I have a date in North Beach tonight. I've had two memorable North Beach dates; even though I hate all the schmos who hang in that hood, I'm very easily swayed by good food, so I continue to get dragged back there. In heels. How will tonight's date fare against these two whoppers?
Date #1
March 2003, or somewhere thereabouts:
I was in an extremely ill-advised open relationship with this guy, who I realized recently I don't have a nickname for. The last few times I've seen him, he's been Smelly, but he wasn't smelly then...maybe we can call him Molestache. We always refused to call each other BF/GF because, well, I don't know, we just did. Anyway, I was at a party at Molestache's house, where the Other Woman also lived, and I kept seeing them slobbering all over each other. Understandably, this irked me some, particularly since I'd been hanging out with the Other Woman all fucking day and we were ostensibly friends. So I told them, "Hey, I understand that this is your house and all, but can you please do that somewhere I can't see you?" (I probably sounded much less reasonable, but it’s MY story.)
They persisted in making out, like, basically on my lap until I went mental and threw my drink on them. (It's a marvel, indeed, that we're all still friends.) Since I was visibly upset, my now-married Communist friend walked me home to my apartment. This Communist had a reputation for being a womanizing asshole, and while I saw why people thought that, I didn't agree, and this night cemented that for me. While walking me home, he told me, "Julia, I can't stand to see you like this. You're a great person and I really respect you; you shouldn't be treated like this. You deserve better." Oh Commie, you always could make me hella swoon.
I drove the Commie home in the morning, and within minutes of getting back in bed, Molestache arrived at my apartment, and told me that he wanted to break things off with me and give it a shot with the Other Woman. This bothered me mostly because he'd beaten me to the punch, but also because, WTF, I was the obvious choice and I was there first and it was no fair! But, he said, he still wanted to go on a date for our anniversary. Wait, can you have an anniversary with your not-BF after you've not-broken-up? (Other Woman today told me that both Molestache and I referred to the "break up" in quotation marks. Hilar'.) Stupidly, I agreed. I made a lot of stupid choices back then.
So, a week later, he took me to Cafe Sport, where we ate copious amounts of seafood, and then we went wandering around the legendary City Lights. All the while, he kept giving me this look, this gazing-into-the-eyes-of-an-amazing-woman look. And then he would say things how he couldn't help but love me, or something. I wish I could remember the exact phrase; at the time, it was so heart-wrenching and awful, but also so gratifying that he was clearly regretting his decision to break things off because I was clearly so fucking great he couldn't even stand it. Or something. I knew the whole thing was stupid, but for some reason, I just wanted to win. But what kind of prize would that have been?
Now when he comes to visit, I make him sleep on the floor.
Date #2
May 2005, and in fact I know the exact date because the next day, I wrote a longer version of the following date synopsis (to keep up with these two blog posts from Heller):
I met this boy (who turned out to be a 34-year-old man) through a friend of a friend, who insisted on setting us up, even though he knew that SP was moving across the country at the end of the summer. So, SP and I started emailing, and after a week of failed attempts at hanging out, decided to meet at MOMA on a Thursday night. He was about 15 minutes late, arriving at 6 instead of 5:45, which was to be expected. Wingman Bill and I were still in the gift shop when I saw SP wandering around slightly confusedly outside. He walked in the front door and I followed him from there into the café. He was almost out the door when I finally hollered at him across the crowded café. I remember thinking how cute it was that he wore a blazer, and that he utilized the coat-check. Why would either of those things stand out?
We spent two hours wandering around MOMA after almost immediately agreeing that we would NOT be staying there until closing at 9. Two hours was quite enough. SP made intelligent comments about art, relating painting to poetry and the like, while I made stupid comments like, “I like how this painting displays the stupid parking situation in the Sunset. Look, there are three cars parked backwards!” Such a ‘tard.
Upon departure from the museo, he asked if I wanted to get dinner, and took a surprising amount of initiative about determining where to eat. I was being a stupid girl about it, saying I didn’t care, while also throwing in typical Julia-isms such as, “Yeah, let’s rule out Mexican; I think I’ve fulfilled my burrito quotient for the week. Quotient! I mean quota.” This was a recurring theme of the night: me either using the wrong word and making fun of myself for it, or me referring to things really vaguely, not remembering the name of whatever I was trying to talk about until 15 minutes later when I would yell it out with no explanation. He totes made a joke about how “great” my memory is. I gave him bonus points for sarcasm.
We decided on North Beach. I remember loving that he was a far parker, like me. This is where I fucked up on my one plot of the evening (to figure out his middle name and birthday): we were talking about our driver’s license pictures, but we were crossing the street, so I couldn’t very well ask him to whip out his ID in the crosswalk. Oops. We parked kinda far down Broadway and strolled up to Columbus, and ended up at none other than the Stinking Rose. I remember thinking, “Greaaaaat first date plan, SP. Let’s eat olives with garlic cloves stuck in the middle! How romantic!” We talked a lot about beer, whiskey and drinking in general at the restaurant. We also talked about glasses vs. contacts. He totally bought my dinner, which was for some reason totally shocking to me. Maybe because in the pre-date email exchange, he talked about being po’.
After dinner, and about a million jokes about going to strip clubs, we walked to the Li Po Lounge in Chinatown. It was nearly empty when we got there. Again, my wallet was waved away. I was so not used to boys actually taking me out! Convo revolved mostly around shitty jobs, academia and drinking. I talked about what a bad person Drunk Julia is, and how I went to the drunk tank, and he was like, “Eh, whatever, I’ve been to the drunk tank lotsa times!” The one mildly awkward moment during the course of the epic 7 hour date was when I finally confessed that I remembered him from four years ago. He seemed mildly weirded out. I deftly changed the subject to talk about the Giants. He’s not really a fan. Score. He dropped me off safely at home at 1am, and kissed me goodnight. I remember totally swooning.
And now I haven’t seen the guy in a year. Ah well, such is life.
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