time to check his breath or find gum or even know that a breath-check was necessary. Or maybe he just wasn’t all that hygienic. Whatever. That could be fixed, my internal cheerleader said.

We went into the tent and found our seats. Other than the diesel fumes wafting toward me, the only other disconcerting thing was that both of us were sort of turned away from each other in our seats. I was supposed to be that way because I wasn’t so into him, but…he was doing it, too.

After Speigelworld, #143 had made a reservation for us at Northern Spy in the East Village. It was one of those mindful restaurants where all the animals used for food were raised happily until they died. And when the restaurant served pig, for example, it served ALL of the pig—slowly, over the course of a few weeks.

When we got there, it was pork belly night. The rest of the menu was laden with fish. A few months before, after sending yet another fish dish back at a restaurant because it was too fishy, Kevin begged me just to admit that I didn’t like fish. So pork belly it was.

#143 asked me if I had any travel plans for the summer. “Nope,” I said. I asked him about his.

“In a few weeks I’m headed out west with Alice and Harry to go rock climbing and then in August I’m heading to Denmark to see a friend of mine and then I figured that while I was there, I might as well travel down to the Maldives to see what’s down there…”

Just like in our earlier phone conversation, my exotic-travel cred got taken down another notch. And then the appetizer came. I’d agreed to share a fish-based starter with him. I didn’t like it. And then the pork came and, it turned out, “pork belly” is the glistening fatty part of the pork. I didn’t like that either. On top of my exotic travel cred being damaged, my adventuresome-food rep was taking a beating, too.

When the bill came and I took out my wallet, he said, “Oh, no, no. I have this thing where if I ask the person out, I pay.”

I excused myself to go to the restroom and tried to psych myself up. It was the second date, after all, so it might be appropriate to kiss him. He pays. He travels…you can totally kiss him if it comes to it. Maybe it’ll even be good.

And then I thought of his breath.

Walking down the street after exiting the restaurant, I asked if maybe he wanted a dessert. I wanted to spring for something to show my gratitude—and maybe also put off the inevitable. He declined, saying he had to get up early to do—I forget what, probably something adventure-y.

“So, I have sort of a conundrum,” he said.

There it was. I don’t know if it was the tone of his voice or the words, but like a Pavlovian dog that’s been dumped too many times, my heart sank reflexively, thinking, “Is he breaking up with me?”

Wait, wait, wait, I reminded myself. There’s nothing to break up and you’re not even that into him anyway. My inner cheerleader tossed down her pom-poms and breathed a sigh of relief.

“OK?” I said.

“So, I’ve been seeing someone for a few months and she wants a relationship with me and I’m not sure if I want one with her. Although when we first started dating she asked me if I wanted a relationship and I said yes, but that didn’t mean that I wanted one with her, but I think that’s what she thought. So I thought I could see more than one person, but I don’t think I can.”

“OK,” I said, unsure of why he was telling me this.

“I was going to call you last night to tell you, but then a friend of mine said not to because I’d left it til too late. She said you might not have wanted to have gone tonight.”

“OK,” I said, still unsure of why he was telling me this but fairly sure that his friend was right. “So, you’re dating someone but you don’t want a relationship with her?”

From there, the conversation took a weird turn where I began to council him on what he was doing with this other girl. I managed to turn the conversation back. “So, are you saying we’re friends?”

“Well, yes, if you’d like to be.”

There it was. I experienced a combined sense of relief and rejection. This meant I wouldn’t have to kiss him. Or try to like him. And, hey, it hadn’t even cost me anything. But then, he was rejecting me? Because he had multiple options? What kind of bizarre-o world was this?

“I’d really like to be friends. I mean, I think you’re a riot.”

I’m a riot?

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.

“Oh, well, yeah, in my book, it’s the highest compliment.”

Well, it was nice to know I entertained him.

He walked me back to my building. We hugged and I turned to unlock the front door.

“So, I’ll see you again sometime?”

I turned back. “Oh, hey, you never know,” I said.

“Well, you’ll still kill me at Words With Friends, right?” he asked.

“Probably,” I said.

We waved good-bye and he turned and walked away down the street. The next day, I resigned our WWF game. I had enough friends. And even if he got closure with his other situation, I didn’t like him—or his breath—enough to stick around.

Signs of Hope: He arranged a show and dinner and sprang for the whole thing.

Red Flags: Two weeks between dates. The body language.

Turning Point: My conflicting feelings when he said, “I have a conundrum.” I’d been rejected! By someone I didn’t find attractive! But I was now free! I didn’t have to kiss him!

