The Second Date

Code Name: Aquarius

Location: The Grove/ Marmalade/ His place in Santa Monica
Website: J-Date.com

After our first date, Aquarius and I had ended in a perusal of books at Barnes after some fun conversation. While there was a sense of detachment and little physical interaction, except for the feeling of electricity when he put his hand on the small of my back, I had an inkling we would see each other again.

We e-mailed back and forth during his family visit in LI (Long Island) and while I had always sensed that what he meant by “friend” was a girl he was seeing, I put my young brain in denial. Oh naïve me, yes that is what a guy means when he says “Plans with a friend.” Silly.

So after all the googling, the Myspace stalking, the JDate profile perusaling to see if he was fishing after our date… which he was, of course, I gave up and deleted him as a Myspace friend figuring his MIA-ness said he wasn’t interested. And of course, that got his attention.

But at some level, our communication had been connected. I already sensed we were both attracted to each other. So after not being able to meet up, finally, he called me out of the blue one Friday afternoon.

The funny thing was he sounded like a little pubescent boy over the phone, I chuckled, ‘Uh you interested in this guy, V?’ So that settled it, plans for 8PM, meeting at The Grove and sh*t, I look like sh*t and there may be some hooking-up and man, I needed some hooking-up.

This called for a battle plan…

At 7:00PM: I burst through my building to my car and whip out my blue jeans… but top…top, what do I got? Sh*t! Nothing. Okay, okay, no time to go home to the Valley to shower… ok, run V,  run!

At 7:08PM: I do a super fast run through Forever 21, pick a hot black top, pay.

At 7:13PM: I run to L’ Occitane and buy the Rose perfume I have been eyeing so I smell pretty and get a free sample of hair stuff and face cream.

At 7:17PM: Hit Victoria's Secret and buy sexy underwear (Hey, you never know, I like to be prepared rather than having a Bridget Jones Granny Panty moment)

At 7:23PM: I run to K-Mart, buy a disposable razor and shaving cream.

At 7:35PM: I take my whole lot of stuff, run to work, find the bathroom in the building, strip, shave at the sink, praying no one walks in, put my jeans and hot top, slather cream and perfume, fix my hair and my make-up.

At 7:45PM: Sigh.

Alright, thank God today my hair is strait and I look date ready.

At 7:50PM: I run to the car, drop the rest of my sh*t off and this is the last time I fall for a last minute date.

At 7:55PM: I go to The Grove and chill with 5 minutes to spare.

At 8:04PM: Aquarius calls me. He’s at the Mac store. I act chill but I am super nervous. Two years since I had a decent date and I hope I look good, when I see some guy check me out. Phew. Mission accomplished.

I go to the Mac store and don’t see anyone when I see Aquarius. Short, like me. Skinny, like me. He is unshaven, wearing a hoodie, huddling from the wind and cold. He says, “Sorry, this is what I wore from work.”

“Oh- don’t worry about –“ I say, but before I finish, his skinny arms wrap around me in what feels like a friend hug, but so tight that it’s almost awkward. I laugh and hug him back trying to see if there is chemistry. We stay like that for a while till I say, “It’s cold.”

‘Yeah.” He whispers, still hugging me. Then he immediately detaches from me, physically, emotionally. Weird.

We walk, not holding hands. He says he put his name down at Cheesecake Factory. Ugh, chain restaurant, hate that, I thought he would have come up with something far more unique. He tells me it was a long wait, but that he needs to look for a book at Barnes and Noble.

We go to Barnes and Noble and I am in babble mode. I ask questions, see what he is looking for, see if I can help, try to show him I am smart, but of course now I am babbling and trying too hard, two major taboos for any lady and even for any male in the dating field, although quite human and quite me. He is turning into guy mode, “We need to get you a drink, you need to chill.” He’s right.

We head to Cheesecake, the wait is super long and I am hungry, he asks me if there is anything good around here, but after not going out that often and certainly not dating, I am really out of options so finally we go to Marmalade as a settlers choice. It is an okay choice, but I prefer it to being “chain-y”.

