The 15 Minute Dating Blog

by Leora Klein.(edited by Alix Strauss)

Dan sounded great on paper: Upper East Side, Fieldston, Brown undergrad, NYU Law, formerly a corporate lawyer, currently a CEO of a nonprofit that seeks to foster peace between Palestinian and Israeli children…My mother met his mother at a charity dinner. Seated next to each other, nibbling on raisin nut rolls, patiently waiting for their salad plates to be whisked away, they noticed that neither woman ate the shaved fennel. By the time the blackened sea bass was served they were dear friends. She didn’t wait for dessert to show my mother a photograph of her son, and my mother called me from the car on her way home to tell me the great news.

“She had a photograph of her son in her evening bag?”

“Actually, she had it on her cell phone, and he looked very handsome with a nice head of hair.”

“Did you inquire about his height?” I am 5’9″.

“I did and she said he was taller than her husband, and her husband was tall.”

He sounded too perfect. My mother always taught me perfect doesn’t exist.

“Did she mention his homosexual past?”

“Leora, don’t be outrageous. He’s not gay. I gave her your number. Please be open-minded when he calls.”

I am open-minded. Past blind date suitors have been an eclectic mix of losers, Rhodes Scholars, closeted gays, dumb hotties, and very smart perverts. There was the guy who was small enough to fit in a teacup. He picked me up on his moped and my doorman couldn’t stop laughing. One guy told me his SAT scores were better than Forest Gump’s. Another – with man boobs- referred to himself as a “poopy doctor” and told me, “if it’s itchy with discharge, it’s never good.” Another wanted to watch the Paris Hilton video together and then make our own. The latest referred to Jessica Simpson’s body in a text message.

When Dan phoned three days later, the conversation was breezy, and I liked his husky voice. His easy laugh. So I agreed to meet him the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and picked a new martini bar around the corner from where I lived. Night set in very early by the end of November and our seven o’clock date felt much later.

As we met outside we did the awkward hello-kiss-hug-shake hands dance. He was over six feet tall with warm blue eyes and light brown hair. He wore a charcoal gray pea coat and broken-in tan cords. He was definitely hot, and I felt myself get good nervous.

As we browsed the cocktail menu, the waitress came over. Because it was the kick off to a holiday weekend, I ordered a fusion of citrus vodka, peach schnapps, and champagne. Dan looked up from the menu and said, “My throat has been bothering me all day. I think I’ll just have a hot tea. And do you think I could trouble you for some honey?”

I instantly felt like a lush and debated changing my order to a coffee. But this was a date, and he was great looking, and it wasn’t my throat that was hurting. The waitress said she doubted they had honey. “It’s a bar, but I’ll check.”

I was annoyed with her for snapping at him and annoyed at him for ordering tea.

“I’m sorry your throat hurts. A few of my students have had sore throats. I guess it’s the start of the season.”

“Where do you teach?” he asked.

“I teach eighth grade English at M.H.A.” I replied.

“M.H.A.’s a good school. It’s no Ramaz, but still a great school.”

“Wait- did you go to Ramaz? I went to Ramaz,” I said, slightly confused. I thought he was a Fieldston boy.

“No. But my ex-girlfriend did. So I know Ramaz.”

Did I even want to go there? I didn’t care for most of the people I went to high school with, and I didn’t want the name of his ex-girlfriend to influence my opinion.

“You must know her,” he continued. “Elyse Gross.” He dropped her name like a stink bomb.

“She was a year ahead of me. Great girl. When did you date?”

The waitress dropped off our drinks. “No honey,” she said and sauntered away.

“We dated for three years after college. I know she’s married now and has a kid. I saw her in the park with this little blonde girl and it was really weird, for me. She was a huge force in my life. Had I been ready to get married, she would have married me. It would have been my kid.”

“Where did you go to college?” I asked, trying to steer him in another direction.

“I was at Brown and she was at B.U. and we met at a party and we did the long distance thing for a semester but then we both graduated and moved to New York.”

Dan was about to take his first sip of honeyless tea. But he put down the mug and blew into it. “It’s very hot without the honey,” he said. I nodded.

“I have a lot of friends that went to Brown. My roommate when I lived in L.A. was class of ’98.”

“You lived in L.A.? I probably don’t know your friend. I’m class of ’94. Anyway, we moved to New York and she got a place on the Upper West Side and so did I. I wanted to live together, but she wouldn’t because her parents are Orthodox. Anyway, after three years, I wasn’t ready to pop the question, so she ended it.”

“Wow. That must have been tough. Do you still live on the Upper West Side?” I noticed by shoulders moving to The Killer’s “Smiling Like You Mean It.” I stopped myself from singing.

“No, I moved to the West Village when I was in law school. I love it there, but I was living in my place with Megan, my most recent ex, so it carries a lot of memories I’m trying to forget.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” I took a quick sip of my drink. “Were you together long?”

“We were also together for three years and I wasn’t ready to propose so we broke up. We had a very similar relationship to mine and Elyse’s but it’s still too fresh to discuss. I would prefer to use the Elyse relationship as the prototype.”

Did he just use the word prototype? I took a larger sip of my beverage. “You know, I really don’t – I think I’d rather hear about you. Tell me more about you. How did you decide to heave law?” I calibrated only three remaining mouthfuls of my cocktail. I’d need another round soon.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We aren’t supposed to mention past relationships on a first date. I’ll just say this” If you are looking to get married anytime soon, you got the wrong guy.”

There’s a place in a date when you just want it to end and you think that maybe draining the drink in your hand will be a visual clue that the night is over. I don’t know if we had been there for more than thirty minutes, but I was done. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He waved the waitress over and asked for some more hot water. She looked at me and then at my empty glass. I wonder if she could see the desperation.

