Boy 18: The Disembodiment

So, normally I don’t click on the boys. I’ve mentioned this before, and maybe it’s cruel or problematic, but I don’t. I just wait and see who’s clicked on me, and then I respond. Am I abdicating responsibility? Probably. And most of the time when I sneak a peek at the app these days I’m actually looking for affirmation. Someone please tell me my pictures and banter are compelling.

The point is I got tired. Of playing. Or asking.

I wasn’t sure if the game was cooperative or competitive at this point. And when I look back on the last Boy I met online–Boy 17–I see some kind of frazzled political refraction. Almost prophetic in his unrequited Bernie Valentines. And then society as I define it disappeared, i.e. schools and theaters closed. No, not society… maybe it’s mechanisms for progress that disappeared?

So I grew what I knew as they say.

I thought I would hibernate in quarantine but instead I traveled. First, I left my apartment to live with a journalist in Manhattan. I finished The Year of Magical Thinking. I over-texted Boy 15: he left me confusing audio messages, I read him Rilke poems, and then I stepped away for my own sanity. And now… we’re friends? So, I read half of Moby Dick and under-texted Boy 16: pretty ashamed that I asked a nurse in the age of COVID to reassure me I was attractive in a witching hour moment of angst. And because he nursed (I’m sorry, I had to) a sufficient crush on me still, he did.

I read another 1/6 of War and Peace. There’s a whole bit about deserted Moscow in anticipation of Napoleon’s invasion. He describes it as an empty hive with its smell as the giveaway. A busy hive smells of honey and poison and an empty one doesn’t smell like anything. There it is. New York: a hive of honey and poison reduced to a quiet rotting tessellation. I left the city with a boy I didn’t meet online. I called Boy 12 once. He played some classical guitar for me. He insisted that I come back so that he could take me to a lake.

I read A Little Life. It’s a beast of book. The prose is flimsy, but the misery is profound. Almost pornographic. I moved again to live with my family this time. I had decided, deliberately and consciously to stay offline. I write poems about the inefficacy of romance in this time… that kind of love is trust and it’s touch. So, really now, who ya fooling? I walked in the evenings with my father who let himself go blind in one eye when he decided to ignore the pain and label it a headache. We looked up at the stars. I downloaded SkyView Lite and determined that the brightest one was Saturn. “A ha,” he said, “I thought it was just my eyes, but that star is split because of the rings!”

Barely even masturbating.

Somehow this pandemic keeps providing me with homes that aren’t my apartment. I got a strange international job, so I packed. And I was curious. Or maybe finally lonely enough… to look. What is happening with Hinge?

No return ticket but somehow that felt permissive.

Go. Look. You can’t really meet anyone anyway.

I remembered standing in the bathroom with a friend of mine who was an artist turned fitness instructor. I took her class for free the night that Tom Hanks got coronavirus and the NBA shut down. She had shouted, “Corona, be damned” in the dark as everybody’s stationary wheels whirred. And then she and I were in a brightly light bathroom, and I was putting on mascara and explaining I sort of had a date. And she was saying she sort of had an audition but that she’d sort of put dating away. And now her face pops up on my feed, and she’s wearing matching pajamas–the kind with animal ears–and passing wine glasses with only her teeth to some lovely man who moved in with her while something sweet plays behind them. Pretty sure they have a puppy now. I’m not saying I’m competitive or jealous or… I’m just saying I keep looking at her shiny little shares. Digital sparkles in her eyes and exclamations framing her life.

I could hear my sister’s voice saying, “Yeah, I mean, if I were single. I’d totally do it.”

But then I asked my friend on Hinge… “It’s all transactional now. Terrifying.”

Hmm.

I’ve always said I can talk to anyone about anything, and now all people can do is talk.

Right?

So.

The app is different now. There’s a little video button and a little phone button which is… well isn’t the whole point to give someone your number and move away from this app that gamifies love and turns people into squares? But then again it’s probably irresponsible to encourage meeting strangers? No, not probably irresponsible… definitely irresponsible. And we’re all hoping we’re prophets somehow able to deduce and intuit based on the same information we had before but maybe with an extra ZOOM call or two? While also trying to determine whether someone willing to meet a stranger is doing so because of a unique connection or because of an understandable desperation for human contact? It’s not for me, but I understand the slide into the transactional more than the growth of any romance under these circumstances, I think.

Anyway, speaking of prophets.

Boy 18, I’m sorry for the lengthy preamble. It’s just… been a while, and this is all to say I was having trouble navigating the app. I thought I was sorting through old matches, but I happened on your profile instead.

You have an adorable and unpretentious photo first. What I call the “lowering-expectations-this-is-what-I-really-look-like-ok?”

And underneath that you’ve answered the (hideous) Hinge prompt: I’m looking for…

“A recovering snob with strong opinions on literature.”

How could I resist.

So I responded:

“I just finished A Little Life… is it literature though?”

You also attended the university I would have attended if I hadn’t gone to Yale. Probably one of the important decisions I’ve ever made? I always think if I’d gone there, I would have gone into academia instead of the arts… and my parents would’ve still misunderstood but me but slightly more respectfully.

We text about reading, schooling, Dickens, Ward, and the “embarrassing reason every other cis het 37yo man knows” about Yale’s art scene: Claire Danes. When I ask what you teach, you deflect. So I ask what do you love to teach. You mention two things:

(1) Intro To Math Methods

You love watching students realize they aren’t bad at math.

(2) Intro Classics

Specifically, using Homeland to illustrate how genius (disembodied feminine) is dismissed as crazy. The Cassandra problem.

Well, I had to give you my number. I mean it’s probably Pavlovian at this point.

I’m wary, of course, of the presentation of feminism or dorkiness as a trick, the ultimate savvy move. A conveniently placed Rilke snippet or Olds poem to encourage an instant cosmetic projection of intelligence instead of the actual plumbing job that has to happen to determine if two people’s intellects align. But I do actually want to hear from someone who describes genius as disembodied feminine and happily admits to adoring Claire Danes, I guess.

You text me that you’re pleasantly surprised that Aristophanes got you my number. We continue to text about Homer, tiger pics on Tinder (apparently a thing), and the life of an artist in lockdown, and then you say “lmk if you want to talk later.” I sort of ignore this and continue waxing, mentioning a beautiful moment in A Little Life.

No spoilers, but someone realizes they’re in love with some else via The Odyssey, recalling the line:

“And tell me this: I must be absolutely sure. This place I’ve reached, is it truly Ithaca?”

To which you respond, “Can I call you later?”

And then you diffuse with some banter.

I agree to a call.

You say you prefer video, and I give you my limited video options at the moment. We decide to talk on the phone the next day. I go silent for the next 24 hours, packing and sitting in the last day with my sister for a little while.

You follow up the next day: “Still up for talking?”

And I call you from the car.

“Is this what people do now? In corona? They call each other?”

You’re on it: “I don’t know what people do. I can’t speak to that… but, after a wall of texting, I wanted to talk to you.”

I drive a blue car through a highway surrounded by forests. Almost right away, you notice how quickly I talk and comment on it. I’m about to apologize, but you say you like it.

