Two More Dates

I am a little weary from dating. The timing's all off. The nights you're in the mood for a gentle one, you've scheduled a troublesome one, and vice versa. In this way, e-dating presents more difficulties than ordering takeout.

Last week brought me El Amigo, an earnest young guy who turned out to be a college roommate of one of my high school friends. He made perfectly good conversation, listened well, etc, but in person I just didn't think he was so cute. Not that the picture was wrong - but pictures are never completely accurate. THey dont' describe how somebody moves, what kind of energy they put out. El Amigo, though well-versed in history, didn't do it.

Last week also arrived El Gallo. He didn't seem so good online, which just goes to show you that you don't know anything when you try to judge people (a theme of Melina's experiences this month). El Gallo's website handle was not so clever and involved the word "rooster." Har har, buddy. But in person, he was excellent. He had a highly developed sense of chaotic play. He could dish it out and also could take it. He was very quick and he knew a lot about art. We laughed and laughed. We spent five hours talking (dating is time consuming!)

I made this complaint to my father, who responded, "Yeah, it's so time consuming, only single people have the time for it."

Yet, curiously enough, as soon as I walked into the subway I had the immediate and overwhelming intuition I would never see El Gallo again. This was a terrifying and strange feeling to have had - people should not just appear and disappear in one's life. It's just wrong. (Melina is a little extreme this way. She tends to get upset if she doesn't get regular gossip about people she crushed on when she was 13).

I puzzled over this intuition (which turned out to be true) for quite some time with a girl friend, who eventually told me some wise words.

melina: does that mean that I'm not attractive and he was only pretending to laugh at my jokes??
wise girl friend: no
wise girl friend: it just means that he wants something different

This is so simple, yet wise. There's a lot of things that a person might want, and that another person might want something different, a lot of reasons, both serious and frivolous, good or bad, simple or complicated. And only one out of these thousand possible reasons is that EL GALLO CATEGORICALLY REJECTS MELINA AS AN INTERESTING OR WORTHWHILE HUMAN. In fact, that one seems less than overwhelmingly likely.

Tomorrow: the overall results of the Intensive Dating Experiment of May 2006.