He asks, “So you sing right?”

I say, “Um… no.”

He silently retracts that from the record. ‘That’s your other girl.’ I think. But I let it go, it’s a second date after all.

We sit at a two-person table in the middle of everything. I eye a booth and suggest we steal it. He seems okay and reaches across the table to hold my hand, which I am excited about, but I hold back, causing him to retreat.

I see the booth and in my very high-strung way, make a break from our table and seize it. He says, “Don’t worry about it,” but of course, I am doing everything in my freaking power so that there is alone time and make-out potential, which of course at this table, there isn’t.

So he goes with it. And on he goes with his little question game as we peruse the menu about my boyfriend history… there’s only one and I do my best to hide my bitterness, but I fail miserably and tell him the story in brief.

I than learn that he often dates girls and they than become lesbians or discover they are lesbians. This makes me feel better. At least mine stay strait.

He tells me the story of the “A-sexual-Bi-sexual” who invited him to a party which he thought was a date and than turned out there was another girl who was there making a move on his would-be date.

I tell him about what I studied, trying to sound smart, even though I know I am, but trying to impress… again the f**king trying.

The wine comes. His rum and coke come along with water, no lemon. And we drink. Thank God that God invented alcohol.

We order bruchetta, I order a salad, and he orders a burger. And onward we go.

I tell him I saw his short film on Youtube that he posted from his college days. I ask him how he did it. Asked if he really did the music, if the girl that it was based on really committed suicide. He says, “Yes.” That was his first girlfriend. It seems I am winning in the normal department and I like winning. But than again, so does he.

The food is okay, it turns out he is a food snob… but I still think it is better than Cheesecake.

We order dessert, Crème Brulee, it’s good, we share, we enjoy.

I excuse myself to the bathroom. Must rinse mouth out and be fresh for crucial moment.

I go back, I sit, and he switches sides of the booth… he is moving in for the moment.

He asks me about my first kiss. I tell him about my first technical kiss was when I was in a play. He asks me to show him, I am babbling when he moves in.

This is strange for me.

I had never kissed anyone else except my ex-serious boyfriend who ironically had the same name as this one, except he was a Gemini. His kisses are light, barely any tongue, but I am passionate about it, nonetheless. When the paid check comes back and I begin to say, “Oh, let me-“, he says, “Don’t worry about it,” and puts his hands on the back of my head and we’re making out, drunk, in the booth of a restaurant. And I am really happy to be here, again.

We break for air. “It’s been awhile since I made out with anyone in a restaurant,” he says. I go, “Hmm, “ and smile mischievously.

He has to get his parking validated, but can’t do it at Marmalade, which is a part of the Farmer’s market. So I take his ticket, go to my work building to validate and when I come back I see he is on the phone fishing for what else is going on for the evening. I go to hold him and he puts his arm around me while on the phone. We walk back to get my car when I realize, not only am I drunk and can not drive, I lost the f**ing ticket to the parking garage. He tells me to calm down and as we walk linking arms like fun escorts for the evening, he says, maybe if we jump in front of the ticket sensor where the cars come in, a ticket will pop up and I’ll be able to get out of the garage without paying a bazillion dollars. We go to the customer service desk. He wants to explain the situation, but I won’t let him, I like to represent myself, but than he takes over and actually does it quite well in his own boyish way, the woman takes pity on me and gives me a free ticket.

I am still not sober. We sit on a bench, he’s nice enough to get me water, and he has me put my hands in his pockets after he takes out the Ipod. He says he’s like a kid. I tell him I like that. He tells me to take a drink of water than kiss him. I like that. When I finish, he says doesn’t that feel nice? I shake my head yes and say that I am okay to drive. We walk towards the garage and he says his friend is having a party but than it slips that he doesn’t know if he wants to take me there, because “you’re with me” and I like that he cares and he asks me what I want to do and than I move in and kiss his neck to which he replies, “Or we could just share sweet kisses all night.” And I shake my head yes. “So my place?” he asks.

