The Weekend Everyone Told Me I Wanted Kids

Staying in NY over a holiday weekend can be lovely.  For one thing, you don’t have to compete in the amazing race to spend four hours in stand still traffic on the LIE/Montauk Highway or try and wade through half of your fellow Tri-State area residents at Penn Station who also had the clever idea of ditching out of work to get the earlier train.  For another, you have actual free time that isn’t relegated to Friday happy hour, waking up early Saturday thinking about exercising, then sitting in workout garb for three hours while you work your way through “just one more episode” of Sex and the City on HBO On Demand, finally squeezing in a pathetic workout before you go to brunch, drink all day straight through the evening, pass out and then wake up Sunday morning wondering when it’s an appropriate time to put in a Seamless order big enough to feed any ten people while willing the sun to never shine again.  That’s what happens in a typical two day weekend, right?  The point is I stayed in NY over the Memorial Day holiday and there was definitely something in the water.  

Saturday night I went out with this guy who – I can’t make this shit up – goes by the name Sunny.  Already, I had the feeling this wasn’t a match made in pretend heaven.  Sunny is a reflection of his personality, so says he, and mine, well, we all know is anything but.  He tells me to meet him somewhere in the village, I text him that I’m late, and he replies that he’s at a Starbucks in Nolita drinking water.  Everything about this, down to the Ethos water that saves the kids in Africa or something, irritates me.  Now the cab driver is barking at me, and I’m all, “hold up hermano, you’re preaching to the choir here!”  

So I fetch Sunny out of the Starbys and we walk over to Po.  Of course, he didn’t make a reservation and because the place seats every bit of 20 people, there’s a wait.  We put our name in and go for drinks next door.  He orders whiskey on the rocks and, through the slight language barrier, proceeds to tell me - unprompted mind you - that he just got out of a long term relationship and I’m the first person he’s gone out with since it ended.  Neat!  

At dinner, despite the fact that I just ordered two chardonnays over drinks, he presumptuously orders red wine for us both.  I generally stay away from red wine.  You know how gin makes some people clinically insane?  That’s what a healthy serving of la vin rouge does to me.  We had two + bottles.  While I’m trying my best to keep crazy at bay; he looks up at me and blurts out, “Why don’t you want to have children?” 

Me: (chokes on wine) I'm sorry, what?

Sunny:  Your profile.  It says you only maybe want children.  I almost didn't ask you out. 

Me: Umm, my profile also says if you asked my friends what kind of man I'm looking for, they'd tell you someone who is obviously gay to everyone but me… oh, you're serious... well, you know, there's already 7billion people on the planet.  There are plenty of men and women out there hell-bent on adding to that more than staggering number.  I'm just not sure I am one of them. 
Sunny:  I think you want to have kids.

Me: You know what; I honestly don't know that I do.  I'm really not just saying that.

Sunny: I don't think you're being true to yourself.  I think you really want to have children. 

Me:  You met me two hours ago, so while I get that you don't know me all that well, I assure you that right now, I am not interested in putting someone else's needs before mine for the next 24 hours, much less the next 24 years. 

Sunny:  I think you just need to be honest with yourself and what you really want.

Me: OMG OMG please make this stop! So did I tell you about the iPhone app I want to develop?**

Sunny: Oh, that's a good idea and I could have my friends build that in 20 minutes.  I'd like you to meet them later.  We should go into business together on this.  

**I was previously concerned this would sound racist, as Sunny is Indian, but at this point I’m well over my red wine limit and the concept of Jennifer Jr was starting to make me nauseous.  Desperate times and all.

The next day on a friend’s rooftop, things were getting pretty serious with this gin and pureed watermelon concoction I’d made.  I was into it, for sure.  As I’m standing there relaying the tales of the previous evening’s revelry, a friend of a friend I’d just met about an hour earlier steps in and accuses me of wanting to procreate.  Like, when did I get a baby rattle tattooed on my forehead and not notice?  What is going on?  And what about a chick in a backless dress with a solo cup containing a shload of gin in it screams maternal to you?  I don’t get it.  Maybe I should stop baking cupcakes and cookies for people. Can I take another step back from this uncomfortable conversation without falling down the fire escape or actually, is that a solid action plan?

