Distance: A Rubric

I’m in a hotel in Texas, he wrote, but I can’t resist your profile.

He’d seen my photos, all six of them. He’d read my prose. He’d gone through my questions and answers. He was halfway to smitten, or bored, he couldn’t tell, but….

***

Distance is a physical phenomenon. We can measure the miles between my town and yours. The height of my heels. The length of my arm. We can measure almost anything.

But we can’t measure the distance of one heart from the other. We can’t measure attraction. Or desire.

A guy I know says that a woman has the advantage when the interaction is at a distance, but that a man has the advantage in person, when the distance is contracted. A woman can keep a man at arm’s length – metaphorically – via desire and imagination, but a man can commute that distance by physically touching her when they’re across a table, or next to each other on a sidewalk. Or in bed. He has a physical advantage.

We started talking about it in terms of geography. How far would you go to date? On the dating site I’ve set my preference at 25 miles. Occasionally, to search, I’ll extend that to 50 or maybe 100 miles, but I’ll always put it back. Meanwhile, with a hard 25 mile search parameter, the dating site is showing me guys who live 70 or more miles away, in another state. Or another continent.

The geography thing is a problem, both in the seeking and the wooing. Men from Vermont and Connecticut and Virginia and Maine and Egypt have begged me for a visit. More than one guy has crossed state lines to visit me. Stayed in a hotel. Bought me dinner. Brought me books and flowers. Men from Spain, Greece, Canada, Alaska have attempted to woo me with words and images. To what end? I don’t know. It’s not like we’ll start dating at 500 miles.

But guys from Boston – before we’ve even met, before even our first volley of emails – want to know where exactly in the city I live. It’s like they won’t date you if you’re on the Green Line. One guy, new to Boston, said he wanted a woman within walking distance. And after I stopped laughing – I mean, god, yes, she should be rich, and young, and hot, and stupid, too, I kinda felt sorry for him. His neighborhood is notorious for being a staid elderly community. (Good luck with that nightlife, dude!) Another guy put mileage on it. He would only date women who lived within 25 miles of Faneuil Hall.

I’m 25.1 miles. Would you please make an exception for me?

I’m 5’2” but your cutoff is 5’3”. Maybe I can wear heels?

***

(What’s the odometer reading on love?)

***

The further a person is from internet dating – or any dating at all – the more likely that person is to be an expert on dating. On profiles. On what men or women want. On anything at all while they go back to fighting about the grocery list, not enough sex, or too much, taxes, weight gain, hair on the soap.

I was out with friends the other night – all of them safely removed from internet dating – one could even say, a safe distance from dating in any form – and of course they started in on it. On me. Everyone of them has an opinion of what I’m doing wrong or what I should be doing and how they’d do it if they were in my, uh, stilettos.

And that’s when I came up with it. A rubric.

Math is nature’s language; its method of communicating directly with us. Everything is numbers.

That’s Charlie Epps, my new obsession, the sweet young mathematician from that old show Numb3rs. He teaches at Cal Sci – actually, Cal Tech, the west coast MIT (although they’d like to think it works the other way around. Not all things are reciprocal, as those of us actively dating know….)

***

Do not contact me, BadBaldGuy’s profile insisted. It was cranky. Deeply flawed, he described himself. According to his last girlfriend, or perhaps it was the ex-wife, or maybe a conflation of the two, he’s particularly skilled at not listening, at arguing, at assigning insufficient priority to spending time with his significant other. He ended the sad (but also funny, smart, clever, witty and fairly complete) profile by saying message me if you’re insane.

Unlike Charlie Epps, BadBaldguy was a Cal Tech alum. (How could I resist?)

No photo, either, so no goods on the table. It was like a drunken barroom confession. The story told the concierge. The taxi driver. The priest on holiday.

Of course I wrote to him.

***

And somewhere in here, I’m aware of my complicity. My fatal flaw. A man with a mind will blur me to the Swiss cheese of emotional engagement. It’s like emotional Alzheimer’s. A blind spot. But the thing about blind spots is that we don’t see them. If we did, they wouldn’t be blind.

***

He didn’t have a photo, and neither did I.

I have one profile with just a body shot, no face, and one with six recent photos, all the requisites to recognize me in a police line-up, should that be necessary. For a guy who says “don’t write me,” I had no qualms about shooting him an email from my blind account. I have a way of writing low-cost emails. Short. Pithy. Teasing. Nothing that requires an investment, just one line about the car he mentioned, a sixties classic. But he took it from there and the next thing you know, we were engaged in a leisurely but intellectually erotic exchange that we took us off the dating site and into real email.

And then he wanted to meet – with trepidation. With caution. But, hell, he was wildly curious.

As was I.

We made plans. A certain restaurant. The next night.

Meanwhile, neither of us had seen a photo of the other. But I am wise to the world. If I know anything, it’s that men are visual. All men. And that even if one guy thinks I’m hot, the next guy not-so-much. I insisted on a photo exchange so he sent me a stock photo, fuzzy and generic. I sent him one, too, and he wrote back and said, “you’re not my type. But let’s meet anyway.”

Is this sympathy? What is it that makes a guy say, nah, not my type, but let’s meet?

No, I said. No way.

It’s not that I can’t meet men for friendship. Or that it always has to be for dating. I’ve met plenty of people where going into it the goal wasn’t dating. And it’s fine. But there was something about his backpedaling that made me wary. An unwillingness to engage, perhaps. A fear?

No, I said. No way.

***

Around the time Texas-traveling-guy emailed my six-photo profile, I was setting up the algorithm (as they say on Numb3rs). A dating rubric. I assigned numerical value to the intangibles of love, the kind of stuff that gets muddled in the dating mess. Each category – looks, age, smarts, humor, etc. – is scored anywhere from zero to 3 based on the profile and whatever on-line interaction we have. Ten categories. Three points each. I’m a tough grader. Anyone who scores above twenty is worth a look-see in person.

