The Bookie and I met in a traditional via way at a bar downtown. A very handsome guy, not typically my type, but tall, charming and something interesting that you don’t get in your typical Park Avenue trail mix of Broker, Banker, Analyst, Oh My! (A story to follow later).
In fact, I couldn’t even place the coolness he had about him when he said, “I think I should take you to dinner Sunday night”. So clearly I said yes.
The direct approach panned out further when I skipped down my steps and The Bookie said that I was “much better looking than he remembered”. Out loud. These type of things are ones that I often think, especially when you see someone that you had pizza with at 4am for brunch a week later, but I do not say them out loud at the beginning of our first date.
We walked through Disney New York to a quiet quintessential date spot and the questioning began. But in a strange way he was looking in my eyes back and forth. He would ask me a question, pause, I would answer, pause, and then he would nod. He was reading me. Good thing that I don’t lie, ever; I just stretch the truth, sometimes. Then the menu came to the table. He opened it, paused, read slowly, paused, looked at me and said, “I bet I know what you’re going to get”.
I responded to this with three thoughts, inside my head-by the way, one: I could answer with what I think he would say, two: I could get something that I knew he wouldn’t think I would like but I probably wouldn’t eat, three: I remembered that I really didn’t know what I wanted. So I told him to guess.
He completely guessed wrong, and then actually looked offended and hurt. Dinner continued and I realized that all I really knew about him was based on generalizations. He danced around what he did, clearly not finance, clearly not 9-5 in any way shape or form, but his lifestyle certainly didn’t dictate starving artist in the starving, having your own gorgeous apartment, or artist, in any way not a typical sports loving non-creative guy. Therefore I couldn’t pin point it. Hmmm, Architect? Ah, Restaurateur! Um, no… Adventure sports athlete? No clue. So much is put on what we do, just like a business card you can neatly put someone in a box. This makes me mad when it’s done to me personally, but for others (there is nothing wrong with double-standards) I do like the simplicity of being able to imagine what someone does or thinks about for 90% of their week.
It was kind of fun to not know though, so I decided that I would just let it go and see what happened next.