You like how quickly I talk.

You can’t see me blush, and I’m already quipping, “Yeah, I talk faster than I think. It’s a problem.”

We somehow end up immediately sidetracked, discussing the cult of talent and the nature of academia and whether or not intelligent people are boring and how beautiful T-tests are and how arguments are useful. And not useful. When I ask about your research, you say you know from previous experience to set “ground rules” and not discuss it because academia is fetishized and that you should explain that you are not a “spiffy” tenured professor.

I pause. Wait, so if you don’t share your research with other people or potential dates or partners… does that mean you don’t turn to your partner with your work? Or share it with them?

It’s a real question for me. I’m not interested in pursuing a conversation with someone who prefers not to share what makes their brain-clock tick. And besides, I add, what does that mean about how you seek affirmation?

I rephrase: so, how do you derive affirmation?

You say you are internal and self-sufficient and that the dialectic around engagement with your work has less to do with an exact conceptual understanding and more to do with a linguistic fluency.

Good answer. But you’ve skirted the affirmation question.

And I give you shit about that… here you are, the one human who completely and totally self-affirms with complete imperturbable confidence?

Which reminds you of The Confidence Man by Melville which I haven’t read, but I tread water via Moby Dick. And we discuss Watchmen (you haven’t seen! We agree on an inability to process violent content) and Our Boys (I haven’t seen! You hint at a disillusionment with Israel). I ask you about your relationship to Judaism an hour and 15 minutes later because you have a very Jewish name, and you say you have a commitment at 8 PM but that it’s a great question. I say, ok, bye! And I keep driving.

I feel slightly dominant with all my questions, like I’m leading the conversation, but I’m interested. I can’t help myself. You seem so smart. And suddenly I’m aware of how often I give (less than intelligent) sexual prospects the benefit of the doubt because I’m desperate to learn something from someone every day? Or to find someone whose brain is as big as their heart? I know I don’t leave space when I’m curious. I just pursue knowledge… and I guess people? Maybe I’ll never hear from you again.

And then you call me back later that night… I repeat my question about Judaism, and you repeat that’s a good question, but have I seen Frances Ha? Do I remember the line about deli? And relationships?

I saw that movie with (ironically) an academic friend who went on to get her PhD at University of Chicago and loved the movie and insisted on pestering me afterwards on the subway: “You loved it, right? That’s like totally your life, right?” And in what I guess would be a total Frances Ha response, I scrunched up my face and shrugged. “I don’t know if I liked that movie. I found it kinda… predictable?” Gosh, I was annoying.

No, Boy 18, I didn’t remember the line about the deli. You repeat it to me.

“It’s just that if something funny happens on the way to the deli, you’ll only tell one person about it.”

We move on to other screen experiences: Ladybird (disagreed: meh, I say), Call Me By Your Name (wtf, you haven’t seen it?) and Hamilton (agreed: messy, doesn’t hold a candle to real hip hop/rap albums). I hang up when I get to my sister’s apartment.

Hmm.

I text you early the next morning. What is wrong with me? I never text first after. I thank you for the “company” on a long drive even if we never speak again. You send a smiley and say “How do I turn if to when.” Boy 18, you don’t know the depths of my neuroses yet. I know what you mean, or at least I think I do, but, for the record, doesn’t that syntax communicate “when we never speak again,” i.e. never speaking again…?

I decide to misinterpret hopefully rather than interpret negatively ’cause… ’cause something compels me. You ask if I have IG. You follow me. We start discussing T-Swift. Your siblings. Mine. A big conversation about do we love other people for selfish reasons or not? We disagree except on the fact that it could be thought of as an emergence problem. Also, running. We’ve moved to WhatsApp now because I’m abroad.

So, now what happens.

You say it appears I prefer text, but what if we hop on the phone or zoom again?

I say we should probably video.

What was the first date? Was there a first date? Was it the phone call? Will it be this Zoom? Chicken or the egg? Do I love you because it benefits me or do I love you because it benefits you? Not I and you. “I” and “you.”

So, we video. I’m in a room that looks yellow because it’s late, and I’m lit by a bedside lamp in France. You’re in your office. A slanted bookshelf behind you, a pale blue bike. You’re wearing a kerchief. Something in me finds you more attractive in motion.

Your siblings’ in-laws. Mine. Also how much we hate pretentious bull shit but you also mention that it can be good to be an asshole about things that are important. Meta-discussion about arguing in which you say something wonderful: you have to agree on the premise before you argue. Some truth from which you can derive other truth or describe reality. And the problem with many dicks who “like to argue” is that they actually just like to flex and be right. And when it seems like that’s slipping away, they dispute or change the premise. I’ve since learned that this is a big part of progressive (and maybe even classic?) theory around arguing.

You also have to be able to articulate the opposition’s viewpoint. But that I knew.

Two hours later, I say, I have to go–I have to work! Let’s do this again sometime. “Please,” you say. But also, “How are you?”

Uh.

I ask you to repeat the question.

“How are you.”

“Um, honestly, processing the strange adrenaline of meeting someone that isn’t a student or a work colleague in this way. Yeah.”

And you?

“I feel in transition.” Moment. “Oh no, I know that’s like a red flag in this sort of context. I just mean ’cause I’m moving!”

I’ve re-watched Frances Ha twice at this point. And am watching Our Boys. Lest we seem too agreeable, I’ve also called you out on the fact that you say you’re bad at affirmation… if that self-diagnosis is accurate, we’re in trouble. Even as friends. You raise a digital eyebrow at the idea that I’m an ENFP when your E/INTJ… I seem too smart to be an F. I reject the distinction.

But I love that you already know my name means “love” in Yiddish or “her heart” in Hebrew. As in the core or soul of things. And I know now that yours means “wolf.” My favorite animal. Beautiful, kind, brave.

We’re texting again, and finally I say I don’t understand what happens now. I’ve never seen you. Normally I would’ve touched your knee.

And you say you’re not going anywhere. You really like me. Obviously you’d like to meet in person, but this is also a way to keep getting to know each other.

And that even though you know I haven’t touched your knee, you like the idea that I have.

Speaking of disembodied genius.

And prophecy? Projection? Insanity…?

And here we are in a nesting doll of sidebars. Discussing the balance between judgment and compassion but also recalling pogs in the ’90s and what people need out of relationships. And when I felt trapped here, you responded right away: “You don’t need this. […] You are free.”

Boy 18: It’s hard to boil this down ’cause there’s too much damn content constantly being generated between us. And you did say you’ve always hoped someone would write about you. You had an ex who did stand up and you were miffed to have never appeared in her act.

I’ll write about you. Look, I already am.

I sent you a postcard yesterday. It’ll probably beat me to you. And I can’t help but process this (so far) as a grand emergence problem. Any kind of romance in this context. Perhaps I cultivate it? Throughout most of this blog, I’m absent for long stretches of time for work. What comes first? The meeting or the fall? Or do you have to fall a little to prime the meeting?

I have no idea, and I’m also not going anywhere. I’d like to find out.

