Two Tales of One City

Posted on September 5, 2003

Shenlei wrote: I find dating in New York City to be an absolute hoot. It's easily one of the most amusing games in town if you do it right. But the REALLY good stories come from the points where you don't do it quite right....gentle reader, I offer you, from the archives of my experience, two tales of dating derring do. Tale #1, May 2000. Guy responds to my ad, sends a picture of a cute but a bit precious sort of male person. We'll call him "Michael." Michael and I chat on the phone a bit. He alleges to be a 'world famous artist and author.' Being a technology marketer, I try to look him up on the Web. Heck, I'm not famous, but you look me up on the Web and you get forty or fifty links of my work. Strike #1 -I can't find ANYTHING about this guy except a book written in the 1980s. The early 1980's. He sounds too pretentious for words, but I was a little bored so I figured I'd have dinner and drinks with him during the week. I tell him to pick the restaurant. Mr. World Famous Artiste picks [strike #2] the Settee at the MOMA. For those who don't know this {ahem} fine-quality restaurant, it's the hoity-toity in-house organ for the museum of modern art (I hate modern art). It is, of course, decorated in grossly expensive original modern art by people even heathens such as myself have heard of: Picasso, etc. Anyway, I didn't bother to dress much for this date, I figured it wasn't going to be too fabulous, but I did wear my fetching black and white saddle shoes. What a harbinger of death that was…. Michael shows up and [strike #3, 4, 5 and infinity], he's first of all, 5'2". I'm 5'2". He told me he was 6 feet. Plus, he was at least thirty years older than his picture, balding, overweight, and I kid you not, wearing a linen short suit with [gack] matching tan and brown saddle shoes. He looks at my feet, and says, o, I can see we match. [Yeah, right, other than the fact that I'm twenty years younger than him, good-looking, have enough hair for any five people, and ht/wt proportional….] So Mr. Artiste and I go into Settee. We are seated on the Veranda [he's a member, which he takes great pains to tell me]. The service is slow, and he picks bad wine [Strike #6]. He then seats his ego and proceeds to tell me, at great length, about all the hot young models from Nobu who want him, and all the famous people he knows in the art/music industry. His favorite word is "Whatever." Gentle reader, I am surprised there was room at that table for me and his ego, truly. At the end of the meal, during which I am fascinated in the same way that I find picking off scabs or really bad accidents fascinating (wow, that's really gonna hurt…), he turns to me and says, 'You weren't nearly as boring as I thought you would be…' [Whatever] Sadly, that wasn't the punch line to this date…it had begun to rain, and as we were walking across the courtyard (me planning an expeditious stage right exit), he put up his umbrella and tried to trap me under it and kiss him (o, the romance!). I ducked my head and sidestepped and said, 'no, I'm sorry, I'm not interested in that…' Pause for the input device to work….then Mr. Romance says to me, 'What, are you queer or something?' (I mean, obviously I must be since his charms are SOOO numerous and compelling, why, those saddle shoes alone, or the shorts exposing his sagging, old, liver spotted flesh - ooo, babeee, please…) I looked at him and said, 'well, now that you mention it….' He looked at me. I looked at him. And he tried to grab me, and said, just one kiss. Gentle reader, I kid you not. I did what any right-thinking NYC executive female would have done: I kneed his sorry ass right in the nuts and walked off into the rain. Tale #2, May, 2001 This one was actually rather bad, and almost enough to put me off on sport dating. Most of the time the men who want to go out with me treat me well - good restaurants, entertainment, car service home, whatever. And they are, for the most part, gentlemen. Even if we don't 'click,' we part amicably, and my date picks up the tab. This one, well, he thought for some reason that buying me dinner meant a lot more than that… Peter responds to my ad. First mistake on my part - he has a hotmail account. This, gentle readers, should always, always, always be a kiss of death to any response. Peter seemed OK on the phone; I didn't vet him as thoroughly as I should have cos I was busy at the office - a new client who needed to be R&Red, etc etc. Anyway, Peter leaves, I kid you not, a couple of VMs a day on my cell, whining about not being able to reach me. I should have called it off at that point, I mean, we're both execs, right? This means, we're busy, or we're supposed to be busy, doing deals, making business happen, keeping the clients happy, whatever during the day. I don't chat with anyone who isn't directly related to doing the deal, not during the day. Much less with some guy I haven't met yet. But….anyway…Friday shows up. I wander off to meet Peter for drinks at a local hotel lobby. We knock back a couple of cocktails, and he suggests we go on to another lounge he knows for a little aperitif. Fine, except that we end up at the bar at Le Cirque 2000. Gentle reader, Le Cirque in any form on a first date is verboten. It means the guy is trying entirely too hard. Good cocktails, tho, fat fluffy pillows to recline against, and nice visuals. I decide not to make a scene and just drink my very nice cocktail. The dinner hour rolls around, and he says, where do you want to eat? I said, you choose. {doh! Stupid!} he says, what about here. Gentle reader, you do NOT walk into Le Cirque and just 'get seated.' Which, in view of the fact that they seated us within fifteen minutes of his cell call, meant that the evening had been a set-up. Doh! Well, what the heck. Le Cirque is a nice restaurant, even if it does totally peg my pretention meter. So hard to get those things fixed, too. We get shown to a table that I hate: middle of the room. I have no desire to have people staring at me, I want to look at them. I ask the maitre de to move us. This, gentle reader, is where the evening started seriously skewing to the twilight zone. We were moved, the maitre de vanishes, Peter informs me that I behaved inappropriately by asking for a different table [hunh?] since as the host, he was in charge. [the thought bubble over my head, at that point was, is this guy at all tuned into the 21st century career woman?] Peter has impeccable taste in wine, as evidenced by the amazing bottle he ordered. I would have liked to have had some input into the decision other than 'white or red', but why object too loudly to a $200 [my guess] bottle of excellent loire valley charddonay? We make our way through the meal…we get to coffee and dessert and I committed what was apparently the final faux of the evening for Peter: all I wanted was raspberries and whipped cream. OK, so le cirque is known for its desserts, but so what? I didn't feel like it. Anyway, Peter is sort of frowning at me, and he asks if I wanted to go on to a club and finish the evening. I didn't, really, by then - I was tired and mostly wanted to go home and sleep, but I asked where he had in mind. He says, "Le Trapeze." My jaw dropped. Le trapeze, gentle reader, is a swing club - yes, as in, swap your partners for weird anonymous sexual contretemps. I said, very quietly, I'm sorry, but I think you have the wrong woman. I'm not interested in that. [I really need a new line, I think, for my May dates.] Mind you, I wasn't being judgmental, some people ARE into that. Just not me. Ever. And really never on a first date, I don't care how much you've just dropped on the meal. This was not, apparently, good enough for Peter, as he then felt free to tell me where my behavior had not fallen within his accepted confines for good date behavior and that as the host, he had the right to order everything about the evening to his desires…I stopped him midbabble and said, you know, I think we're just not the same kind of people…and he said, so, what are you, a hooker or something? Twilight zone theme … I stood up and said, quite loudly, you know, I've never deserted a date in mid-meal before, so you're a real first, but you are also no gentleman and frankly, you deserve to be ditched. Then I had the maitre de escort me out, explaining that my date was a cad, a boor, and a lout. Ah yes. Dating in the 21st century. Whatever.

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