Moose in the Kitchen

I was a late bloomer in every way it’s possible to bloom late. I didn’t discover Ani DiFranco until I was in college. I didn’t go out on my first date until I was 22. I didn’t discover hair products until two weeks ago. I’m still waiting for cleavage.

As you may intuit from that frightfully humiliating number, the one that hits the third decade of life before getting anything even resembling nookie, I am either: 1. covered in fur, 2. socially retarded, or 3. cautious about who I date.

I am cautious about who I date. Social retardation shouldn’t be discounted, but mainly because I prefer to hide behind a computer screen (hi!), and so had to wait for the advent of dating web sites where I could “email” instead of “actually talk to” my potential dates. Insightful souls who totally have my number know “cautious dating” translates to “total chicken shit”. Everyone else just thinks I need to stop with the quotation marks already.

Despite my predilection for Craig’s List, I don’t have many entrants into the Moose Hall of Dating Shame. One notable exception is the French man whose wardrobe has been burned into my frontal lobe, consuming space that could be better spent memorizing the nutritional information on a package of dog biscuits.

Two years ago, my Thanksgiving was considerably less idyllic than this year’s festival of fowl poetry, mountain strolls, and homemade pumpkin pie. That year I got dumped a week after, a direct result of that vile breakup machine people call “eating turkey”. My first date after the breakup was a mistake. A mistake I was too dumbfounded to correct, possibly because I was still in the Zombie Phase. The Zombie Phase of a breakup precedes the Breaking Things Phase and the Crying A Lot Phase and then the Sleeping With Other People for the Good of the Republic Phase. My phases had clearly been deemed unnecessary and hurried along.

I was sitting in a Union Square cafe a week before Christmas interviewing a woman for a story I was writing. She was friendly and prone to probing questions. I always crumble like so many stale chocolate chip cookies under probing questions, and so confessed to the recent dumpage. She began scanning the cafe, assessing patrons who were poking at their cappuccinos and loudly berating colleagues on the phone. When she said, “We’ll find someone else for you,” I thought she was kidding.

This would prove mistake number one.

She soon spied a good-looking black man sitting on the other side of the window. Tapping the glass, she motioned him inside. I didn’t grab my coat and run for the door – mistake number two. I sat motionless, convinced that if I pretended not to see him, he wouldn’t be able to see me – mistake number three. At first, he appeared more interested in my companion, but her enthusiastic hand-waving and glimmering wedding band convinced him to give his number to me instead.

Never expecting him to call, I picked up the phone the next day, even though I didn’t recognize the number. The mistakes are getting too numerous to count.

We ate Thai food and he gave a convincing performance of being perfectly normal. Until I noticed that the sleeve of his black turtleneck (which matched his black jeans) hid a diamond bracelet. Let me repeat that. A diamond bracelet. On a man. I’ve seen society matrons at black-tie events wearing less glitter than this guy. I scrambled to justify sitting in a restaurant on Fillmore Street in the middle of the day with a man wearing a diamond tennis bracelet. Maybe he thought it was rubber. Maybe he got drunk and his buddies super glued it onto his arm as a joke. Maybe he’s insane.

Horrified, I began to wonder if his turtleneck hid more incriminating jewelry. Chains? An emerald solitaire? A gold wagon wheel? At this point, my brain stopped processing details. Until we left the restaurant and went to his car so he could stash his black leather jacket. In a matching black Mercedes. Purchased for him by his parents. I would have given him the all-black wardrobe. I would have given him the Mercedes his parents’ bought him – even though he was 33 years old. Call me shallow, call me a shameless bracelet snob, call me anything you like – the diamonds tipped me over the edge. I’ll date a man who’s not over his ex. I’ll date a man who wears the same pair of pants for five months straight. But a man who wears a diamond bracelet? I just can’t do it.

~

For reference, here is an example of The Bracelet. Now, think BIGGER.

In the interest of being fair to someone who was actually both nice and rather interesting, he gained a few major points when he told me about his five older sisters. They had come from Paris to spend Christmas with him and, the day before our date, accidentally set his kitchen on fire. He seemed completely unruffled by this. Maybe I should have overlooked the diamonds, because a man who is unperturbed by a scorched kitchen? Is a man I could marry.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to My World
2. Zen and the Art of Internet Dating
3. It Was a Beautiful Moment