Boy 17: My Bernie Valentine

Boy 17, you officially broke the streak. You did not text me after our date, but also I didn’t expect you to.

You rescheduled our date many many many times… to the point where finally I texted: “Hey, gauging interest here?” And you polled affirmative… so we met in a one hour window you had before work.

You are a graphic novelist. I think that’s objectively cool.

You shared some of your comics with me. I liked them.

You asked to read my play, and I shared it with you. You read the first page and sent me a flirty text about Philip Pullman.

We finally meet on a rainy afternoon in February. You text and ask if we can meet next to a copy shop because you need to print out your Bernie Valentines… as a Warren-lover, I am not deterred but perhaps slightly dismayed? (I am writing this now that Sanders and Biden are vying for the slot, and it still stings.)

I offer to meet you at the copy shop. I have drafts to print myself.

I go to the copy shop. I print my script. I text you.

You’re running late.

I wait an appropriate amount of time, and then I text you to tell you I’m going to be working at a nearby coffee shop. I buy a coffee and a cheddar scone. I sit down and start annotating a short film script. I tell you I’m wearing a purple turtleneck and a white beret. Sorry not sorry.

You burst in. Your hands full.

Boy 17, you are not 5’9”. If you are 5’9” then I’m a sugar cookie. That’s not true. I’m probably kind of a sugar cookie… If you are 5’9” then I’m a toucan. Seriously. It’s ok. My father is very short (see Boy 1 notes), and I have nothing against short men. I do, however, dislike liars? Why would you deceive me, Boy 17? Don’t you know that I have a metric against which I can immediately measure you AKA my own height?

You sit down, and you are shaking like a leaf. I consider myself a very anxious person, but somehow you make me feel calm and secure. Only by comparison.

You sit down and immediately spread out your Valentines. “Not me. Us.” They say. A pastel graphic of shirtless Bernie smiling. Ok…

You have to fold them, you say! But first you have to get a coffee.

I am tempted to remind you to breathe, but I’m not your girlfriend. I’m not even sure we’re on a date. I feel a little like a therapist.

You come back with a coffee and immediately almost spill it on all your Valentines. The cup shakes and liquid dribbles onto the saucer once it finally… “settles.” You start folding frantically, and I offer to help. We are both folding your Valentines now. And we technically only have about 30 minutes left on this strange adventure. You’re making creases quickly, and it appears you are either unwilling or unable to make eye contact.

I try to be calm. I remember those annoying voices on meditation apps friends have given me… ’cause usually I’m the crazy one. I compliment your artwork, and I ask about our one mutual friend, and suddenly your head darts up: “I’m sorry if I seem frazzled.”

I can’t help myself… and I have a feeling we’ll never see each other again unless you graphic novelize a piece I’ve written one day when we’re all famous. So, I say, “You don’t seem frazzled. But you do seem distracted and overwhelmed, and I just want to know how I can help.”

I seem to have upset you with my straightforwardness. You look at me. Finally but distraught. “Oh.”

“It’s ok. Let me help you get these done. Always been a Bernie fan? Also, how have you been recently?”

We proceed. He’s a little calmer now. He puts one Bernie Valentine in an envelope, writes an address on it, sticks on a stamp and then… wait for it… embellishes the corners of the envelope with red hearts. “I gotta get this one out today!” you say. I don’t acknowledge the remark or the drawings.

I don’t know how this happens to me, but I always end up talking to people about something they didn’t expect to talk about on a first date. In your case it’s the fact that your father died this past year. A completely unexpected diagnosis of a brain disease followed by his death within the year. I’m crushed for you. It is also, strangely, the malady of the protagonist of the play I sent you that you didn’t finish. I’m glad that you will probably never read it. And I do hope you are ok, and that whoever receives your sweet illustrated envelope will call you and care for you.

Then you down your coffee and say you gotta get to the subway to get to work. I could also take the subway, but I would rather not at this point, so I say I’ll walk you and we’ll figure it out.

We walk under your umbrella, and I will say, to your credit, you brought me a second crappy umbrella for me to keep because it started raining hard after we’d both left our homes. We talk about all about love by bell hooks and American Pastoral by Philip Roth.

You get to the subway, and you give me a Bernie Valentine in exchange for all my help. I’m pretty sure I told you I’d donated to Warren’s campaign, but honestly I don’t fault you for forgetting. All I remember is your anxiety.

I hope you’re doing all right in the age of corona.

Boy 17, you do not text me the next time. We have not contacted each other. But when enough time passes, I will reach out to you as a colleague in arts and angst.

Boy 16: Sunshine

I don’t know anymore. It just seems completely impossible to predict who’s lovely and who’s not. And, yes, I’d like to be able to predict it. I’d like instincts to be valuable. I’d like to have an emotional compass. A true North. Is that so much to ask?

ALSO.

The internet is awful. Our dysmorphias are significant. And, yes, yes, YES, the internet can quiet our deepest fears. We can find troves of like-minded beautiful spirits, but mostly it magnifies our fears, doesn’t it? I mostly come here to deposit feelings into a void, and then I wonder why my screams don’t echo. (More of my distress in my letter to no one). Turns out the cave is a well. This is all to say these digital portraits of ourselves are downright pathetic. At least back then someone else had to paint you–someone could puncture your certainly faulty self-image. I mean… I think I look like my picture? I think my answers to the questions present something honest?

Your pictures, on the other hand, are blurry and sweet? There’s one where you’re running lankily. It doesn’t feel curated, and I’m relieved. You’re a nurse anesthetist. Not to be confused with an aesthetician. One puts people to sleep and the other injects. That’s how you catch me–I have a medical joke on my profile, and you engage with it.

We start chattin’. You thrive on structure. Your ex-girlfriend is from my hometown. You love the arts. You’re early to rise for work, and I’m late to bed for work, but no one seems worried. I tell you that I wanted to take my dad to a museum on MLK day, but the lines wrapped around all the frosty corners. I’ll make it though, I say. You say you believe in me. We joke about achievable goals.

We both like cold winter walks, so we schedule one. We’ve settled on a mid-day date ’cause I had work in the evening. We both go silent until the morning of; you send me a New York Times article with pictures of the sun’s surface. Golden kernels that Twitter has already called boring. I don’t know if we live in interesting times–maybe we live in bored times? When people see pictures of the sun’s surface and a collective mob surfaces online and says “meh”? I read the article in bed. You’ve been up for hours. I tell you I like the use of the word “grist,” and you reply with a sentence you like: “93 million miles from the nearest star — the one we call the sun—the creatures of Earth eke out a living on the edge of almost incomprehensible violence.” Earnest. Earnest is the new hot?

I walk across a bridge, Boy 16, to meet you outside a bookstore you suggested. You’re a local here (remember, reader, I’m out of town). Like Boy 14. But unlike Boy 14 we haven’t texted much, and you love this town. It’s yours, and you’ve claimed it. I arrive slightly early and run to a nearby cafe to go to the bathroom.

Here’s the thing, Boy 16.

