This Actually Happened Last Week

Just like Liza Minnelli manifests around gay (at least according to the cinematic atrocity that was Sex and the City 2, a film I have seen no less than 13 times, whatever) ridiculous manifests around me. 

Last Wednesday evening I set out on the dual mission of rooftop champagne with friend followed by a late date with IA.  In spite of technically living in Brooklyn, it is surprisingly and delightfully easy to catch a cab in my neighborhood.  However, having them pull up directly outside my front door is a luxury for which I’ll hurl myself into the street.  Caught up in the satisfaction of not having to hunt down a ride, I failed to notice the exceedingly shellacked gentleman also trying to make his way to Mannahatta.   It properly scared the proverbial shit out of me when all of a sudden he was there, keeping me from closing the taxi door.  

So it’s not like he was a face-eating hobo zombie on bath salts or anything.   He actually seemed perfectly nice.  He was just a clean cut sort of dude who was wholly obliterated.  He was also wearing one of those “hello my name is” stickers and it said, “fucks on the first date” in the white part.  He begged me to take him to the city with me, pleading that he was so drunk (umm, yeah) and was desperate to get back home.  He offered to pay for the cab.  I said I’m perfectly capable of covering cab fare to the Flatiron.  Anyhow, after a lot of nonsense back and forth and a lot of Jim Halpert looks from the driver, I said, “Fine! Don’t touch me! Don’t barf on me! And we drop me off first!” 

We set off.  Here’s the conversation that ensued en route to the bar:

FOTFD (fucks on the first date): You’re so beautiful.  Who are you texting?

Me:  A guy I'm seeing.  Not that it’s any of your business. Please stay on your side of the cab.

FOTFD:  I’m so drunk.  I’ve been drinking all day.  I’m so drunk. He’s not going to answer you. 

Me: No one is debating that.  And he’s actively answering me.  He thinks I should get out of this cab.

FOTFD:  Come on, you’re beautiful.  I’m a nice guy.  I want to be your friend. Here’s my phone.  Put your number in it.

Me:  I’m definitely not giving you my number. 

FOTFD:  Fine, give me your email.

Me:  No, I don’t have an email that doesn’t include my full name.  It’s fine.  We’re just sharing this cab. That's all.

FOTFD:  I’m a nice Ohio guy.  Come on.  I’m a TV producer. 

Me:  I’m sure you are a perfectly lovely person.  Who do you work for?

FOTFD:  MLB.  We’ve been so busy with the All Star game and we finally had a day off.  I’ve been drinking all day.

Me:  Again, I totally believe you there.  And I work with their ad sales dept.

FOTFD:  See?  Let’s be friends.  I’m a nice Ohio guy.  Where are you from? 

Me:  I’m from Florida.

FOTFD:  Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn, fuck Florida.  Everyone is racist down there. 

Me:  Right.  There are a lot of racist people there.  Also, I don’t live there.  I live here.  I have for nearly eight years.  I have no plans to return. 

FOTFD:  Noooooooooo I bet you’re just as bad as everyone else. 

Me:  I assure you I am not.  I really don’t give a shit who or what anyone is. 

FOTFD:  Look at my arm next to you.  We’re not the same. 

Me:  Anyone with functioning eyesight can see that.  I assure you I am not a racist person. Not in the least. 

FOTFD:  Touch my arm.  Touch a black man.

Me:  OK.  …oh hey look.  Nothing happened.

FOTFD:  Fuck Florida. 

Me:  OK.

This went on for a while longer while he simultaneously tried to convince me he was going to see his girlfriend and assured me he wanted my friends to be friends with his friends.  Right, I don’t get it either.  Around this time, I got a text asking me to stop off for ciggs before heading up to the roof.  I saw a Duane Reade and screeched for the cabbie to pull over and let me out.  Just as fast as I’d hurled myself into that cab, I launched my ass out of it.  I’d had enough.  FOTFD hadn’t.  He leaned across and grabbed my arm imploring me to not go.  The cabbie meanwhile was alternating between having unspoken, judgmental conversations with me through the rear-view mirror about being irresponsible and looks that said, “Please don’t leave me with this loon.”  

In the end, I got a free inter-borough cab ride, addressed race relations and gave him some rep’s biz card so that we could be friends in the future.  You’re welcome. 