My rubric (patent pending!) includes the following categories:

1. looks (which includes things like height and weight and photo quality. It’s counter-intuitive but it’s true that most men are either way better looking than their photos would suggest, or way worse. And the guys who have fuzzy photos? Or stupid ones? Enough said. That’s why there’s a range from zero to 3);
2. education (a flat score of 1 for undergrad, 2 for grad, and 3 for terminal);
3. humor (totally subjective!);
4. writing (I’ve never seen a profile without a mechanical error — it’s my curse. So this is my thing. We all have our idiosyncrasies);
5. mental flexibility (This is how I have it in Excel, but I mean a flexibility of mind, an ability to adapt and flow, the kind of thing that is most obvious in emails, but sometimes evident in the profile);
6. kids/visitation (Because I have older kids, I always search for men with kids, or last resort, a guy who doesn’t want kids. If a guy has older kids, it’s a 3. Younger kids or visitation or other issues, 2. Doesn’t want kids, 1. No kids, zero);
7. location (close to me is a three!);
8. seriousness (there’s a range here, all the way from the guy who wants casual or poly sex or a liaison while his wife is at the grocery store to the guy who wants a long-term monogamous relationship. That last is a 3, although if he starts talking about soul mates….);
9. age (near me is a 3; a bit older or younger by say 6 or so years is a 2; really young is a 1; a zero if they show up in my classroom);
10. smarts (totally subjective according to my mood).

My last steady scored a 21.5, although I calculated it retroactively. My “bad” dates – not really bad, just a lovely waste of time – have been in the mid-teens.

Again, a retroactive assessment, but still….

Texas-guy scored a 23.5 on the rubric even with his generic fuzzy photo, the middle-age-bald-guy-wearing-a-suit-at-a-wedding. Nothing memorable.

But beginning in that hotel in Texas, we started a long exchange of emails. A lot of people say, No pen pals. No long email exchanges. And I tend to agree – let’s meet sooner rather than later – but in his case, with him traveling, a meeting wasn’t urgent. In fact, a meeting seemed so inevitable that it was more a question of when, and how to enjoy getting there. The writing was a pleasure. It was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done, like skinny dipping in a hot tub, being swept by the current in a kayak, letting the waves take me to shore in one fast furious skim, my body half in the water and half out, the sun in my eyes, the shore in sight.

But the distance. We’d both approximated our locations, and as it turned out, we were over an hour apart.

(What’s an hour? What’s an hour and a quarter?)

The optimist in me wishes a guy would damn the torpedoes and say distance ain’t nothing, honey.

My high school boyfriend timed the trip from my backdoor to his — 26 seconds running through the woods.

Another lover drove all night just to kiss me and fall asleep in my bed, his arms tangled around me.

But I’m a realist. Most of the time.

***

We set up a meet anyway. I was reluctant. Not to meet him – we’d had such a cool exchange – but because I felt the misgiving on his end. No woman – wait, I can’t speak for other women. I can’t even speak for other people. But even if other people can cajole or persuade or manipulate dates, I’d rather not. I don’t want a tepid date. At all. I’d rather not meet you if you’re feeling wishy-washy about me. I’d rather be alone than go on a date with a guy who’s not all-in. Call me an idealist. But if you don’t have passion early on, what happens when the shit gets real?

And then, after we’d made plans but before we met, Texas-traveler-guy sent another email, one that I didn’t expect. Something in our email exchange tipped him off. He was my earlier correspondent, the same guy who ended our exchange by saying I wasn’t his type, but with a new profile, a new name. He was both BadBaldGuy and Texas-Guy. And he figured out that I was both of me.

There’s that old song about the lovers breaking up and finding each other without knowing it. Do you like walks in the rain? Like a Shakespearean comedy where the estranged lovers wear masks and fall in love with each other over and over again.

But what was this?

Twice we’d met on-line and pursued each other and twice came to the point of meeting.

But this wasn’t love.

They say, No second chances.

But what was this? I don’t know, but I knew it needed expiation. Reluctantly, I agreed to meet him anyway.

***

There’s a distance the heart travels. It’s a metaphor, except when it’s not.

I’ve been told that 90% of men my age who are dating are broken. Perhaps he’s one of the broken ones. Coming to the edge of the thing he wants. The thing he says he wants. The wave about to break over him. The wave about to carry him. He could surf to shore, feel the exhilaration of salt and wet and acceleration and lift — feel the movement – he’s on the cusp of feeling it – but he can’t bring himself to surrender to the wave. To let the distance commute itself…

***

After he told me he was the same guy as before, I noted that during the first exchange, BadBaldGuy had never seen my photo. And then he nixed the possibility of a relationship based on my photo. The second exchange – half a year later, or more – Texas-Guy came to my profile based on my photos. Six photos of me. He knew what I looked like. Was he honest before? If he was willing to pursue me the second time – I look the same – but not the first, was he honest the first time? Was I really not “his type”?

We met for dinner at one of my favorite places. We had drinks. We talked. We laughed. We ordered food — me, the lobster risotto; he, the fish. We we’re comfortable like old friends. It was easy, like the emails. Easier than meeting a stranger should be.

But I had no illusions. We stayed a few hours and then left. The food was good. I was going home alone, as expected. And then I got the email from him, the one I expected.

I had a lovely time. The distance is too much for me.

Yes, he’s that kind of man.

Rejection

It’s 7:30 on a frozen Tuesday night on the E spur of the Green Line. I have a seat, though, so I’m grateful, even as I’m facing the rear of the train. This used to make me nauseous, the riding backwards, always reviewing the past, but I’ve grown accustomed to it, and so while I wait for the train to move, I’m inattentive, gazing at the girl with the red boots, the backpacks and North Face jackets, the names of the stops, the sidewalk beyond the tracks. I’m thinking about the man I just left, the guy who said “happy Halloween” even though it is Valentine’s Day, that day that belongs to lovers, when a man about my age sits in the single seat in front of me. I’m middle-age, divorced, on my way home after a solace date with a single man, a friend. At first I don’t notice the man in front of me, as mass transit is an exercise in isolation while in anonymous proximity, yet I can feel his presence when he turns to look at me. It feels like touching, the way he wants to see me, his eyes tethered to me by nascent desire, the hungry linger.