I leave all my makeup and hair curling bits and pieces at my place of work. I get to my job half an hour early and do all that stuff, so the rest of the time I’m just freckles and frizz. I had intended to bring my materials home with me the night before our date, but I forgot, so I showed up to our date… as I was. In a big green jacket. Chilly sunlight. Unforgiving.

This cafe is neat and filled with students. The bathroom has a beaded curtain. I glance in the mirror–I can’t help it. My neuroses need fuel. So that’s who I am today. There’s some dry skin peeling under my chin, exacerbated by scarves and my constant picking. Don’t touch it.

I get a text: you’re outside the bookstore.

I can barely remember your picture, but for some reason I’m sure there’ll be a disparity. What’s my evidence? Maybe it’s that you didn’t text much? Don’t know. But I’m feeling pessimistic. Probably it’s the fact that I’m worried you’ll think my face is splotchy if I’m being completely honest. Which I’m trying to be.

I walk out.

Boy 16, you don’t look anything like your unremarkable and blurry photos. You’re very handsome.

We smile at each other. We hug.

We walk into the bookstore and immediately start browsing and chatting. This book, that book. What’re you reading? You say you’re reading travel books ’cause you’re planning a vacation. I don’t know how we skipped “How are you?” but we did. I liked it, honestly. Also, I was involved in a project about the invention of anesthesia, so you don’t have to explain how that works to me. We can gab easily about ether and laughing gas.

I had thought we were winter-walking, but you walk me to a restaurant. We sit down, and the sun is in our eyes, so we move to a different table. You order, I order. I start to notice the shadow of a Minnesota accent. You are from Fargo. It’s slight, but I hear it. All those round sounds. It’s… adorable? You almost feel like a Jonathan Franzen character. Except you seem too nice? Too kind to be a male in that man’s world. Perhaps you are a foil to it?

You’re so particular in the way you ask questions. You say things like, “But, wait, I was going to ask you about ____.” You tell me about the movies you love: The Squid and the Whale and Jesus Christ Superstar. So random, so sweet. I lean in and ask… well, if you’re from the Midwest, do you line up with any of the stereotypes? You say your parents are, indeed, too nice. You’re curious about how I structure my days. I’m neurotic about writing. And haphazard about it. I ask if you write, and you say, no, but you’d love to be around a writer. You like cooking for people. We also end up discussing love languages…

A small miracle: your niceness doesn’t seem to preclude strong preferences.

You joke about patients with long allergy lists and compare them to long dating profiles. Fair enough.

You insist on picking up the check. It’s a funny moment. I say I’m happy to split, and you say, no, no, there’s no need “unless it’s a fem–,” and I cut you off. I think you were about to say, “unless it’s a feminist thing.”

You walk a block in my direction and then say, “Oh, I’m that way.” So, you go your way, and I go mine back across the bridge. We hug.

The next day you text that it was a fun lunch. You call me beautiful and great to talk with. Would I be interested in getting out again? Yes. I am. For a variety of reasons. Because you seem to be a man full of care. Because I find you quite beautiful, too. And, you text back right away that we ought to do something soon… I’m only here for a short time after all! Yeah, it’s confusing. You’re here, and I’m only here a brief while, but I’m done predicting.

I clearly have an inaccurate portrait of the present, and don’t get me started on the future.

I can’t even begin to explain to you how much time I spent on that date wondering if the light in the restaurant was too bright. What does my skin look like? I couldn’t curl my hair. I have a small pimple on under my eyebrow. Is this turquoise sweater deeply unflattering? I almost cancelled the date when I realized I’d have to just show up.

So, Boy 16, thank you. Here’s to dates in broad daylight. The surface of the sun.

Girl 0: Letters To No One

The internet might be the perfect place to write love letters to nobody in particular.

No one is required. No one is accountable. No one is present. A thousand trees quietly falling on each other. A thousand tweets in a silent pile. A thousand swipes and scrolls. Truly, what did people do before they could type into an abyss? I suppose they journaled, but we still do that. Maybe that’s why they put little letters into bottles, and all those little jokes and confessions and accusations just floated out into the ocean.

I remember “getting internet.” I’m just barely old enough to remember a world without cell phones. Hours spent looping around the airport wondering when we’d find someone. It is probably unoriginal to comment on the fact that we used to just meet each other at appointed times in appointed places, but I still find it… amazing? And lateness was always earned and significant until it wasn’t.

I did love my little Nokia phone, blue and slightly shiny. When I started driving, I would lose it constantly in the space between the seat and the door of my father’s station-wagon. I’d search for it thoroughly even though most of my calls still came to my home phone. I played SNAKE sometimes.

I don’t know how I feel about my phone now. It’s harder to love, of course.

It’s a rose gold iPhone. Relatively new, but not fancy. It’s not the latest model. It does recognize my fingerprint though, so that feels intimate. My lock screen and home screen currently match: it’s a black and white shot of Dorothy encouraging the Cowardly Lion. Judy Garland… before the patriarchy.

Speaking of: a love letter to no one in particular.

Dear,

Dear.

I’m sitting across from a friend of mine right now, and we’re both typing away. She just looked up and told me she writes too much about people’s eyes. I write too much about people’s hands.

I’m obsessed with hands. Eyes, too, but not on the page or the screen. I think maybe the first thing I think about when I think about you are your hands.

I think about hands holding forks and knives.

I think about hands and the tender little way they hug phones.

I think about hands in banal romantic ways.

I guess hands are for shaking with strangers and grasping with lovers? And clapping. Writing. That makes sense to me. The first point of contact is the final physical point of translation and transmission. You touched me right where I’m trained to type. The point is I’d like you to trace my hair behind my ear. That’s very important to me and a very good use of hands.

Enough about hands.

I’d like to worry about you when you’re on a plane.

I’d like to argue with you at 10:15 PM and then sullenly apologize after midnight.

I’d like to misunderstand you over and over again.

I’d like to drink a bottle of wine together and fall over laughing when I show you an insane text from my mother.

I’d like to forget things at your apartment.

Anyone who dates is an optimist.

Apparently you need 4 hugs a day to survive, 8 to maintain and 12 to thrive. I’m trying to decide whether or not sex counts. I’m genuinely not sure if it does. I think I get exactly one hug a day now, and it’s scripted. So, I’ll close there: I’d like to hug you. And I hope you have at least one hug a day, too. It doesn’t have to be from me or from a sexual partner.

See you soon,

Girl 0

P.S. I can’t text you any of this ’cause I don’t have your number yet.

Boy 15: The Comedian

Boy 15, you are a happy accident.

Oh, brave new world lol.

You started texting me before I went out of town for my gig–see Boy 13 for pre-gig shenanigans and Boy 14 for shenanigans en-media-gig… To clarify I have not been seeking shenanigans. Just focused on work. I deleted Hinge after Boy 13 ’cause I felt I wasn’t ready to inflict myself upon men any longer, and Boy 14 was a strange foray…

You’re a full time comedian and a bit older than me. I google your material, and I think your work is genuinely funny and lovely.

We start riffing… rapport is quickly built. I don’t even remember about what! I immediately called you out on the fact that your profile was dripping with irony. You appreciated it and proceeded to ask me what I was passionate about.

So, come to think of it, is your dating profile a Rorschach test?

