Adventures of the NYC Office: El Viejo

El Compositor has quickly become a somewhat complex situation, partly because I am taking him seriously. In fact, so seriously that I got flustered between Date 1 and Date 2 and set up three more dates with total strangers to try and balance him out.

For some reason, there are twice as many men as women registered on the personals site I'm using. Maybe women are more leery about meeting strangers (and quite reasonably so). Maybe fewer women, on the whole, don't see the computer as a social access point or as a recreation tool. Regardless of the reason, it's a pretty lively site for a young woman.

Who should pop up this morning saying hi to me but a brand new live one, another musician, his face fashionably blurred in his promo album, his age so advanced that I dare not reveal it. With my usual compassion, I will here call him "El Viejo."

Now I know something about no-longer-young single male musicians on the prowl, (I am not thinking of any in particular here, Mom, just the general scene), and no way I could ever fall for any of the lines he might try to pull. So weird! Why does he want to meet such a young girl as Melina! There can't be a good reason, can there? But hey, I had some afternoon free time, and I'm trying not to be so judgmental in my life. So I met El Viejo.

And it was fun. He was comfortable with himself, he was cute, he knew how to ask me questions about myself, he was not very mature, but hey, that's how you get to be a single guy of XXXCENSOREDXXXX years of age. He had a little earring. I asked him where to find cheap furniture in the city, and mocked him for being old, and asked him for relationship advice, and he took it well. He's touring in Europe for the next two weeks - when he gets back, maybe he can point me to some good concerts in town... maybe some I can take my next dates to go see. A mutually-agreeable kiss on the cheek for Viejo. Thanks for the nice chat. Bye, Viejo. Play on, player.

--M.