Vennifer.

Please Take a Hint

When a guy doesn't like sports, it not only nominates him for a lead role in The Red Flag Diaries, but in my mind, it justifies me no longer paying attention to anything he's saying and/or not being particularly kind for the rest of the evening.

#Single4eva

So you're telling me you've never seen The League, you don't watch football on Saturday OR Sunday and I'm just going to go ahead and safely assume you don't play fantasy (Team Fritatta 2012!) no trips up to the Bronx?  Or the Garden? And you're wondering why I ran out of there last night?! I wasn't entirely sure that you weren't, in fact, an alien! 

Vennifer.

This is Where I'm Coming From

Mom: How's it all going?
Me:  Good, I guess.  I'm still seeing the Florida guy and IA.  They both seem to like me (...at least until they find out about this blog I have).
Mom:  It must be your hair color.
Me:  Mom, I think you're supposed to be a little more encouraging than assuming someone your only daughter has been seeing for almost two months must like her solely on account of her hair color.
Mom:  Well, they like girls with dark hair.
Me:  OK, I see we've entered the stereotyping phase of this conversation. I think we're done here.  But really Mom, if anything, I'd have to imagine they'd generally prefer blonds.  It's comparatively more exotic.

That's just a typical conversation between the Mothership and me, spending five minutes talking about my personal life before she inevitably changes the subject to tell me about some deal she got on Suze Orman style jackets at TJ Maxx and lets me know that she's basically cut out and snail mailed me half the Jacksonville newspaper.  Because why not just tell me to go to the paper's website and find the articles digitally?  Forget it.

Mom:  There's this really interesting article on how you shouldn't be posting all of this stuff on Facebook.
Me:  Mom, I'm definitely putting this whole conversation on FB as soon as we're off the phone.
Mom:  Jennifer!
Me:  K, mom, gotta run.  I've got to get out and peddle these brunette locks of mine while the getting is good.

So I don't have a horrible date story to follow here. I thought I would post a real gem of an email I got the other day.  Minus the poor kid's email/phone number, here is what he sent me, verbatim... well, verbatim with my internal monologue as I was reading .  This is what I'm dealing with, people:

hi jen, [already losing points - I'm Jenn with 2 n's - also I didn't realize we were on a nickname basis yet]

good afternoon!! how are you? my name is som - rhymes w/ ohm - and i'd love to get to know more about you. how was your wknd?

i live near princeton, nj, and work in finance. at present, i am helping a couple of friends with raising capital for their start-ups. i'm a former journalist w/ an mba.

activities wise, i am pretty much up for anything..i enjoy movies, theater, cooking, jazz music, reading nonfiction, surfing the net [wait, are you 65?], watching sports, working out, road trips and more.. [is anyone else feelinga little: "Dear Chase, I feel like I can call you Chase because you and me are so alike. I'd like to meet you one day, it would be great to have a catch. I know I can't throw as fast as you, but I think you'd be impressed with my speed. I love your hair. You run fast.  Did you have a good relationship with your father?  Me neither.  These are all things we can talk about and more..."]

my personality is also an interesting mix..i'm loving, giving, caring, passionate sexual [WHAT - seriously?!], gregarious, generous, aggressive and patient. [aggressive and patient? so you're bipolar?  NEAT!]

you can also find me on fb/linkedin/skype under som _________. feel free to google me as well. [There's no crying in baseball! You can't just openly encourage e-stalking!  That takes the fun out of it!]

som

som- - - - - - - - @gmail.com
(646) xxx xxxx


Oh, Som rhymes with Ohm, you are the 2nd person who has openly encouraged me to google them recently.  Is this what people do now, because it's super weird.  Right?  Is nothing private anymore? And not to belabor the point, but that really takes all the fun out of it.  If I'm into you later on, please trust that my friends and I are going to e-search the shit out of you.  What?  I'm a girl. It happens. As for now, please know you've dodged a bullet with my lack of interest.  On to the next shiny object.  There's an NYPD officer who has just reached out.  He is not an attractive man, but again, he's NYPD.  Not sure you can pass that up... at least once.  Just to try it.  Yes?  Thought so. 

Until the next failed romance,

Vennifer.

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