Another evening, a girlfriend and I are at a cool new burger place. It’s cozy and crowded, quirky and fun. A guy is playing 70s songs on an acoustic guitar. He catches my eye and when I smile at him, he smiles back, his wedding ring working a slide on the frets. Everything he plays sounds the same but it’s still sweet, this live sound. Two seats down the bar from where I’m sitting, another guy looks at me. I smile. His food looks great. What is it? I ask. He stabs a piece with his fork, leans across the space between us and holds it to my mouth, as though we’re already lovers. It’s unexpected, this intimacy, but it’s definitely invitation, to food and more. He’s with his friends, I’m with mine, but we weave connection throughout the evening. As I get up to leave, he turns to say goodbye. He touches my arm.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, I say. That’s a range, of course.

And another. In the aftermath of our professional conference, there are hundreds of us in the hotel bar. He’s sitting adjacent to me. It’s late, but somehow the buzz of the day settles into our conversation, blue crab and poetry, the yearning to create, the stage. As they last-call the bar and boot the bunch of us out, he follows me to the lobby, as I’m hoping he will, and we continue talking. But I’m tied to another crowd, headed to another hotel, someone’s room, a joint with a password, and he has his people, two women sitting on the far side of the lobby, eyeing us, waiting for him, patiently, one presumes, and so he gives me his business card which I tuck into my bra, suggestive on purpose.

This is attraction, chemistry, the look across a room, a conversation, a laugh. It is pheromones, like honeybees or cats.

He found me via my on-line profile and asked me on a date. He’s seen my photos – at least five of them, close ups, full body, all the requisites. When I’ve gone on dates in the past, guys say, “You look just like your photos.” As I expect, he recognizes me as soon as I arrive. He’s saved us two seats at the bar – well, sort of. We have to squeeze in after he asks the guy to his right to move down. Did he think I wasn’t coming? Why didn’t he do this before I got there? I am feeling self-conscious for having worn my puffy down parka, but upon arriving, I feel justified: the weather’s so raw.

“It’s chilly out there,” I say as I’m unzipping, revealing a black skirt, black sweater, high heel boots. It’s a good outfit, but he doesn’t notice. A woman knows when a man notices.

“It is shitty in here,” he says.

“Huh?”

“I’m agreeing with you. It is shitty.”

“No, I said ‘chilly.’”

“Oh,” he says, “I thought you said ‘shitty.’”

But the place is anything but shitty. It’s a magical old Boston establishment, but not one resting on reputation. It’s clean. The food is clever and fresh, always good, and the drinks are (for the most part) produced flawlessly with charm. The décor is hip art deco, with black and white tile floors, marble bar tops. While it might not be five stars, it’s certainly not a dive bar.

This miscue could have been my first clue. Taste varies. But there’s so much that wants romance, enchantment, connection. There’s so much that wants to believe that a look on the T or at a bar or across the conference table can be something more, something meaningful. When I embarked on the date, I wanted to believe that because our on-line interaction was perfect, or nearly so, and funny and fun that the man behind the words would find me fetching, especially since, at least on a demographic level, he’s what I find attractive. In fact, and this is one of my many flaws, the urge to make something work is so strong that I ignore my initial misgivings, in his case, the ones I noted the first time I read his profile, even before he initiated contact. He seemed unsure of what he wanted, for one, and while I don’t invest a lot in the idea of relationship with a man I’ve never met, I wouldn’t meet a man if I didn’t have some hope for, at least, a second date.

Not even ten minutes in, before we’ve ordered drinks, he says, “I have an important call to make at 6:30,” an appointment he’d neglected to mention while we were negotiating the terms of the date.

Uh oh, I think. He’s already decided. But the words aren’t formulating that clearly, even though I know what it means. He’s already decided that this will go nowhere. Is it my looks? My coat? My outfit? My choice in restaurant? The fact that I didn’t think the place was shitty? We hardly had time to talk about anything else. His decision was based – presumably – on my appearance. A quick glance and nothing more. I say “presumably,” though, because there’s always all the things I have no way of knowing. Marital status. Personal disaster. Professional disaster. In other words, in dating – especially first dates – not everything is personal.

I should have left then. In hindsight, I think about what it would have meant had I left then, if it would have been better, or worse. If I lost anything by staying. Or gained anything. But in that moment, my mind wasn’t working that precisely, that philosophically, that practically. I had absorbed the rejection emotionally, but it takes awhile to process the fact that he’d ended the date as soon as he saw me, even before we’d even spoken, which means, pretty unequivocally, that he ended it based on my looks.

We order drinks. We talk about a lot of things, and laugh a lot, and all the while I know that – best case scenario – I am already disqualified, on trial, the chance of anything happening with this guy about the same as winning the lottery, but worse, because I haven’t bought a ticket. I already know he doesn’t find me attractive. I am not even under consideration; this is a gross pantomime, like being stuck next to someone on a flight, but one where conversation is required. It reminds me of a job interview I’d been on, one that I’d secured through connections – it’s not what you know, but who you know. As soon as the first question was asked, I knew that they had no intention of hiring me, no matter what I said, or did, or didn’t do. They had never had any intention of hiring me. I was there as a courtesy, but it wasn’t courtesy to me. It was a waste of my time, and in fact, an insult.

I’ve had internet dates where I knew in the first minutes that I’d never have sex with the man I was meeting. (And isn’t sex what this is all about?) But I consider open-mindedness crucial to the process. I often think that I can change my mind, that I can be coaxed or charmed, that everything is under consideration – until it isn’t. In only one case did I begin planning my escape as soon as we met. But he was a really bad case, and as I think of that man now, his crazed look, his fuzzy aspect like a bad Xerox copy, his shabby odor, the weakest part of me wonders if I was the female version of that man to my date.

The better part of me acknowledges that, perhaps, my date is just better than I am at making and implementing decisions. (Who knows, if given the choice, if I would have accepted a second date?) My pride insists on the latter. My brain, too – he’s very successful in business. But, honestly, my pride battles my brain, for better or worse.

The parallel with the job interview is limited. My internet date didn’t mean the invitation as a courtesy, or an insult. On-line and in writing, he found me funny and appealing. He even found me attractive. It’s not his fault that he didn’t like me. But my rational side says that perhaps – like many middle-aged guys – he doesn’t know what he wants. He’s still married, only recently separated, so I grant him the just-single-not-sure-what-the-fuck blues, which suggests (here’s my pride again, with a dash of rationality) that maybe it really is him. Along with the things about him that caused my initial misgivings, there were, perhaps, his things about me, our inherent incompatibilities.

