Trader Joe's

From the annals of the extreme sport of dating in NYC comes another story from my not too distant memory.

One of the ways to avoid having to keep a pair of flats in your purse in case you need to flee on foot from the scene of a Date Gone Bad (also a reason to stay in tip top shape, see Run Forrest Run posted 01/24/09), is to date only by referral. Like, stick to house parties and getting introduced by friends and coworkers and classmates and the like. Keep it in the network so the person has a reference whom you trust and respect. This should provide some insulation from the crazies right? WRONG. Ok? Just W.R.O.N.G.

One of my dear girlfriends has a friend whom she thought I would like. And based on her description of him I thought she might be right. I was intrigued by the fact that he was a bit older because for some reason I tend to attract guys a minimum of five years younger than I am and would like to switch it up. So this guy is say, going on ten years older but supposedly in great shape partly because he's currently not working. That would ordinarily be a red flag but since he's a Finance guy it's not so odd these days and the smart ones will mostly land on their feet eventually I hope. I figured hey, give it a shot. I also chose to overlook the fact that he lives in the wrong borough for me because I really should be less elitist about that, and willing to travel for lurrrrvvvee. Since he's in the business, let's call him Trader Joe.

Trader Joe and I got each other's numbers through our friend in common and started texting. I know I know...I text excessively and people who grew up not texting think it's so rude and lacks a personal touch but I have intimacy issues ok?! Leave me alone. I tend to hold folks off and start by texting before I can move on to a live conversation. Plus I like to see if the guy is corny and uses a bunch of emoticons and abbreviations such as lol and lmao and even worse, rotflmao and what not which I find to be frankly a bit effete. TJ didn't though, he was all man and witty and sarcastic and self deprecating and just the kind of guy I like so we moved to live speaking and set up a date to have a drink.

We met at a spot in Soho after work. When he arrived I was wrapping up drinks in the same spot with a be skool classmate who was about to move to Dubai so I'm SURE the bartender thought I was a straight up pimp, because they're both really hot guys. I introduced them to each other as my first friend was leaving. Don't you love it??? And I was having a good hair day too.

Anyway so Trader Joe walked in and was way way way hot. I was so excited. Like I felt a little sizzle when he walked over. He was about 6' or 6'1", maybe 185, solid but not veiny tanning salon muscle, sparkling blue eyes (I don't have a particular thing for blue eyes but his did sparkle), a really cute shock of brown slightly graying hair that hung over said eyes, cool glasses, and pants perfectly fit to show off his super amazing perfectly conditioned physique. Great smile, nice teeth and lips and generally like, pretty pretty pretty handsome. I held in my deep appreciation of this fact and said something cool like, "Nice to meet you in person!"

We sat there for an hour and I had another drink and we made good solid flirtatious yet virtuous eye contact while chatting. I really liked his rags to riches, blue collar to Wall Street story. The whole scenario was quite compelling and I was thinking that he is totally the kind of guy I could fall into. Mind you, I quite rarely feel this way, maybe once every few years? We had a chaste cheek kiss at the cab and I giggled all the way home, calling my girlfriend immediately to thank her for the hook up because boy was I geeked. Until I got The Email.

...Ughhh...I have to tell you something...my ex girlfriend recently had a bad pap smear and was diagnosed with [insert somewhat bad mostly asymptomatic generally not but remotely possibly fatal viral thing here]. And she was a virgin so it was my fault but my doctor can't tell me if I have it because there is no test for men, and WebMD says this, and I'm trying to find out that, so if you never want to see me again I understand...

I've condensed it here but this email was maybe two pages single spaced? In that sort of crazed weirdo style that you usually find in like, letters that have baby powder in them to freak out the post office. There were so many other things wrong with this correspondence other than the disturbed rambling writing style such as:

1. How does a man over 40 end up dating a virgin? Is he a pedophile?
   
2. Why the After School Special Health segment, does he think I never got the memo?
   
3. Why hadn't he gotten the memo before age 40?
   
4. Why mention it now? After one hour together? Perhaps I'm being too picky on that one...
   
5. Why is he unemployed again exactly? Come to think of it he was actually released before the market blew up.

So my reply, trying to be nice and avoid any future awkwardness should I run into him again, was:

...Hey man it's cool, flattered you're thinking that way. Talk soon...

Or something to that effect. Because really, what else can you say? To which TJ replied -- and this is real talk, true life, no joke, I promise:

...I think I caused a misunderstanding...I was not intending to talk about the possibility of sex...

Well, what a relief! That totally cleared things up. He was just making small talk. And that's how I always make small talk, talking about cooties. Because it's just good wholesome polite conversation for people you've just met. And would you believe that the next time I saw him, maybe five weeks later, he asked me out again?

Honestly I should stick to meeting people on Craig's List.

JK!

No seriously, I don't do that. For real.