“I would like a vodka gimlet straight up, please. Belvedere.” I announced.

“You got it,” she said as she sashayed away.

I glanced at Dan, whose great looks had quickly deteriorated. His face had become creepy and mouthy. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew I had to say something. I decided to unleash my own personal date poison.

“You know, Dan, marriage isn’t in my immediate future. I was engaged once and I’m not running to the alter, either.”

“You were engaged?” He put the mug down. “I guess that makes sense. You’re a very attractive twenty-nine-year-old woman and by now someone must have tried to hold you down. I mean, something must be really wrong with you if no one has wanted to marry you by now.”

If there was a compliment in there, I missed it.

“Not to say that something was wrong with either Elyse or Megan,” he continued.

“You know, my throat really hurts. I hope you don’t mind if I start transcribing my portion of the conversation.”

Then he took out a small notebook from his coat pocket and clicked a pen with the name of his organization emblazoned in yellow and blue letters.

“Dan, why don’t we call it a night if you aren’t feeling well? I don’t want to keep you out.” But it was as if he didn’t hear me.

Instead he wrote down, “No trouble. I really like talking to you and I’m a pretty quick writer.”

The waitress brought our second round of drinks.

“So you want me to talk and you to write?”

He nodded.

“Really?”

He nodded emphatically.

“Okay. Well, nice pen!” I laughed. When he didn’t, I wondered if I was being videotaped. “Tell me about the organization you started. It sounds wonderful, the little I know. My father is Israeli, and I remember when I was in high school my grandfather had a heart attack and his wonderful doctor was Arab and that positive experience has forever affected my perspective on the Arab/Israeli situation. I think if you make the political personal everything can change.”

Dan looked at me for a long minute and then he shook his head.

After a detailed paragraph about his work, he flipped to a new page and wrote the following:

“Although I do think what I am doing is very important, it is difficult financially. When I look around at my friends who stayed in corporate law and IBanking- buying and selling their first and second apartments, flying to Aspen, dining at the finest restaurants – I question my timeline. Maybe I should have waited before switching careers. I mean, I can’t afford to send my kids to Fieldston or M.H.A. I feel very emasculated by my lack of finance. Part of me wonders if Megan knew – which is why she told me she didn’t care about diamond engagement rings.”

The good girl in me wanted to alleviate his worries and commend his choices. The sad girl in me wanted to run home, eat chocolate, call my mom, and cry. The bad girl in me wanted to pour honey in his pants and shout that no amount of money in the world would make his balls grow.

Instead, I took his pen and spoke briefly of my respect for his work, and then I excused myself. Once inside the safety of the bathroom stall, I realized I was good and drunk and still holding his pen. I had been expecting dinner and all I got was a belly full of vodka. I checked my face in the mirror. It was time to go. As I walked back to the table I discretely signaled to the waitress for the check. Dan must have had a little arsenal of ink in his jacket because he was writing, head down, over the paper, right hand moving swiftly across the page. For a brief moment I wondered if I was too sensitive or judgmental. He looked up and slipped the paper across the table to me. I couldn’t bear to read it. I couldn’t bear to see what his ink had spread.

“Dan, I have dinner reservations at nine, so I think we should head out.”

He pointed to the note and the waitress dropped off the check.

As I read a more developed take on finance and women and the culture of dating, I let him pay the bill. So what if all he had was tea? On the bottom of the page he had written two post-scripts.

“P.S., thank you for respecting my choice.”

“P.P.S., if I weren’t feeling so ill, I would kiss you.”

I looked up and half smiled. His cluelessness was breathtaking.

We headed outside into the cold crisp air (the kind that makes you think of stone fireplaces, cream cashmere sweaters, and good red wine). I told him I had to get a warmer coat before I headed to dinner. We walked in silence to my building and I thought about my parents. My mom married at twenty. She and my father have three kids, and they recently celebrated their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. I am almost thirty (rhymes with dirty) and have been dating for over half my life. How, then, could I expect her to understand my twenty-first century love life? Why do I continually bring her into the folds of my heart? I seek her counsel and her confidence because she is wise and knowing. And isn’t there something timeless about love?

Dan hugged me and I let him. I walked through my lobby, waved to my doorman, and slid straight into the elevator where I released my phone from my coat pocket. I wanted to wait against the unjust gods of romance and against the lame males who show up at my door and don’t come close to the man I want and deserve. I wanted to wail at the wasted lifetime hours spent straightening my hair, putting on mascara, picking the right outfit, going to the dry cleaners, reading the business section, and getting so very hopeful and so deeply disappointed. I wanted to wail against the awfulness of it all and capture elusive understanding of how difficult this all had become. I exited the elevator, inserted my key in the lock, and hit send on my phone.

“Hi, Ma, it’s me.”

“How did it go?” The soft cadence of her Hungarian/Israeli accent made me smile. As I made myself some toast and apricot jam, I wondered what she could say that would make it okay.

“Oh you know,” I offered, “only the worst date of my life.”

“Really?” She sounded concerned.

As I made my way through the details of the night, we both just started to laugh.

“Let’s just say, he isn’t even perfect on paper,” I told her.

This article is an excerpt from HAVE I GOT A GUY FOR YOU: WHAT REALLY HAPPENS WHEN MOM FIXES YOU UP (Polka Dot Press, April 2008)

About the author: Leora is a freelance writer who teaches eighth grade English in Manhattan. Her essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Sun, The New Jersey Jewish News, The Pennsylvania Gazette, and Yad Vashem’s Martyrdom and Resistance Magazine. She received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in English Literature and Theatre Arts and a MA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. She lives in New York City and no longer accepts her parents’ romantic introductions.

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