But without the rationalizations, even if he was nixing me based on looks alone, I don’t fault him. Taste varies.

Which goes to the heart of this. Rejection sucks.

But rejection means almost nothing, especially on-line. Some people like one thing, some another. And there’s no telling – based on photos and words – whether there’s physical attraction, the kind of thing that compels a stranger to offer me a bite of his food, or to turn his head to look at me, or to give me his card in a busy hotel with little practical hope of ever seeing me again. People who attract with words and images might not attract in person. And vice versa. While self-reflection is good – important, even, to healthy interpersonal relationships – this kind of dating – any kind, really – allows little time for blanket self-doubt. As much as I want to be wanted, it doesn’t mean much that this one guy this one night didn’t want me.

We left together. But I’d already planned my route so as to avoid an even more awkward second goodbye on the T platform. In the opposite direction from where I knew he’d be going, there’s a cozy hotel bar with wireless where I could wait until it was time to meet my next date, a date that went really well. We stopped together at the corner and paused to say goodbye. This wouldn’t be physical – no kiss, not even on the cheek – but he was still congenial. We both were. Well, so long.

But then, unexpectedly, he asked for my number. What was I to do? Giving it to him offered the quickest escape, so in the cold rain on a dark street corner in Boston, he put my number into his phone and then called me.

“There,” he said. “We can get off that site.”

As I turned to walk away, I touched his elbow in a way that felt oddly solicitous, like helping the elderly, or the confused, and headed down the street.

I don’t know why he asked for my number. But I often don’t know why men do what they do. Perhaps he isn’t as savvy or brave or decisive as I assumed. Perhaps he’s insecure, unsure, bumbling.

Perhaps he’s the kind of guy who mistakes charming for shitty on a cold rainy night in Boston.

In No Particular Order: Why I Might Have Said No

It wasn’t your company, which for a bar, or a first meet, was pleasant. The food sharing easy, all minimal fuss, something even long-lovers can’t always accomplish. The mussels and duck confit were perfect. And we talked a lot.

But I can talk to anybody about anything.

It wasn’t the way you looked at me full in the face. Turned toward me and created a space, a comfortable habitat between the two of us. It wasn’t the way I could see your eyes, the set, the color, the liveliness. It wasn’t any of that because, in fact, you never did look me – never really looked at me – until we were on the street about to part.

You shrugged. “Should we exchange numbers?”

No wasn’t my first impulse.

Maybe it was because you sketched out a schedule of when you would be free to see me that makes the storming of Normandy look like eating a jelly doughnut.

Maybe it was because you didn’t tell me that you were busy until after you said, hey, let’s meet for a drink, and after I said sure. That’s when you hit me with three weeks from next Tuesday, unless there’s a full moon, in which case…

If you want a yes, don’t behave as though no.

When a man wants to ditch a woman, or line her up, he says he can’t see her for bignum days or weeks where bignum can be anything from a week to a month. He says he’s going on vacation, a family thing, or away on business. Mister Bigshot Employed, doncha know. He’ll say he has his kids every day, every weekend, a visitation schedule that belies everything you know about the court system. I’ll let you know, he says, a delay that is synonymous with no.

Don’t expect me to join a waiting list.

Don’t tell me you’re single if you’re not single. Or free.

That includes married. Don’t pursue me, get me to say yeah, I’ll have a drink with you, and then tell me it’ll have to be in Waltham near the bus depot between 11 and noon on Wednesdays and alternating Thursdays while your wife is at yoga. Don’t tell me that you have an understanding.

And for the slacker in the back row who thinks the rules don’t apply to him, “free” doesn’t mean keeping “a little slave girl” on the side. A relationship with her – whatever you call it – is a relationship.

And if you refer to her, or to any woman, including and especially me, as thing, as in “the next thing that comes along,” that’s all I need to know.

Maybe I said no because you don’t know what you’re doing. Or what you want.

When I was in college, I used to waste time with an eclectic group of friends in the common area just outside the Rathskeller. There was my chemistry lab partner, Teak; the young blond nurse, studying geriatrics; the poly sci major, a guy who ran for everything with visions of running everything; and the couple, Barbie and the Quarterback, madly in love. They’d been together since they were 15. (They’re still together.) And there was Awkward Guy.

One rainy day when I was walking from the parking lot toward the main campus, Awkward Guy stopped me.

“I think we should start seeing each other,” he said. It was his opening.

He was a stutterer. It’s possible he had a developmental disorder, but I didn’t know him well enough to know. In fact, my only clear memory of him is this conversation, even though I know I knew him from the Rat.

What does one say? I have trouble being unkind, especially in matters of the heart, and even as young as I was, I knew he was young, too. I wanted to let him down easy. I think I said I had a boyfriend, which I did, even though I was about to end that, too. I didn’t want to hurt the boy, and I didn’t, but even then I was struck by the inappropriateness of the broad approach.

But here’s the key. He was a teenager. You’re old enough to know better.

Don’t ask me if I want to have a relationship with you. Don’t ask me if I want to chat. Both are trick questions.

The way to chat a stranger is to start chatting. Offer something so interesting or clever that I can’t help but respond.

I can resist talking about my weekend with a stranger. Don’t ask me how it was if you didn’t know me before the weekend started.

I might not be able to resist talking about the weather, but it’s so ordinary that it won’t be memorable.

Maybe I didn’t mean to say no. Maybe I got busy with real life, doing the things I’d been doing before you came along, the kinds of things I’ll be doing long after you’re gone. Maybe it takes a bit to keep you in mind. I can’t offer detailed advice but I can say be funny, be persistent, be clever and smart.

And don’t be easily offended by a universe you’ve yet to enter.

I didn’t lecture Awkward Guy on what it means to date, but years later, in the post-divorce dating world, I run into Awkward Guy all the time. Men and women who have no idea how to date and blame their date-less state on women or men in general.