Diagnosis: For him: Clearly, he didn’t have the stink of commitment on him, he had the stink of all-day-dirt-and-coffee breath.

For me: I feel compelled to force myself to like a guy simply because he’s got the word “commitment” attached to him?

Mr. Unavailable #143: Real or Reflected

See The C Word for the background on this one.

Having just insulted my date, #143 and I got off the 6 train at 86^th street and walked over to the Met. If I had demeaned his income, he shook it off pretty well because, inside at the ticket counter, he proudly slapped $2 down for admission for both of us.

“Don’t you like how authoritatively I give my dollar?” he said. I smiled. We looked around, and, like smug natives, scoffed at the tourists paying the full $20 suggested donation.

Being an architect, #143 was interested in the Saraceno sculpture on the roof garden. We got conflicting directions from different guards and eventually located an elevator that would take us to the top. Crowding onto it with a bunch of out-of-towners, there was something of a we’re-in-this-together vibe. The two of us. In the gigantic Met. Trying to find our way. Together. Maybe you can do this. He’s kind of cute. He’s definitely fun. And he clearly doesn’t take things too personally, I thought.

Once on the roof, I remembered the last time I was up there—when I was with #88 seven years ago. In the annals of my heartbreak, he’s pretty much at the top. The contrast between my feelings for my date then (strong) and now (weak) was so stark, every time #143 moved near me, I moved away. Afraid he might try to kiss me or something, I acted as if closely surveying the sculpture. 

I walked around it—a malformed Rubik’s Cube made of metal and twisted out of shape. Its octagonal surfaces were either reflective or open, so I was never quite sure if I was looking at the mirror image of the people looking at the sculpture or staring directly at them. Through one of the openings, I spotted #143 on the other side. I smiled and made a slight waving motion, but he didn’t respond. And then I realized he was next to me, looking at me. A moment later, I was saved by an announcement saying the museum was about to close.

“I guess we’d better go,” I said.

We took the stairs down and out, emerging onto the Fifth Avenue aftermath of the Puerto Rican Day parade. For those who don’t know, the PRD Parade has a bad reputation (for mild riots, occasional gang rape, that sort of light criminal fare), which inspired a line of inappropriate jokes between #143 and I that loses everything in the retelling. I laughed, however. A lot.

The police were just starting to remove the barricades, so we pick our way through them, the litter, the straggling families and the drunks yelling incoherently.

“Alice and Harry are going to be like, ‘So, how was the date?” And you’ll say, “Well, he talked about how little money he made, took me to the Puerto Rican Day parade and made rape jokes.” I laughed. See, he’s funny, I thought. He asked me what I wanted to do next. “Coffee in your neighborhood somewhere?”

“I know! Ice cream,” I said.

We hopped the train and headed back downtown to Emack and Bolio’s on Houston. I sprung for ice cream and then he walked me home. It was a real date. With a meal, an event, an ice cream “nightcap” and a walking-home. I hadn’t had one of those in a while. The sun was setting, summer was imminent, we’d survived the aftermath of the Puerto Rican Day Parade intact. He hugged me good-bye and asked if I wanted to get together again. “Yes, that would be fun,” I said.

He seems to like me. Maybe I can like him, too. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I really can.

Signs of Hope: We joked, we laughed.

Red Flags: I couldn’t imagine wanting to kiss him but maybe I would later.

Turning Point: Toward the end of the date, when he was telling making me laugh.

Diagnosis: For him: Like he said earlier in the date, he has “the stink of commitment” on him.

For me: I have hope, but are my feelings organic or just mimicking his? Real or just reflected?

Mr. Unavailable #143: The C Word

Vital Stats: 5’7.5”ish, 38, freelance architect and rock-climbing enthusiast. Aesthetic:  Urban casual with a whiff of outdoorish-ness. Demeanor: Deliberately carefree with a hint of self-consciousness.

What Happened: On Mother’s Day, out to dinner at Cookshop in Chelsea with Kevin and two married friends, we had just finished gawking at Will Ferrell at the next table over when one of the married friends, Alice, said to me, “Oh, we have someone we want to set you up with.”

“What about me?” Kevin asked.

“We don’t have anyone for you right now,” Harry, the other married friend, said.

The setup guy was a rock-climbing friend of theirs. A freelance architect, he’d gotten out of a five-year relationship six months before. Familiar with how my dating history diametrically opposed what I was looking for, Harry said, “He’s a long-term relationship guy.” They showed me a photo of him, a somewhat distant shot of a somewhat rumpled-looking guy.

“He’s looks cute?” I said.