Before I answered, I prefaced: well, this question tends to be a deeply depressing exercise ’cause most people aren’t passionate about what they do?

You agreed.

So we promptly got into our passions… oat milk mochas (yours), high EQ (mine), milk chocolate (mine), warm blankets (yours), comporting oneself at unpleasant parties (mine)… etc.

I dropped my number pretty quickly because some part of me knew I was about to delete the app. You texted me right away… we riffed further on holiday songs and coffee shops and parents. It was nice.

The day before I left, you wrote:

“You’re too fun to text. Maybe we shouldn’t meet?”

And I replied:

“Careful what you wish for. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

And then I warned you that the last time I had a long digital overture to a first date it was… awful. See Boy 9, literally dubbed Troll. This post doesn’t adequately convey what a troll Boy 9 was, but please note the asterisk… Boy 9 explicitly lied to me about a dealbreaker, and let’s just say our physical interactions were terrifyingly bad. But Boy 15, you were nonplussed: “I look forward to texting you for a ridiculously long time before being disappointed.”

It’s a deal.

We didn’t text much at first. Every few days or so. We were both seeing a variety of movies over the holiday season, so we exchanged opinions.

I’m not into film criticism, but I do tend to have strong opinions about movies, so… it was lovely to disagree. You were sure that no one could have anything but positive reviews for Knives Out. Well… Knives Out is a perfectly ordinary murder mystery that’s decently executed. I slept through all the little introductory testimonials, woke up for the pivotal scene (don’t worry–no spoilers) and then skipped along with the rest. It’s out of genre for me. I don’t like premises that thrive on misdirection. We talked about why I think Call Me By Your Name is actually divine (it’s at the center of a feeling) while Ladybird is middling (it’s commenting on a feeling).

You asked me so many questions… which I find refreshing in all men, I explained to you. ‘Cause most first dates I just end up interviewing an average dude about his average life for 60 minutes. You sometimes evaded reciprocal questions, and I mentioned that I’m noticing that. You said I’ve pinpointed your first date strengths and weaknesses already.

Some questions just unharnessed stereotypes…

Do you like vinyl? Infinite Jest? Moleskine notebooks?

Do I play the ukulele? Do I like Jane Austen? Little Women?

Neither of us seem to fall into any strict types though I am learning to play ukulele, and you did buy a record player. We end up talking more about what makes good art and comedy and gigs and chocolate. You tell me you’ve googled me and that, unfortunately, you don’t think you’d hate my physical appearance.

On New Year’s Eve, you texted saying someone should kiss me. It was cute.

At a certain point I think both of us just decided that this was “just right.”

We’re both busy and out of town and clearly somewhat single for the season, and it’s nice to have a mirage to interact with, I guess, especially if it can communicate decently and has a sense of humor? Texting is just writing dialogue after all. Which we both do…

The day I’ll be back in town approaches, and you remember it. I’m amazed that you remember something I said… I guess that’s all you need to know about my current expectations.

We decide to meet. I caution you though… this quantum state is so fabulous. Why ruin a good thing? We joke along, but we also proceed to predict psychological profiles of each other with love languages and Meyers-Briggs and every possible personality test under the sun. So we’re basically kind of taking that New York Times 36 Questions To Fall In Love Quiz without explicitly taking it?

You suggest places in my neighborhood, and we pick one. We both cool off on the texting in the 36 hours or so before our actual meeting. It’s like we both know something is about to detonate, but we’re not sure what.

Let’s all calm down and make sure we push the right button.

This is quite a lengthy preamble to the actual date, but I think it’s relevant and reflects the… lengthy preamble to the actual date. The longest yet in fact.

I catch up with a friend near our chosen location. She’s proud of me for trying again. I’m not sure what I am.

I walk in. You’re nowhere to be seen. I text you: “I’m here? I think?”

I hear a voice behind me: “Well, I guess it’s ruined.”

Ah, a man referencing a destroyed quantum state of attraction? Must be for me.

I can barely see you ’cause it’s a bit crowded, but instinct kicks in: “Of course it is,” I respond. And then then someone walks up. Do we want to eat or just drink? You had mentioned dinner when you suggested the place, and you say you’d eat.

We walk to the table. We both sit down. They offer to take our jackets. You give them yours, and I hang mine on my chair. Not sure why.

I haven’t been able to get a proper look at you, still.

First thing out of your mouth: “Well, I think you’re totally hot and beautiful.”

“Oh. Ah? Ah.”

I start laughing.

I can feel the subtext of this proclamation: hey, meeting you in-person hasn’t ruined this for me, and I want to make that as clear as possible (especially after I made that joke).

I find words: “Uh, no one has ever said that to me on a first date? Let alone within the first two minutes?”

“I went on a date with a woman who said I was very laid-back, so I thought I would tell you.”

“Oh, ok! I find you attractive, too.”

And… I do. I do, in fact, find you attractive. And I like your voice. A lot. I don’t have one type–I just know it when I see it and when I hear it and when I feel it. We somehow end up talking at length about one of my sisters. You start discussing your novel a bit. We talk about airlines and the DSM-5.

I drink my orange wine, and you give me a piece of your flatbread to try… you say maybe I won’t taste the anchovies. I taste them, and they’re foul. “Well,” I say as I chew and grimace. You laugh. “I promise I don’t taste like that,” you say. Oh, really?

And then you comment that I’m “secure.” I almost fall over. Me? Secure? “Yes,” you insist, “you know what you’re feeling when you feel it, and you articulate it. Whatever it is.” I’m still in shock. You affirm: “I think you are a very secure communicator.” It’s charming.

You pick up the check even though I insist we can split it–you say I can pay next time. You get your jacket. I get mine.

I say I’m not far, and you say “Oh, wow, I got you within walking distance.”

“Um, it sounds like you’re going to kill me.”

You walk me. You touch my arm at one point in what is a very intentional gesture as we discuss Judaism and pets.

It’s been three hours at this point. And then when I say, “Well, this is me,” you take a step towards me. It’s such a solid step. It’s so clear. You know I’m only here for a short time, but that doesn’t seem to deter you.

Boy 15, you are the only boy I’ve ever kissed on a first date like that. Or rather… the only boy who kissed me like that. Or maybe we kissed each other? You definitely started it. It was cold, and you were brave. And you enfolded me.

I’m so close to you I can just hear you say: “You’re nice to kiss.”

I’m not gonna lie, reader. I think another hour passed out on that street easily, but I can’t be sure.

Finally, I say “Listen, I gotta go upstairs. I have a train in four hours.”

“Are you gonna text me?”

“What!? You’re the one who’s supposed to text me!”

“Why’s that?”

“The patriarchy!”

“Oh, well… you don’t seem like someone who obeys the patriarchy.”

“Oh god. I don’t know. I’m trying.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to text each other at the same time then.”

“I have to go! If I don’t go, I’ll never go!”

“Ok. I’m gonna stand here, then, and watch you go.”

“Ok.”

I run around the corner to my door. I’m barely able to sort out the keys.

Boy 15, I assume nothing.