People don’t decide to date as on on-going activity. They decide to go to dinner or drinks or to hear a band with a specific person at a specific time, someone they know. Hence the term “date.” They decide to go to the beach on Thursday and the MFA on Friday. They decide to drive to New Hampshire for the weekend. And then one day they realize, hey, Mistrixx and I are dating.

I might have said no because you wear your insecurity like a cheap-ass name badge. Hello, my name is ….

He was charming in print, such a clever emailer that I ignored the age, which was above my comfort zone. And – as these things go – probably an approximation anyway with the birth certificate suggesting he was a few years older. But still. I was willing to meet him even though he didn’t have kids, and as I suspected, had never been married. We met at a favorite dive bar, a haven on a cold winter night. We started with Jameson, and then moved to French fries and beer, perfect conversation food. I say all this so that my reader knows that I didn’t blindside with questions. In fact, he barraged me in the manner of a smitten beau. He wanted to know everything, and I was tolerant, laughed, joined in a bit. And then somewhere an hour or so into the conversation, I asked why he’d never been married.

I’m not gay, he blurted. Like a stab.

You could still have married, I said, attempting to levitate him out of insecurity, or homophobia, or something. The man protests too much.

Or maybe I said no because you don’t understand humor. Another man, in the middle of chat, and we’re talking about the crazy questions on the dating websites: “Would you sleep with your clone?”

Yes, I always say, and you would, too. It’s my joke.

I wouldn’t sleep with my clone because I’m not a homosexual. He says, and then, unprompted, but I’m not a homophobe.

Good luck to you.

Maybe I said no because you can’t distinguish an invitation from a proposition.

Maybe it’s because you wear your paranoia on your sleeve, or tell me about the kind of sex you want before I’ve asked.

Some of you say no for me.

Or maybe I said no because you misspelled Neruda.

Jaywalking

There’d be no traffic jams if everybody obeyed the rules of the road, including pedestrians. That’s my theory, anyway.

***

There was a guy…..

We exchanged two, maybe three, emails. Nothing deep, just chatter. And then he sent his cell phone number:

Call me. Text. Whatever.

Aside from safety issues – giving out my number is like giving GPS coordinates to all my front doors – I don’t like talking on the phone. And it certainly isn’t my preferred method of transitioning from profile to meet. If the phone is his method of choice, well, we have a small problem. But instead of one of us issuing an ultimatum – there was a guy who said, call me or else* – the two of us should talk. We should negotiate.

But if he says “my way or the highway” (or a variation thereof) all I can say is “Drive safely.”

Uh, not so fast, I replied to the guy who sent his number. I told him I’d rather not use the phone and explained why and offered some alternatives.

Okay, he wrote. Last woman I gave my number to turned out to be a prostitute. He probably included the idiotic LOL.

We never did meet.

There was another guy, a physicist, one of my weaknesses. Our email exchanges were hilarious. When he said he knew Leon Lederman – and sent a photo of the two of them together to prove it – I knew he was much older than his stated age. Maybe by ten years.

But he was single, and as I said, a physicist.

We met for drinks and hors d’oeuvres and conversation. Somewhere in the middle of a discussion of particle accelerators and tuna sashimi, I got a feeling. So I asked.

Yes, he said, I’m still married, but we have an understanding.

Yes, he said, we live in the same house – for our child.

***

(*I went with the else and that has made all the difference.)

***

Here’s a scenario that happens countless times in the city. A car (with driver, of course) is waiting at a red light. The “don’t walk” signs are flashing and that perpendicular light has changed from green to yellow. The driver prepares to accelerate, and in a perfect world, her acceleration would coincide with the opposite light turning from red to green. The drivers behind her anticipate her movement as well. As do the cars slowing behind the stopped cars as they reach the intersection.

But just at the crucial moment, a pedestrian texting her boyfriend steps into the crosswalk without so much as a glance, oblivious to sunshine and rain, not to mention right-of-way.

Instead of traffic moving smoothly through the intersection, the cars jerk to a stop and wait for the pedestrian to clear the street. Meanwhile, the green turns stale. When the cars are cleared to move, they have to re-initiate forward momentum.

***

Then there’s the married guy whose profile says he’s single but deep in the text – and I mean like waaaaay deep – he mentions (obliquely) that he’s married.

Or he engages the tête-à-tête and then tosses in a mention of the wife, the girlfriend, the polyslave. We should meet, he writes, if you’re okay with that.

Or there’s the guy who doesn’t bother with any of this and just dates as many women as he can as fast as he can regardless. He does this even if he says otherwise.

There’s the scrupulous separated guy whose profile says “available” which is ordinarily code for polyamorous or cheating, one or both, not that they’re all that different,but in his case is misleading because he’s been living in his own house for two years and his divorce is about to be final. Unfortunately for him, there’s no option for separated which could mean anything from “papers filed” to “we had a spat and I’m sleeping on the sofa.”

***

As a result of one pedestrian jaywalking, the backup begins. Only half the cars that should make it through the intersection do. As each light allows fewer cars through, more cars join the backup. Add more oblivious pedestrians to the equation at this intersection, and then add other intersections, and you have citywide gridlock.

***

I practice defensive dating. Watch out for the other guy.

***

There’s the guy who writes one word responses. The first few are clever. But after that, it’s a waste of time. Either write something of substance or quit stalking my profile.

There’s the guy who writes long passionate emails, madly in love or lust or both with a woman he’s never met.

There’s the guy who woos with words and then – mid-conversation – disappears.

***

There’s the guy who considers it a lie if I don’t reveal my mother’s maiden name, her city of birth, the last four digits of my SSN.

***

I reserve the right to prevaricate. At least until I know you.

***

It’s not just aggressive pedestrians. Drivers who think they’re being “nice” by letting others take the right of way contribute to backups. If I know I have the right-of-way, I take it. But if I know you have it, I yield. What happens if you stop to let me take your right of way? I have no idea what you’re doing. Cars are designed so I can see the directional – those little lights that blink on the corners of your car — or the road. Cars aren’t designed for me to see your face. Or your hand waving me on. That wave could be you scratching your nose or drumming to the Stones. The only universal signals are the directionals, which is why we’re supposed to know the rules before getting behind the wheel.

