Plenty of men had asked me what I wanted to drink, but he was the first to ask why I wanted to drink it. He was getting to know me in a different way from anyone else. It was exhilarating and uncomfortable all at the same time. I clinked his martini glass and made a toast to broken lamps. And we talked for hours.
It’s nearly impossible to close down a bar in Miami since bars never seem to close. But at two a.m. we both called it quits. Work the next morning, et cetera. I thought Jason could be a thing, a real thing, and didn’t want to muddy the waters with sex too soon. I did, however, expect a kiss, but he didn’t even try. Instead he put me in a cab in front of the hotel and watched as I was driven off.
When Jason first met me at the lamp store, I was wearing work clothes. As a therapist I want my attire to portray me as professional yet comfortable, competent yet relaxed, simple but thoughtful, nonsexual yet feminine. That usually amounted to a muted structured but not-too-tight top, dark jeans, and a fun-colored flat shoe. Since he’d already seen me in that type of outfit, for our first date I wanted to show Jason that I was stylish without needing to try too hard. So I wore a thin off-the-shoulder gray sweatshirt à la Flashdance, tight jeans, and extremely high heels.
After the fact, when I got home and called Ellie and gave her a play-by-play of our date, she was horrified to learn I had worn a sweatshirt.
“But it’s a cute one! Off the shoulder!”
“No, Ruby. Just no. That’s not okay for a first date! That’s for a tenth date when you stay in and order pizza in the middle of your sex marathon.”
I turned on the faucet for Mr. Cat and listened to Ellie berate me. And after listening to her, I decided perhaps I had given Jason the wrong impression with my sweatshirt choice. Maybe he thought I wasn’t truly interested. Maybe that’s why he didn’t kiss me.
So for our second date I decided to go in an opposite direction. I wore a tiny black wraparound dress that had a plunging neckline. My breasts were perky enough that I didn’t need a bra, and it was clear by the way the dress clung to me that I wasn’t wearing one. I threw on some flats to offset the sexiness of the dress. A similar approach to putting on high heels to offset the sweatshirt.
Jason and I spent the afternoon looking at art galleries in the Design District. He didn’t comment on my tiny black dress. I didn’t comment on the third blue shirt I had seen him wear. Clearly someone told him long ago blue was his color. It was another odd date, filled with chatting about our opinions on everything from Colombian folk paintings to water fountain germs, but little about our personal backgrounds. He enjoyed lingering on each piece of art, slowly taking it in. I did not. I liked to breeze through, only stopping when something truly caught my eye.
I did learn, as I searched for a café Cubano stand, that he did not drink coffee. Instead he drank diet soda. Even in the morning. Jason gave me a hint into his past and explained that where he grew up they mostly drank sweet tea, and since he was diabetic, it was diet soda for him. I listened to his words and watched his well-proportioned lips as he drawled in his slight Southern accent. But I wasn’t able to figure him out. He was so hard to read, I couldn’t decide if he liked my personality but wasn’t attracted to me physically. Or the other way around. Maybe he just wanted to be friends? Maybe he was gay but not out? Maybe he had an STD he wasn’t ready to tell me about so was keeping his distance? Maybe he was secretly married? Maybe maybe maybe. The date again ended without a kiss.
By the middle of our third date I was feeling a little frantic. Jason still didn’t know how old I was. Or where I went to college. Or that I broke my wrist roller-skating on a basketball court with Ellie when I was ten. He didn’t know anything about me, and yet he was more tuned in to me than any guy I had ever been with before. He was like an alien, highly emotionally developed, educated about the human race and condition, but not able to play the role of human casually.
We went bowling, something I am convinced is a thing one only does on third dates and then never does again. The entire concept of a bowling alley lends itself to being an enterprise for new couples who want to seem adventurous and spirited, since dinners at nice restaurants only go so far. And bowling is a fun, active endeavor that doesn’t require one to be too athletically skilled yet allows for asses to be checked out, stamina to be assessed, and close access to be granted when teaching each other good form and technique. There’s also always a bar, so alcohol can be blamed for the terrible rolls. And alcohol can be credited for the ease of flirtation. I think bowling alleys have survived the test of time because of third dates alone, and the ubiquitous lame last-minute birthday party.
Not surprisingly they didn’t serve Champagne, or any sparkling wine option, at the bowling alley. So I was drinking vodka and soda, which was mostly vodka. I was drunk, really drunk, and my thoughts and fears boiled to the surface. Maybe Jason thought I was crazy? I did wear a sweatshirt to a first date, barely a dress on our second, and now was back in my conservative work clothes. Maybe he thought I was bipolar since visually I was giving off such disparate signals? But if he thought I was insane, why go out with me a third time? That would make him insane! And I was a professional psychologist, so wouldn’t I be able to tell if he was insane? Or maybe he was normal but had had a string of unhinged girlfriends and that was why he was taking it slow? And why was I in such a hurry anyway? This ruminating was not like me. I barely gave a second thought to murdering people, and here I was overthinking Jason’s every mannerism. I enjoyed analyzing human behavior, sure, but obsessing about dating, no way. Not me.
After another disastrous attempt at hitting the pins, I drunkenly turned to Jason. I shrieked out, “You don’t even know how old I am!”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters!”
“Why?”
Hmmmmm. That was a good question. Why did it matter? When I was fifteen, I believed age was just a number, and I told Carlos so because I wanted to seem older. But at the same time I enjoyed people’s shock when they learned how young I actually was: “You’re so mature, and what an advanced vocabulary!” But now that I was twenty-five, my age not impressive one way or the other, it seemed like more than just a number. It seemed like the code to a safe that needed to be unlocked.
I answered Jason, “Well, what if I was forty? And you wanted kids. And I was too old to have them?”
Why was I talking about kids on a third date? What was wrong with me!? If he didn’t think I was crazy before, he definitely would now. I blamed the vodka but knew somewhere under the drunkenness I was falling in love with this guy. Maybe that scared me and I was trying to sabotage what could be a wonderful relationship. Or maybe I wasn’t trying to sabotage it at all, but came across as grasping and neurotic because I was scared the love of my life was slipping away.
Jason looked me over. “Are you forty?”
This question was an outrageous affront. So I yelled, getting the attention of the third-date couples on either side of our lane. “No, I’m not forty!”
“Well then, we don’t have to worry about your fertility, do we?”
I plopped down on a hard plastic turquoise-and-yellow swiveling bowling alley seat. And pouted.
Jason asked, “Do you want to tell me how old you are?”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“Okay. I’m twenty-eight.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”