Hear my affirmation, Boy 15. I’m explicitly designating you secondary to my healing process. I am seeking man-less peace. I am cultivating safety in solitude.

Thank goodness for constraints and methods of transportation. I slept for three hours and woke up an hour early, certain that I had miscalculated the time needed to get to the station and that I would miss my train and be fired. I ate one of those small Trader Joe’s milk chocolate bars. I sat there staring at the little approaching dot of the car I ordered for a good five minutes before realizing that if I left for the station now, I’d arrive two hours early. I cancelled the car and slept for one more hour.

I made it. I curled up across two empty seats, waiting for the ticket-taker, and suddenly felt furious with myself: what if I get sick? Why do I run myself ragged? Is it worth it? What’s worth it? But then, the fury faded, and I felt sleepy. And lucky. I drew the little accordion curtain across my Amtrak window and dozed off.

I’m very struck by you, Boy 15, but I will assume nothing.

Thank you.

UPDATE: The next day you text me around 3 PM. Just my name. I respond with yours. You say you had been trying to text at the same time, but ah well, I should know that you find me even more alluring in-person than in-quantum-state which is impressive.

All I can say is thank goodness I’m out of town… but you’re already asking about when I’m back, among other questions.

Boy 14: The not-so-townie townie

Boy 14, I decided to try and adjust my location to my out-of-town gig and sample the local fare… so to speak.

You’re a (personal) chef. That seems cool. Though I am a picky eater, so… this might be awkward?

You text me all sorts of questions about my ancestry. Fun.

You also tell me that you wish you were back in New York, and you like that I’m not based here. Well… Moscow, Moscow, Moscow.

When you ask me what my favorite chocolate is, I say milk. You ask which chocolatiers. I’m a basic bitch I guess ’cause I say Lindt or Nutella? And you inform me that Lindt actually uses child labor. Abuse in West Africa. Damn it. I was very excited about going to the Lindt shop here. I probably still will and decide that my status as a pescaterian balances it out?

It doesn’t.

The next morning you send me a picture of your Antidote chocolate bar.

You might be too hip for me.

A few days later you text saying you have the night off and would I like to meet? I say sure! Though I don’t know much about this city, so would he like to wander around a Barnes & Nobles with me?

You text back: “We can do better than that.”

I mean, I don’t know. I think wandering around a Barnes & Nobles is kind of romantic? If someone offered that to me as a date… maybe wander around a Barnes & Noble for an hour before it closes and then walk to one of our places and drink a little wine and eat random crackers and chocolate (Lindt!?!?!?!) and then kiss? I guess that’s a second date. Not a first date. But you catch my drift.

You choose a bar that’s kind of loud. I beat you there, and when you arrive, we walk to a Food Hall instead because I’d recently lost my voice due to dryness and laziness (couldn’t be bothered to fill my humidifier).

You get a beer. I get a barely alcoholic kombucha.

You’re very sweet and smiley. Relaxed and calm. Which makes me feel neurotic and chatty. We sort of re-hash my ancestry and yours. You were a History major so you’re into it. You don’t particularly want to discuss your job it seems.

I’m surprised when you walk me a mile home.

I ask you why you moved here, and then it starts to come out.

Ahhhh… you fell in love with a woman who wanted to leave the city. Then the week you took this job and decided to leave the city with her, she ended it. So now you’re here. You’re going on vacation, and then you’re going to see your friends back in New York.

Slippery streets. Black snow. Ok. Ok. You’re going through it.

We get to my door, and you smile sleepily and give me a peck.

I’ve never had a guy give me a peck. It’s been the whole shebang or nothing at all. You also moved your hand towards my neck, and it was strange. It looked like a claw? I guess you could tell I thought that because you started giggling and ACTUALLY SAID: “My hand looks like a claw.“

It does, indeed!

You peck again.

“I’ll text you when I’m back?”

“Sure, sure,” I say.

I doubt you’ll text me. Tomorrow or when you’re back.

Thank you, Boy 14, for being your smiley self. For helping me get out and about in this city. For helping me realize I’m clearly morally compromised when it comes to questions of chocolate.

UPDATE: You did not text me the next morning. In fact, a significant amount of time has now passed since you would have returned from vacation, and you have not texted.

You are the first boy to not text me at all after our first date.

I appreciate you.

Boy 13: The Sacrificial Lamb

Boy 13, I’m sorry. Let me explain.

Let me tell you about Boy 10.

I ended up dating Boy 10 for a while, and then he broke me into… I don’t even know. What’s the right analogy? Do I even need one? Who doesn’t know what a broken heart feels like? Like a senselessly smashed cup and there are little pieces all over the floor for months to come that burrow into the soles of your feet. A phantom limb. A dead plant on your windowsill. Heartbreak and dating and love and sex are so banal, so ubiquitous they’re the low-hanging fruit that every dramatist and comedian can turn to when the audience turns on them.

The point is you pursued me. You wooed me. You convinced me. I left for an out-of-town gig the day after we slept together on our second date, and I said “Yeah. I don’t know what I’m looking for.” That didn’t seem to throw you.

You called me every night, Boy 10. Every night.

I wasn’t sure about anything, but you were. You aimed.

Out of the frying pan (dating) and into the fire (love). And it was so beautiful! I won’t temper it with any caveats. No “or so I thought.” It was. So many bits of it were, indeed, beautiful. You sang me songs, and I met your mother. I learned that 5’11” is the perfect height for me to fit in the crook of a man’s arm when we walk and to meet him head on in heels. I would wake up in the mornings wanting to touch you again. Both euphemistically and literally. We flew to Florida and boiled seashells we found. You bought me a Lucy Sparrow felt strawberry. I learned to bike around Manhattan because of your orange bike and grey helmet. We watched Chernobyl too late at night, and I couldn’t sleep when those men with flashlights had to go into the water under the nuclear plant and turn it off. So, you and I walked to Duane Reade to get some air and then I turned on an episode of Seinfeld.

We would probably disagree, but I think that was the beginning of the end.

It was the one called “The Red Dot.” The one with cashmere sweater that has a red dot and Elaine’s boyfriend falls off the wagon and George sleeps with a cleaning lady. I haven’t seen every episode nor am I a fanatic, but Seinfeld is a brilliant show of brilliant bones we all pick. You sit up straight on the couch. Your mouth frozen and square. It’s clear you don’t like Seinfeld. You prefer Curb Your Enthusiasm, you say. I nod and apologize… I haven’t seen it.

Of course at the time I wasn’t conscious of anything ending–just of the stiffness in your body as I tried to relax. Tried to forget the radioactive water everyone in Belarus ignored. How’s that for an analogy? Overblown.

I started a gig in the city–you quietly counted down the days to when it would be over (which you admitted to me in the end when you bought movie tickets for the night we closed). You liked me better between jobs. Or out of them.

And then, finally, the question of God. Chanukah and Christmas approached, and the arguments bubbled up… we come from different backgrounds, let’s leave it there. Instead of discussing the huge disparities in our artistic lifestyles and perspectives wherein you subtly eschewed submission and sharing–after all, why contest calculated and preserved self-congratulation with messy audience-facing failure?–we fixated on religious icons. It’s easier to discuss gods and idols than deadlines and dishes.