So you stop. I stop. I wait. You wave.

Or cause an accident. My mother, an octogenarian, boasts about how nice she is for stopping on the highway to let others merge onto the highway. Many miracles later, she’s still alive. Amazing, yes?

***

There’s the guy who is really a woman, or vice-versa, and by this I mean a fake profile. Although there’s also the guy who is halfway to being a chick, but who neglects to mention it in his or her profile.

There’s the guy using a fake photo. Mid-way through a long email exchange he says, by the way, that’s not me.

There’s the guy using no photo.

There’s the guy who meets me for drinks two or three times and then says, I’m too fragile for this, whatever this is.

Too not over his wife, his lover, the universe.

***

There are a thousand variations on jaywalking. A million reasons to break the rules.

In dating, there’s a scenario for every rule, broken and enforced, hoped for and imagined.

There’s no traffic cop.

No licensure.

No rules of the road.

Triptych (Plus One)

I slept alone on the edge of a big bed in a house on a secluded bay north of Boston, a bay painted on all sides, a pallet of panoramic solitude, a solitude imagined in tide and granite, water-weed and cloud. I woke early with light – the first light, the first dream – as the crows and sea birds flew toward the full windows, as though toward me.

Was that an earthquake? In the dream, pelicans the size of goats flew in tight formation, left to right, as though to escape the hurricane, as though to ride the benign edge ahead of disaster as birds are wont to do. A train full of refugees clacked across the sky, left to right, in concert, like a typewriter, the keys gaggling words, angst garbled into symbols.

I woke and slept again and again, the dream and reality warp and woof of the hours.

“I made breakfast,” he said.

“Oh, that’s so kind of you. But no, thanks.”

I left with no plan to return.

***

It was raining in Boston, a heavy traffic-stopping rain. I had to be out anyway, so when a guy from the dating site suggested a bar near the water, I agreed. A neat whiskey and company. Of course.

The bar was packed. Everyone else was seeking a similar comfort. Waiting to drive until the traffic dies. Waiting until the moon is out. Waiting.

I found a seat far at the end of the bar, nestled in the corner. Sully the bartender poured me three fingers of Jameson.

And then at the far other end of the bar, I saw him. Recognized him by his height. We made eye contact. I smiled and nodded. A head taller than anyone else in the bar, he had a clear view. He made his way through the crowd.

Is it you?

I don’t remember what we talked about. Don’t remember much but the faint odor of old coat, the way a jacket smells if it hasn’t been cleaned before being stored. Not body odor. More like the scent of food and dull smoke, like restaurant shoes, grandmother’s sweater.

“Let’s order food,” I suggested, hoping to catch Sully’s eye. I hadn’t eaten.

“Not here,” he said. “Nothing good here.”

I followed him out the door into the glossy night. Wet streets, a dark sheen on everything.

But once we were outside, he seemed to forget about the restaurant we were looking for, one of many he swore were nearby. And there were bars and eateries. We passed them all.

“I want to show you something,” he said.

There are decisions in life. Sometimes you regret them. If you live. Sometimes you’d regret not having made the more adventurous decision. That old cliché: you’re more likely to regret the things you didn’t do than the things you did.

***

I was a girl, a college student driving north on the New Jersey turnpike, headed to Boston for the very first time.

He was hitching at the rest stop, a scraggly guy a few years older than me, a ratty duffel bag and a hard-luck story.

He was a school teacher, he said, on break and trying to get home to see his folks. He talked me into giving him a ride.

Years later, I know it was inappropriate for him to ask me. Why not ask a man? Or two men? Why choose a girl alone?

The further north we got, the more his story morphed. He wasn’t actually a school teacher. He didn’t actually live in Boston.

Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t let him know that I suspected.

He couldn’t give me an exact address. He said he needed to direct me to his destination. And it bears noting that there is nowhere darker than the New England woods at night. Which is where he was leading me.

It’s possible that he was just a sketchy guy trying to make time with a chick. It’s possible he was a serial killer, attempting to use my kindness to kill me. I’ll never know.

We were deep in the dark edges of Massachusetts, outside the loop of highway where population density increases, where it’s not as convenient to kill or be killed.

Perhaps it saved me. Perhaps not. But as we pulled off the highway, there was an isolated gas station with a sweet teenage boy running the pumps.

I got out of my car and opened the trunk. I stood next to the gas boy.

“Get your stuff. This is it,” I said.

In my imagination – not then but years later – this gasoline boy could have been my sweetheart. Could have kissed me sweetly and brought me a corsage for prom. Could have taken me for burgers and shakes.

I stood next to the gas boy. I almost held him but didn’t.

“Just a bit further,” the hitchhiker pled or threatened. One or both.

“No,” I said. “This is it.”

And I waited with gas boy as the serial killer got his possessions and walked down the road into nothing.

***

Outside the bar, over wet cobblestones, under the dark skies, I followed my date down the street and between narrow buildings.

I’ve been in darker places.

And then everything opened up. We were in front of the New England Aquarium. It was desolate, empty. No lines of school children. No hawkers.

Off to the side, which I’d never noticed before, is an “Employees Only” gate. He opened it and we walked through, as though we belonged. And as he slid his identification card through the key swipe to open the side door, I knew that if he killed me inside, at least there’d be a record of his entry.

Will he kill me? Or will he just hurt me? What’s my escape route? Women make these kinds of calculations all the time.

We wound our way through the guts of the building. The kitchen. Employee lockers. An elevator and then another staircase. Building tarps and hard hats. An opened door and a hush, the ocean tank of aquatic creatures, dim lights, a mix of artificially induced nocturnal and diurnal habitats. Sharks gliding silently. Fish of every hue. Octopus. Snakes. Seals. Sea turtles. And when he headed downstairs again, by a different route, I knew what was coming next: sea nettles, my favorite.

There’s a moment when you know you’ve made the right decision and it gives you courage to make the next right decision.

Standing in the dark basement of the nearly empty aquarium in the middle of the night in front of undulating jelly fish, I knew I’d made the right decision. And as my date neared me – what were his intentions? – I knew the next right decision was to scamper up the stairs, to get outside, to say goodnight, to go home alone.