I shake my head yes and tell him, “But I’m not going to f**k you.”

He says, “There’s no expectation for that.”

I say, “Okay.”

He says, “You’ll follow my car?”

“Uh-huh.” I reply.

I am nervous because I suck at following people in cars and I just sobered up. With me, alcohol hits my petite body but once I am sober, I am fine. I am nervous on a number of things… following basically this stranger who I have known a very short while, following him in my car, because at that time I had only been driving since I had gotten back from New York two years before and avoided highways, but on top of all that, coping with the crucial moment when I had not been exposed to anyone for a very long time and didn’t know what he would end up thinking of me.

It takes 40 minutes to get to Santa Monica from Hollywood by street, but it was my request. I know this annoys him, but I don’t know him and am not familiar with the I -10 at this point. I am from the Valley for Christ’s sake! He shows me where to park as this looks like the per usual place he usually has his dates park; I hop in the car with him to his bachelor lair. He lives close to the beach. I like this.

As we walk up to the apartment, he carries his bass, which he plays in addition to the piano, I like this also.

We go to his apartment and while I go to the bathroom, he moves through and swiftly cleans up even though I don’t care. I get the 3 second tour of the one bedroom place and notice he has the same exact poster of a Dali painting that I used to have in my dorm room and I stupidly wonder at the irony and try to see if I am supposed to know him for some strange reason.

He plucks some photos off his bed he brought back from LI, pictures of when he was in Europe, where I told him I was jealous of him going and I had wanted to go. I wonder if he brought them back to show me.

We sit on the bed and he shows me a silly Bird and the Bee song, but he seems to really like it, so I play along. He is so strange and so different, which I like. Till finally he pulls me toward him and we start making out on his bed.

I am really excited and nervous and scared and just trying to maintain.

He slyly gets my shirt off. I let him have that one. But than he goes for the bra hook and I look to my back and go, “Oh.” To which he replies, “Oh, what?”

I stop him from undoing the bra and he respects it.

We eventually stop and we talk and eventually he asks me when was the last time I hooked up with a guy and I tell him the truth, that its been two years and he asks me why I am doing it now…

And I make my first major mistake: I tell him the truth… I say…

“Because I like you.”

He says nothing. It is 1AM. I tell him I have to go. We put back on whatever clothes were taken off, which wasn’t much. I say, “You know, when we met I didn’t think you were into me.”

He asks me why that is, detached and I tell him because he didn’t make a move, he says there wasn’t a moment for that and than I get that feeling…

He drives me to my car, says “Good Night” and I look at him confused why he won’t kiss me good-bye when we just made out all night and he awkwardly moves across and kisses me quickly and says, “Take Care.”

I get out of the car majorly confused and get into my car, feeling… used. ‘What just happened?’ I think. ‘He just… detached. How did I get this wrong?’

I start my car and brave the I-10, which turns out to be much faster and easier than I thought, back to the Valley.

For the next 5 days I will look at my phone… and it won’t ring once.

The Aquarian

Code Name: Aquarius

Location: Bookstore in Santa Monica/Crepe Café

Website: JDate.com

I had started a new job with a company I really liked and for the first time, in a long time, I felt more like myself and had decided it was time to give the game another go. Now that I was working 55 hours a week, the only way to really get out there was to do the thing that I swore a million times over not to do… which was join JDate. And than I pulled out my credit card and gave the people of my culture nearly 40 dollars of my hard earned money each month.

And then I met Aquarius.

One of the most unique, inscrutable, confusing, fun and creative characters I ever encountered- and later what I discovered, control freak, selfish and sometimes cruel, he was the first of the non-relationships, however hopeful first date, that I had while venturing online.