Dave (who is now a friend) is a preppy, fellow FloRida transplant currently residing in CT.  Unfortunately, bringing up the topic of writing code wasn’t going to get me out of this one.   I needed a different approach.  I assured him that despite having come out on the other side of my red wine coma looking pulled together, that I am not a terribly nice person and I’m  actually pretty selfish.  No dice.  Time to pull in the big guns:  the financial responsibility of having offspring and my desire to dwell in NYC till my end of days.  Right now, those arrows aren’t crossing anywhere, anytime soon and that leaves you with the option of having a weird, UES chemical baby at like 45-years old. 

I’ve always considered myself more of a downtown gal, currently on hiatus in Brooklyn.   To go ahead and state the obvious, I never saw Sunny again even though, strangely enough, he asked.  And as far as Labor Day is concerned, Jitney me.  I’m perfectly happy to be one of the city-iot lemmings flocking to the Hamptons.

Vennifer. 

Talk is Cheap... as was my date.

I filled out the template for this blog a long time ago with the intention of chronicling the ups and downs of the terrifying and quite frankly, exhausting process that is dating.  Of course with me, lazy often wins out over ambition, but not this round.  I sort of knew some idiot would eventually push me over the edge and get me moving.  That time has come.  

I was willing to overlook the fact that he seemed really into camping; Jennifer does not camp.   On paper, this one had potential.  For example, we have a shared love of The League and skiing, he knows of the Willy Wall and he suggested we go drink wine.   Also, he owns a vacation home and has 600+ sq. ft. of outdoor space in his 2-bedroom apartment.  Oh whatever, like that wouldn’t peak an interest for everyone.  Child, please! (Andre, no! Just stop.)  Anyhow, I was previously unaware that you could be a fan of The League and also be awful.  I thought the two were mutually exclusive.  They are not.  

The first eyebrow was raised upon meeting up with him when he did not get up, extend a hand or lean in for a kiss on the cheek when I walked in and sat down.  The second eyebrow went up about three seconds later when the first thing he says to me – in a shockingly soft and high pitched voice, mind you - after hello is, “We just missed happy hour.  We could have gotten this Malbec bottle for $18.  They have it listed for $31.”  I replied with, “I’ll have a glass of chardonnay,” and an eye roll I only halfway hoped I kept in my mind.  

Somewhere around the second glass of wine, this conversation happened.  I am not embellishing.

Squeak: You know Dana Carvey used to have a sketch comedy show on ABC?

Me: I did not.

Squeak: Is Dana Carvey dead? 

Me:  Umm, not to my knowledge.

Squeak:  Don’t you feel like he should be?

Me: (internally) What the hell do you have against Garth/The Church Lady?

Me: (out loud) I’m not sure I follow.

Squeak: Don’t you feel like he’s just one of those people who should have died already? Like Bob Dylan.

Me: The man is a legend.  I definitely do not wish Bob Dylan was dead.  Are you maybe trying to say you put him in the same category as a Janice Joplin or Kurt Cobain, like tremendously talented people who lived hard passed before their time? 

Squeak:  Yeah, you know, there’s just all these people who you’re surprised are still alive…

Me:  Sure.  Interesting you loop Dana Carvey in with that group. 

Then, after glass number three (like why was I even still there – maybe it was like a live action train wreck I just couldn’t stop watching) he looks at me and has the audacity to tell me he’s not sure if I can handle another glass of wine.  Now you’ve crossed a line.  Look, mister, I am 30 and single with a cat; wine is what I DO.  And even if that weren’t the case, I went to the University of Florida, you pansy; I’ve been training hard for the drinking Olympics since I was 19.  Let me know when you want to graduate to the big kids table and we’ll go head to head with bourbon, bitch.  This date was over, but the snowballing horror of it all wasn’t. 

The check comes, and he grabs it.  I think, well at least he’s going to be a gentleman about this.  Nope, slow your roll, sister; he’s just examining what we owe.  He immediately slaps it down between us and says, “Do you want to split it?”  Umm no, not any more than I want to pull off one of my finger nails.  However if it relieves me of your company any quicker, I’ll buy this bar.  Then, as I’m going to sign it, he looks up at me and says, “What are we tipping?  I don’t like to leave a full 20% if all she did was pour us drinks.”  Open eye roll.  You own a vacation home, a 2-bedroom apartment in the city, two rental properties and two cars, but BY ALL MEANS, let’s not give the bartender an extra $2 each.  Good night and good luck.  And with that, I went to meet someone else, who will probably be mentioned in a future post, for a quick glass of champagne.

vennifer