***

I wake to sunlight. I’m in a double bed overlooking a nameless tributary, a marsh, water as far as I can see. I could be anywhere on the outer Cape. I’m in a house on a peninsula, water on three sides, sky and parchment paper. It’s desolate, trees bare of leaves, clouds a hushed gray. A harsh beauty, but nurturing the way silence can be. The way solitude is.

But I’m not alone. He’s in bed beside me reading a book on art. He’s naked and more beautiful than I ever imagined. Or hoped. He reaches over and touches my hand.

“Hey,” he says.

Shell Game: Kissing Frogs

I was distracted.

It was election night and returns — or whatever they call those red and blue maps — were on the television. I’d agreed to meet him before I remembered that it was the first Tuesday in November. That the election would be so close. That I might be more interested in it than him.

But he didn’t make it a contest. A blowhard is what my elders would have called him. And Blowhard is what I’ll call him. Nothing to do with sex. Just full of hot air. A self-important egomaniac. Boastful. A braggart. He knew everything and everybody. He would have called Robert Frost “my good friend, Bob.”

Money-this. Harvard-that.

Vegetarian, liberal, long hair.

Charlie Rose this, Terry Gross that.

New York Times best seller list. His book.

“Oh, by the way,” I said, “Nate Silver from the New York Times says that if Obama takes Ohio, he takes the race.”

“The Times is always wrong,” Blowhard said. And launched back into….

His tall brilliant athletic did-i-say-brilliant? teenage son having sex with the French model. Sleeping at her house and using a bulk package of condoms bought by dad. (Extra-large, I’m sure, although it’s the only detail he left out.)

His very own insatiable lover. Ten orgasms. (TEN!) Four hours of non-stop sex. Blowhard at the helm. Give me a “V”!

“So, what do you do for work?”

Dear reader, I’ll spare you the equivocation. Blowhard stacks shelves at a retail grocery store. Forty hours a week. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but tone down the verbiage, ya know? And don’t justify it by telling me you’re going to write an expose of that shit. I know we all have to blow our own horns, but humility is appealing.

***

How did I end up going out with him? His overture was simple. Let’s meet for a drink. His profile was reasonable so I emailed back the name of the bar and a time. He agreed. It was that simple.

***

Unlike Frog.

Frog had read the blog. He called me names — horny, naive, gifted, dangerous. He wooed me, cajoled me. He wrote well. Not punctuation and grammar but guts and heart. My god, I was gonna meet this guy if he was willing to meet me.

And maybe, therein lies the flaw. Perhaps I was too eager?

I was standing in the bar area when he arrived. You know how you’re not sure you’ll recognize the date and you look carefully at every guy? The guy with grey hair, leather jacket, fiftyish who reached for the the door and held it open for me? Thanks, I said, and all business-like and shit. I was ten paces in when it dawned on me. Maybe that was him? The big oafish guy standing alone off to the side casting furtive glances my way? God, no. Was that him?

When he arrived, I recognized him instantly. A big man, but not too big. Handsome in a rugged way. Smart. Funny. At ease. He took over. Bought drinks. Made jokes. Worked to find us seats (at the bar, finally — as the bartender said, “You’re moving up in the world.”)

I drank bourbon. He drank beer. We ordered together and while I chose a relatively tame crab and artichoke dip with pita crusts — to die for — he went all out and ordered a platter of seafood: oysters, clams, lobster, shrimp, crab. A bounty of excess beautfuily presented and satiating to the pallet.

He squirted the lemon. He handed me the oyster. He watched me slurp.

It felt easy. Maybe that was my mistake?

He gave me a rock. A beach rock, a token of our connection.

We talked work. He works with children. Has for years. Not well-paid but well-rewarded. He’s seemed empathetic, engaged, somewhat happy.

How does one know? Are there questions I should have asked?

He had four drinks. I had two. The evening lingered.

At one point, he touched my shoulder. His palm flat, soothing. It felt warm and comfortable, as though….

As though what?

***

Blowhard was packing up to leave but I was pretty sure I wanted to sit through more returns. And I was certain I didn’t want to walk out to the street with him, to go through some sort of pantomime of pleasantries. He asked the bartender for the bill and before it came, he tossed a twenty on the bar.

Is this how it’s going to be? Okay. I reached into my purse and pulled out a twenty. I tossed it on the bar adjacent to his and continued watching the returns.

Obama is looking good for Ohio.

When the bartender brought the bill, Blowhard reached forward and grabbed it. He read it carefully. “Two more bucks for each of us,” he said and reached into his wallet. I reached into my purse and grabbed what I thought were two one dollar bills. I tossed them on the bar after his.

Fini, I was thinking.

And then he grabbed my money and said, oh, this is too much. He handed me a twenty. And that’s when I realized I’d tossed a twenty and a one instead of two ones. Or could have.

“Wait. Is that mine?”

And then he spun a story about having gone to the ATM and how he had fifty in his wallet and now he had only ten — he pulled it out to show me — and then he said, and god, this was the clincher, “We’re friends here,” and that’s when I knew I was in the midst of some sort of shell game. He gets dinner for two bucks and I pay forty-two for a drink and an app all the while thinking we’ve split the bill. Something like that. It was one of the weirdest moments dating I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a few.

I took my twenty back. I’m sure it’s mine, I said, knowing I’d never see this man again. Never wanting to see him again. It was awkward, to say the least.

Karl Rove contests Ohio.

And he got up to leave. He reached to kiss me. I gave him my cheek, or actually, an ear. The side of my head.

“Let’s be in touch. As friends,” he said.

“Yeah. Let’s,” I said and turned back to the television.

Is Obama really taking a lead in Virginia?

***

Frog grabbed the check and before I knew it had his credit card on the bar. I pulled out my purse and reached for my cash. “No,” he said. “I got this.”

We walked to the parking lot together. Of course.

Let me hug you, he said. He reached his considerable arms around me and enveloped me in a way I’ve never been held. You’re a tiny little thing, aren’t you? he said.

And then he kissed me. Sweetly. Passionately. Hopefully.

But I’ve been here before. I drove home purposely not thinking about him. But I’ll be truthful. I had hope. I liked him. I still like him. But instead of indulging what might be, I let it play out. When I got home, I went to bed. I couldn’t help hoping but I know…

The next morning, I logged on to the internet, hoping for an email from him.