JDate while filled with people of similar culture, ambitious aims; it was a conducive website format that allowed actual communication and thoughts of potential, Yet, it was filled with the “Jew-y”: People who are all about being Jewish and that’s their life 24/7.  What can I say, I’m liberal about faith and at the time I had no idea what the term “Ashkenazi” meant (It means Jewish people of Eastern European descent). I was also constantly being IM’d non-stop by men who weren’t my type.

I remember he IM’d me and I thought, “Oh Jesus, not another one.” And I almost refused it. And although he looked like a chronic multiple dater, especially standing next to a leggy female, rather than just of himself, I accepted.

And he opened with, “Where in Long Island does your cousin live?”

Immediately, I looked at his profile and I thought, uh-oh, Long Island? My ex-roommate was from Long Island and she was nuts! But then I saw the terms:

                                                          

                                                            FILM

                                                            Yes.

                                                            28

                                                            Yes.

                                                            BACHELOR’S DEGREE.

                                                            Yes.

                                                            AQUARIUS

                                                            Oh, what’s that?

Oh, how little I knew.

           

Well, let me tell you friends. The Aquarian is a magical creature who twists and turns your brain waves into insane shapes of seismic ovals, half circles into stars into butterflies that flit from synapse to synapse.

A brief introduction:

The Aquarian, also known as the Water Bearer, ruled by the planet Uranus is an air sign. The Aquarian is a fixed sign, and I mean fixed, one who likes it his way. This is the sign of a second childhood, the sign of the future, the sign of the verge between genius and insanity embodying intelligence, instinct and imagination all at the very same time. This is a detached gentleman who has a kind interest in humanity, in all people. He has a habit to make all that he encounters become his friend, with neither preference or disregard to the female sex, in all contexts, whether sexual or romantic. Thank you to Linda Goodman’s Love Signs for the informative insight, it was dead on!

           

Little did the Taurean female realize, aka down to earth control freak, ruled by the sensual planet Venus, exactly what she was in for when she was lured to the Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica to meet this thin black-haired stranger in the Philosophy section, no less, for bookstore and tea.

So when I noticed the little creases at the corner of his blue eyes, seeing the age in his seemingly youthful appearance, approaching me in the bookstore as I hid in the History section, for fear that I might be meeting, gulp, a loser, I became instantly relieved and then weary again as he opened his mouth, “History? You’re supposed to be over there!” pointing to “Philosophy”. To which I thought, ‘Uh-oh, control freak.’

But as he opened his arms to hug me warmly, and I opened mine, I felt it.

F**k. I like him.

And I already knew. I could feel the uneven tug. The uneven tug that I had felt in many childhood crushes of years past, me chasing boys and them not chasing me back.

F**k. He may not like me back.

So when tea turned into lunch, I wondered, ‘But is there something there? What is it?’           

The Taurean, who really was the Taurean-Gemini, born on the Cusp of Energy, primarily the Taurus but with Gemini tendencies creating certain ties to the communication that Aquarian is so fond of, carefully observed him as he ordered a glass of water, no lemon and a string of provoking questions began to ensue, his little question game…

Suddenly, the ignorant Taurus began to be educated on the mysterious Aquarian, the man born on the Week of Acceptance, although she had yet to discover the true ways of his Astrological identity.

As the string of questions began to progress inquiring about “relationships”, “dates” a string of responses to this interlude began ringing in my head:

                                   

                                    “Can I marry this guy?”

                                    No.

                                    “Could I love this guy?”

                                    Not sure.

                                    “Could I f**k him?”

                                    Absolutely.

                                    “How long do we give this guy?”

                                    6 months, a year tops.

                                    “And if it doesn’t work out…?”

                                    We can always talk about writing.

My inner narrator was interrupted by the question of whether I “smoked pot”… to which I immediately buried my head in my hands, shaking my head, ‘No.’

As he replied jokingly, repeating the words in my brain, “This is never going to work.”

I smiled coyly, “Well, there’s always something to be learned.”