I squirmed and provoked and doubted, but in the end, I chose you. Of course I did… at the end of the day, I’m an atheist. It’s impossible for me to choose God over humanity.

But that night when we purportedly made up and saw Princess Mononoke in theaters, compliments stopped being reciprocal. Do I pay you compliments to hear one in return? No. But I don’t want to be swatted away like a fly either.

Then at your place, we watched Jodorowsky’s Dune. At your suggestion.

Good god.

We watched so many movies together.

I don’t watch movies.

I fell asleep–it’s a documentary about a narcissistic filmmaker who never gets to make his idiotic movie. First of all, as an artist, the last thing I want to do is worship at the feet of yet another white man with an expensive vision of his own grand bull shit. I’m a heterosexual woman who was papa’s girl. I have to sift through plenty of that already. Second of all, you’re being weird. This is weird. A documentary about a movie that was never even made? Why are we watching this? Is this another exercise in your insistence that you could have been a film PhD?

I can barely keep my eyes open.

The next morning, I finally say… seems like you want space? You stop talking to me for ten days while I write you sad and strange letters. After Thanksgiving, you meet me and say you don’t miss me and you never want to see me again.

I had already packed up all the things you’d left at my apartment. Some self-protective part of me insisted that I be ready.

“You’ll regret this,” I say. “Maybe,” you say, “I don’t have a plan.”

The paper bags started to slip and break… heavy with your boxers and your tupperware and your bedside books. I’ve already cried on the floor–it wasn’t very glamorous. We’re both by the door, and I offer you a canvas bag. You look at me with your hands full, wondering.

“Um.”

And then what must be the same little bit of me that made me pack your shit up goes: “Just get out.”

And that was the last time I saw you.

Now in therapy I get to discuss semantics. “I chose to love him!” I say. And my therapist nods and says, “That’s different than loving someone.”

But now I reread and realize you also didn’t ask me any questions on our first date. Perhaps you campaigned for me to love you, but I’m not sure that you campaigned to love me.

So.

Boy 13, I’m sorry.

I wasn’t ready to go on a date with you two weeks after this happened. Not even remotely. I postponed three times… I explained that I was moving and also going out of town again. You didn’t seem worried. When I try to cancel an hour before our final attempt, you do what is generally deemed undoable before a first online date. You call me…

“Hey, I figured I’d put a voice to all this. I can come to your neighborhood if you like.” I’m impressed, and for a moment, we’re just two humans who want to have a conversation on a cold night. So, I agree.

I even say: “Since you’re coming all the way here, your drink is on me.”

You’re quick to respond: “Just one?”

“Yes, we have to start somewhere.”

I’m somehow late even though it only takes three minutes for me to get there because you have, in fact, schlepped to my neighborhood to accommodate my reservations.

Boy 13, you don’t look like your photo.

The bar is too loud and crowded, so we move to a quieter place nearby with twinkly lights and tables that look like tree trunks. I buy the drinks and close the tab—I already suspect there will be no second date, but I don’t say that. 

When I return with our hard seltzers, you have moved us to another spot—“a better spot,” you say. I imagine you picking up my jacket and my hat and making this decision without me. I’m not sure how I feel about it. 

You’re a film editor. You recommend that I watch Watchmen.

The White Claw cans sweat in our hands, and I ask you the usual questions, adhering to my algorithm. You look up at me and say, “You’re good at this.” 

I’m not sure how to respond besides to quip that “Dating is learning people… or so I’ve learned!” 

Then you pick up my can and jiggle it: “You’ve barely had anything.”

“I don’t drink much actually. It’s easier to sip than to explain.”

“Oh. I was going to get another drink.”

Oy.

Second drinks are immediate and irreversible arbiters of time and chemistry. When my date fetches one or pours one, the calculations of etiquette and extraction begin. I’m trapped until the alcohol in the hourglass runs out. Second drinks are misery unless they’re paradise.

And to top it all off, I’m reminded of a happy second glass of wine I had playing boardgames in Brooklyn with… well, you know. And I don’t want to be reminded of that right now.

By the time you return with your second drink, Boy 13, I can feel the distance that’s grown between us, the wood warping as the table seemingly stretches. It’ll be harder for me to hear you now. You squint and gesture: “So, you don’t drink?”

“Yeah, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t believe in God, I don’t meditate, I don’t do any of that stuff.”

“Well then what do you do to get outside of yourself?”

Suddenly, I’m amazed by you. You, who I’m sure I’ll never see again.

I stop.

I don’t laugh and deflect.

I think.

I decide to answer as honestly as I possibly can.

“I fall in love, I guess. I partner. I date. Oof,” I look down. “And when I can’t… I sit with myself. Inside myself. I sit with whatever I am until I’m something else. Someone else. Or with someone else.”

I wonder for a moment if I’m going to cry in this dumb bar. I don’t. 

Maybe it’s obvious. Maybe it’s tattooed across my eyelids, and every time I look down you can read it. You can see the names of everyone I’ve loved. You can see the red shirt someone left in my laundry that I didn’t have the heart to throw out.

You drink and ask, “Well, what are you looking for?”

“Like online?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I mean. I have two answers to that, I guess? I’ve learned not to look for anything at all.”

“Yeah.”

“But I’m also looking for someone I trust and want to touch every day for the rest of my life. I still, you know, believe in all that.”

“Yeah.”

You walk me home, and there’s a strange sideways hug. Your elbow is somehow by my ear, and I can feel that your heart is right here, and mine is packed up in an unlabelled box upstairs. Getting ready to move and hoping nothing breaks in the process.

I should have cancelled the date.

Boy 13, thank you. And I’m sorry.

UPDATE: You text me the next day, following up on a joke I told about how Hinge should let you swipe after the date on whether or not you felt chemistry. You say that you did. I say, thank you.

I think I was an honest date, but that’s about it.

Girl 0: Roll Call

It’s a lot.

Dating is–or rather can be–exhausting.

I guess part of what’s happening here is my approach. Because that’s just it… it’s just an approach. I am approaching these humans. Strangers. People approaching people. Sometimes poaching, sometimes encroaching, but mostly approaching.

I present the following statistics not to inflate or deflate my self-worth but simply because I find them interesting.

Big thing I’ve learned… Date 1 is pass/fail. Date 2 is graded.

Second dates are naturally less journalistic… the further you travel down the path from strange to significant, the less objective you become, so I want to acknowledge that. That’s why you haven’t seen me write up second dates… who knows though. That might change.

So.

12 boys. April 2019.

(Lest you don’t believe me, the first date with Boy 1 was April 6, and the last date of this sequence, a second date with Boy 10, was April 27th)

12/12 texted me after.

12/12 did not kiss me on the first date.

1/12 invited me to his place on the first date.

4/12 AM dates.

8/12 PM dates.

6/12 Second Dates (Boy 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10).

2/12 Second Dates where I knew I didn’t want a third.

1/12 Third Dates* (Boy 2).

*This is a complicated statistic because several of the third date options I would have pursued were subject to travel restrictions.