Nothing. I waited. Maybe it’s too early? Maybe he has work or sports or yard sales or shopping or dump or…

But I knew. Even as I knew. I waited.

And when I finally logged back onto the dating website and looked for his profile, I almost knew what I’d find, which is nothing. Sometime in the night or morning, while I was holding back hope, he deleted his profile. No word to me. Nothing.

I’ve not heard from him since.

I’ve kissed frogs.

And I’ve played shell games.

I’m never sure which is which.

Busman’s Date

I’ll give you something to blog about, baby.

That was Trey after discovering mid-date that he was drinking whiskey with a writer…

***

Tucked deep into Trey’s profile was a tidbit about the novel he’s writing. Halfway through the second edit. Something like that.

I can’t say that that was the appeal, however. I’m inured to the lure of the writer. In my world, they’re a dime-a-dozen.

(Ask the guy who hit on me at a party by telling me he was a writer. Yawn. Only later did I find out that he’s an astronomer. Dude, I said. lead with that!)

But, Trey…

I liked his way. His looks. The ease of laughter that was evident even via email. We like the same things, bourbon, wasting time naked, reading, biking. He came across as an appealing blend of depth and fun.

We’d been flirting back and forth for weeks when suddenly one of us suggested a meet. A pub the next day, after work.

An hour before the appointed time, he texted: “I’m early.”

So I did what any sane woman would do: I left work early. If he wasn’t as advertised, or as I hoped he would be, I could still be home in time to catch the game.

Fifteen minutes later, I walked into the pub and saw him at the far end of the bar: tall, handsome, well-dressed. I was halfway to smitten. The talk was as easy as the plan, only more so, and when he touched my hand, my knee, told me stories, well, dear reader, I’ll let you imagine the rest.

***

“I’ve been writing,” Dixon said. We’d been dating a month or so.

I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. We were sitting off to the side of a busy bar, one of those cozy Beacon Hill places filled with suits of both sexes. Ordinarily, I like to sit at the bar, but he’d chosen the side ledge, perhaps with this in mind.

“Can I show it to you?”

He pulled out his smart phone and dialed up Google docs. He placed it between us. I glanced at it, as though interested, and then looked at him. Nearing fifty, a bit needy, overconfident.

How should I say this?

I thought it but didn’t say it. And I thought of Vito, a man whose work I’d edited as a friend. His youthful athleticism had launched him far beyond his blue-collar roots and, unfortunately, his ability. He could schmooze but he needed me to punctuate a sentence. He could be sexy but he needed me for syntax.

And if not me, someone else.

His charm got him past the fact that he couldn’t write. And that’s where I came in. We sat together – as friends, and at one point I really thought we were friends – and edited his work. To say that I improved his writing would be a gross understatement. I made his work palatable to the world at large, to those who understand that ideas are one thing but that the accurate use (or the conscious manipulation) of language is quite another.

But as soon as the editing was done, and my help wasn’t necessary, we were no longer friends. Call it a life lesson, one that I remembered as Dixon sat eager beside me, a teacher’s pet.

Was his goal to impress me by writing a poem? Did he want to best me by doing so? I kinda liked him. But I couldn’t read this. I glanced at the text on the page.

Nice, I said in a practiced non-committal way.

Should I tell him that I’m not on the clock? Should I mention Vito?

Somehow, I managed to postpone the poetry workshop. But he insisted that he really wanted this, my writing advice, and when you hear the word advice you think friends telling friends “don’t wear that argyle sweater” or “don’t attempt Toro without a reservation.” You don’t think of lawyers at $250 an hour, or Latin tutors at $60 an hour, or hookers or even palm readers at – I’ve never been, so I have no idea how much — but the fact is, you wouldn’t ask any one of them to do you for free. Not your doctor. Not your mechanic. And yet here he was asking me to review his writing. For a beer. It was a busman’s date.

A week or so later, after he insisted, we sat at a bar table at Clarke’s at South Station, a bevy of commuters bobbing beers around us. I started on his poem, explaining craft issues line by line, slowly and clearly, as he knew nothing about poetry. And then I noticed his face, bloodless, mask-like. Hurt, even.

“Is this okay?” I asked?

“Yeah, yeah.”

But it was clear he wanted praise, and only praise. I give praise in portions – it’s how it works – but it wasn’t enough. He wanted me to say he was a great writer. Period. Like a freshman, he didn’t want to invest any of the effort or skill that goes into good writing. It’s like he wanted to play piano or sing or cook – all without practice or patience or humility. Like love without dedication.

***
There should be a disclaimer option. At the bottom of all emails. Just like lawyers. This shouldn’t be construed as legal advice.

***

Trey’s story is dramatic. It’s not the usual divorce scenario. His is disaster followed by triumph, or at least a really human form of managing, the kind that looks heroic because it’s oddly ordinary and entirely sympathetic. A regular guy thrown into the extraordinary. I’ll refrain from detail to protect his privacy, but yeah, a good story.

“It’s the basis for my book,” he said once the conversation turned to writing. And the two of us fell into writer talk, just like familiar colleagues, talking plot and structure, characterization and genre.

And then he said it.

“Would you like to read it?”

Dear reader, what does one say? Do I tell him how much I charge for a manuscript consultation? My hourly editing fee?

“Yes! I’d love to read it.”

***

A disclaimer should be an option when giving advice to lovers or would-be lovers on things such as poems, novels, memoirs. I should be able to say “I loved reading that story. You’re a talented writer” without worrying that it will show up above my name on the book jacket of a self-published literary disaster. I should be able to say, yeah, cool, without worrying that it will reflect my taste in anything but men.

***

As it turns out, Trey has a way with words. He has honesty and moment and some really cool ideas. And I was so enamored by the first two chapters that when he offered to send more, I readily agreed.

Yes! I texted, especially if it includes sex!

But he’s still a novice. The second draft has serious problems that could be addressed by a thorough and competent reading – detailed advice and criticism – something I’m qualified to do.

But it’s not something I’ll do for free, at least not before you’ve swept me off my feet.