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?