And boy, I really did not know what I was in for…

Sim City

October 2006, Saturday

Code Name: Rockabilly
Location: Northridge Fashion Center/ Simi Valley House Party
Website: Match.com

What do you do when you graduate college, live with your parents, work a job you f**ing hate and haven’t gotten laid in 2 years? You get online. You peruse EHarmony. You realize after a gazillion tests and lame communication with a number of people who are not your type in a controlled manner this is stupid. You quit. You sign up for a free trial for Match.com. And you don’t tell a living soul because you SWORE that online dating was for losers and you’re not quite there yet. Except now… here you are… not meeting anybody because you don’t like bars, you don’t like clubs, you work all the time and you have been soooo out of the game you don’t even know how to flirt, even though you’re a sexy hottie. What the f**k else are you supposed to do?

Get more than one pic.

That’s right guys and girls, and I know many of you out there who have made this mistake (including myself- multiple times). You need a number of pieces of evidence to know the accurate representation of the person you may or may not decide to go out with. So after scanning, writing and receiving a number of e-mails, and yes it is true, if you are an attractive female you will receive more messages than men, but if your match in question only had one or two photos up, request some photos or a public photo Facebook link. If match in question evades: ie. Says, “Well let’s do a videochat tonight”, “I don’t have any on my office computer”, “I don’t give out my facebook/myspace page” etc. discontinue communication. You don’t want to end up like the Salmon girl in “LOVELY BONES”, do you? Or on the safer side of things, really not your type… both not the positive outcomes you want from dating online.

One such instance was Rockabilly. On paper, Rockabilly was a Simian (from Simi Valley), graduated from Otis Art school and also a halfsie Hispanic like myself. From our e-mail communication and phone conversation, Rockabilly seemed a bit sexy at first, a good guy, someone I might be interested in…

Rockabilly and I met at the mall… don’t even get me started, it was a public place! I was excited, looking forward to meeting someone who I could possibly make out with at the end of the evening. But than I saw him… and … sh*t. It was not that he wasn’t attractive, but that he was a Rockabilly with a tattoo up and down his arm, that would have been hot, except for some reason... it wasn't. My Futurama looking character turned out not to be what I expected. In other words, NOT like the ONE pic he had on his profile. Yes, I could have been made far more aware had I simply asked for a MySpace or a Facebook. But I was still hopeful and held onto my cell phone when I got into his car (although I did not sense that he was dangerous, going in a car with a stranger that you met online before hanging out is HUGE taboo when it comes to first meetings).

So onward to his friend’s house where I met the… Goth crew. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice, but what the hell did we have in common? Than I met family friends… oy, pressure. Then I discovered that Rockabilly was a vegetarian, alright cool… except I really like meat.
Finally, after hours of uncomfortable silence which = AK-WARD, I got up the nerve to tell my date that I had to get home. Finally, a glimmer of hope as we had an actual conversation, he barely spoke to me the whole time! And than it went to sh*t as he could only focus on playing me his Rockabilly music, and I mean a man showing a girl his music, that’s a flattery move and a basic component to the male and female dance of modern dating. My hope was utterly squandered when he continued into his land of ADD and jumped from one subject to the next as he sped down the 118 highway till he finally brought me home, safe.

Verdict: The Hug

When a kiss is out of the question and a hand shake is just too insulting, it is best to go with the hug. If there was any shot of anything happening a hug will be telling of the attraction. If there is a glimmer of hope, an animalistic spark gravitating two human beings together in a sexual way, if you're perceptive, you'll sense it. And if there isn’t any attraction or perception is a thing that is way over your head… it’s nice- even though they’re into you and you’re not into them.

I decided to go with the "No Bod Contact" technique. This was just not happening. Hug. Thank you. Door. Jet Away.

He was a gentleman, I give him that credit, and he was one of the more stand-up men I met while online and my first date in the online world.

I wrote him an e-mail the next day, thanking him and telling him the chemistry wasn't there. The truth. He wrote back and thanked me for being honest.

But I still quit Match anyway… and did not date for the next year and a half.