P.S. Just so you know, it’s not just boys. I’m also editing and visiting new cities and having Skype therapy and eating butter cake in St. Louis and buying cheap pants at midnight at Meijer in Indiana and loving Amy Winehouse’s cover of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

Boy 12: Shidduch

So what is shidduch, you ask?

It is an arranged Jewish marriage.

Obviously this was not a shidduch date, but there was something shtetl-y about it. You have a very Jewish name, and so do I. We have had to reschedule many times due to our various commitments and Passover plans.

You are a novelist. So you are googleable.

I read your writing, and it is excellent. Excellent to the point of intimidation. I am suddenly wondering about my intellectual credentials… can I hack it? We text, but I think because we both use words in our art, we write cautiously, maybe even suspiciously and with wide open spaces. But the chemistry, albeit digital, is pretty immediate.

We both hate raisins in anything–fuck oatmeal raisin cookies, really fuck them–and we both have sordid histories with the chosen people. You are fascinated by my name (which I can’t disclose here) which let’s just say, if you speak Yiddish, is a deeply classical and tribal name amongst Yids. We talk a little about our process and promotion, and I use my usual quip…

“Well, I start with a neurotic lazzo, and then I settle: if I could explain my play to you in two sentences, why should you stay for ninety minutes?”

You say then that you have never heard anyone use the word “lazzo” before.

Match point.

You ask me to dinner.

I can’t make it, obviously, ’cause I’m busy that night.

So, weeks later, punctuated by occasional check-ins, we meet. We’ve bantered about what makes a pastry a pastry, my somewhat famous colleagues on the road while I travel for work, parents who hoard and steal food and flatware, and whether or not the Holocaust can or should dominate Jewish art.

We walk in almost at the exact same time to a s’mores bar that you chose. You order dinner, so I do, too. You get a drink, and so do I. We also got dessert.

We talk about many things…

Your book (which you fully explain, and I love it). Your family. The fact that you have set a Jewish filter on Hinge (which I poke at as being somewhat racist, and you admit to having seen non-Jews). My career (which you have googled and ask me outright that I do seem “successful” but am I really? And I respond outright that this a preposterous question that you would only feel comfortable asking an artist but that yes, I am happy, and that you are in trouble for asking). Your siblings. My siblings. My dealbreaker (see Boy 9). Destiny. Randomness. Falling out with God. Long random story about my brother-in-law and your friend Anna at work whom you flustered. Bilingualism. My food phobias (which are intense and intricate). Your insistence that writing is, indeed, ephemeral when I explain that I prefer it to the other art I make that is less so. My counterpoint that you only think so because you haven’t experienced interpretive arts.

You’re softer than you are via text. You know how to live in the romantic spaces between words when you’re writing, but in the flesh, you’re clearer. Still playing the game but with skin.

I make you laugh several times. You’re very beautiful when you laugh.

You also told me a family secret. That was fun.

We almost get into my relationship history which I swat away–I say, nope, I don’t want to talk about that right now. You like that I do that.

I wonder, Boy 12, are you like me? Do I come off like you? You’re a little slippery in your loveliness. I feel like creators are constantly flipping a coin of narcissism and self-loathing… I like you, but I suspect you… and I’m not sure of what exactly. And I wonder if you’re feeling the same strange thing?

Towards the very end when I go to get the check, you say, “I think I’ve met you before.”

I say I doubt it. And you clarify, no, no, not like properly. Just briefly, somehow.

Hmm.

I’m leaving for a work trip for ten days, and it’s drizzling outside. You’re going right, and I’m going left, I say. You button your coat, and you open your umbrella, and you confirm that I’m gone till May? And then say let’s do this again?

It takes all of my energy to do what I do next.

I shrug, and I say, “Sure.”

I turn around and start walking.

That was hard, guys. Pretending to be cool… very hard.

So, thank you:

  1. For not texting too much.
  2. For actually following through on a date weeks later.
  3. For sharing your art with me.
  4. For some Jewish commiseration.
  5. For just doing you. Even when that you is a little arrogant. Or maybe I’m just craving your fears right now.

Boy 12, there’s something fated here? I know that sounds weird to say, but it’s genuinely how I felt. And I also felt like I might never see you again. It’s hard to know the difference. Desire and dismissal are tricky twins sometimes.

UPDATE: You text me the next day. You had a lot of fun you say. We have texted in the meanwhile, and the fields are vast and open. Let’s see what happens when I get back. This romantic flower, if it blooms, is an orchid. Minimal, persistent, sexy. Tall and thoughtful. Maybe a little full of itself. Orchids seem to know that they’re orchids.

Boy 11: Force Meet Cute

It kept getting rescheduled.

It’s always ephemeral and sometimes uncomfortable, and I don’t always know why. I can’t pinpoint why some delays in logistics are sexy and others are simply sitting on the tarmac in frustration wondering why you decided to fly anywhere in the first place… ’cause wherever you go, there you are.

We chat. You are a filmmaker. You are also a teacher. You look slightly out of type for me, but I am open-minded. You encourage me to watch some David Lynch. I am reluctant… I don’t do spooky well.

But you were persistent, Boy 11.

At one point, I had to reschedule for a Shakespeare-work-related conflict, and you insisted that it would be a lovely “meet-cute” if you accompanied me. I considered this briefly and then felt slightly affronted by your (clearly well-meaning but not considered and accidentally diminishing) invitation into my professional life. I declined. We then rescheduled twice more.

It is sort of coming to light that you are sort of an artist. Not via my judgment but via yours. You claim that you are in generative phases and acknowledge that you have yet to hit upon a breakthrough in your work. I admire and appreciate your honesty.

Our date finally happens after rescheduling thrice. We settle on a cafe in New York that has multiple locations.

We accidentally go to different locations of the same cafe.

What a meet-cute you reiterate this is as you head over to my location.

We talk. You smile a lot. I enjoy the conversation though I feel a little like you are planting seeds, and I am making leaf rubbings.

You walk me to the subway and say you’d like to see me again if I’m not too busy.

I feel kind of awful? I had a feeling before this date that we were not going to hit it off but that you wanted us to. I don’t know why exactly; you must have projected something upon me that was deeply desirable to you because we can’t pretend you knew anything real about me. Was it my responsibility to cancel the date because I wasn’t feeling it? On the contrary, I felt like it was my responsibility to follow through on the date so that my instinct could be physically manifested and justified? What if you’d bowled me over? That has happened. See Boy 4 and Boy 10.

But it didn’t.

It felt like a meet-finagled-and-forced. Though you’re plenty cute and sweet.

So, I want to thank you:

  1. I’ll watch some David Lynch. You’re not the first to recommend it, and maybe I need some guts.
  2. You’re straightforward. You wanted to meet, and you pursued the meeting. You wanted to meet again, and you said so. I was not as bold and am not as bold, and I admire that.
  3. You’re clearly a romantic… that’s lovely. Don’t let me hinder your heart.

Boy 11, I might want to collaborate with you someday.

UPDATE: I text you a passage on writing that I promised I would during the date. You write back saying it’s “spot on.”