Kevin turned to me to reiterate the more crucial element of Alice and Harry’s effort. “He’s a relationship guy,” he said.

About six weeks later, I got a nervous voicemail message from #143. “I’m a friend of Harry and Alice…They gave me your number…Thought I’d call to say hello…Give me a call when you can…Cheers, bye.” We played a few rounds of phone tag and finally caught each other on a Thursday night. We had the usual first-conversation conversation—what we did for work, where we lived, etc. I told him I thought it was cool he was an architect.

“Being an architect isn’t really very sexy,” he said.

“It seems sexy to me. You must have blueprints strewn around your apartment.”

“Yeah, I’m buried in blueprints,” he said. I hesitated, unsure if he was putting me on. “That was said with a sarcastic font,” he said. I laughed. “The real reason I like what I do is that I get to work for a few weeks and then travel for a few weeks. I mean, I just spent three weeks on a boat off of a remote Caribbean island.”

Now I was self-conscious, for the last two years I’d let my exotic-travel cred lapse. “Anyway, what’s your weekend looking like?” he asked.

We made plans for Sunday brunch at Saxon and Parole on the Bowery. “So, when we meet up, how will we spot each other?” he asked.

“Oh, you don’t know what I look like?”

“Nope, but I’ll send you a picture of me. Hold on….”

He took a self-photo and texted it to me. I got it a few seconds later and laughed. He’d taken it from above, so it was a good view of his head—longish, graying hair, big blue eyes and big nose. He’d actually composed the photo so it looked somehow modular—with a background slice of bright carpeting and an edge of a dark-colored coffee table—just what you’d expect from an architect.

“That’s a great shot,” I said, making no mention of his appearance. While I wasn’t immediately attracted, there was no reason he couldn’t grow on me. After all, he was a relationship guy with a stamp of approval. 

I found a photo of myself from a West Point tour I’d taken a few weeks earlier and sent it to him hoping it made me appear slightly more adventuresome. “Oh, you’re cute!” he said enthusiastically.

Sunday was sweltering. Despite the heat, I threw on a sundress and flip-flops and took a west-side walk with Eva, bringing a squirt gun with me so we could spray ourselves every now and then to keep cool. It was too hot to bother going home and freshening up with heels and makeup, so I met him in front of Saxon and Parole still in my flip-flops—and still carrying.

We hugged, went in and started chatting at the bar. Beads of sweat emerged from his forehead, rolled down his cheeks and leapt from his chin to the bar. He dabbed at his face with a napkin but the sweat persisted. I thought it was the heat until he said, “I’m sorry. I’m really nervous. This is my first blind date ever.”

Except for the squirt gun in my bag, I was totally disarmed. I reached over, touched his shoulder and said, “Aw, it’s OK. You’re doing great.”

We were seated at a table a few minutes later. “How have you avoided online dating?” I asked.

“I’ve been in relationships with people I’ve met in the real world. Long relationships,” he said. “Yes, I have the stink of commitment on me.”

I smiled. There it was. In all its triple-syllabic glory. Commitment. When the bill came, I reached for my purse. He shooed me away. “Don’t even think about it.” He paid and said, “Want to go to the Met? Let’s grab a cab.”

Not only did he use the C word and refuse to let me pay but he was about to spring for a cab to the Met. Now I was really hoping he would grow on me. Finding no free cabs, we hopped the subway uptown and continued our career discussion. He told me he’d had an interview recently to be the assistant to Ron Perlman’s private architect.

“It would have paid a fortune,” he said. “But I would have been in an office all the time and I’m kind of attached to my lifestyle.”

His sacrifice sounded so impressive, I assumed the job he’d turned down would have paid him an exorbitant salary, so I didn’t think it impertinent when I asked, “How much did it pay?”

He looked embarrassed. “Oh, I don’t want to tell you,” he said.

“Now I really want to know."

He hesitated and then said, “It would have paid $90,000.”

Surely, this was said with a sarcastic font. I hit him on the arm and said, “Shut up. How much would it have really paid?”

He looked at me, frowning. He was serious.

“Oh. Oh, well, yeah, that is a lot,” I said. “From the build-up I thought you were going to say it paid millions.”

It was too late. The unintentional belittling was done.

Signs of Hope: He has all the qualities of a gentleman.

Red Flags: I’m having trouble feeling attracted to him.

Turning Point: When I insulted his less-than-$90,000 income.

Diagnosis: For him: He’s a relationship guy, so he sounds pretty damned available.

For me: What's my problem? I’m not attracted to him and I just insulted him. I’m doing great in the availability department (that’s a sarcastic font).