Doing Me (Not That Way! Well, Sort Of.)
<<2003-06-04 - 2:04 a.m.>>

Tonight I was bought drinks by two different guys.

It was a weird thing, really. Because yesterday I felt so close to the abyss, my favorite comfortable hideous abyss of loneliness, singing pertinent Dar Williams ("And it's not easy/Don't know who you see/I want somebody who sees me") as Chloë turned every head and I faded away.

Not "every," I guess, but many, many, many. She's a girl who turns heads. A beautiful girl who carries herself well, and who also clearly projects some kind of approachability, because Jesus, does she get approached. Yesterday she got everything from a grizzled old homeless man asking to hold her hand to a girl coming up to us and declaring that her brother, over there, the guy in the blue hat, thought that Chloë was cute and would like to talk to her and maybe get her phone number.

I guess I think I project some kind of unapproachability, because when I get approached, it is most often by people who are too skeezy to get the unapproachability vibe.

Case in point: Guy #1.

I'd gone down to the Promenade to try to catch Eleanor's dance group, but because it was drizzly, they weren't there. So I smoked a cigarette and walked up and down the Promenade a bit and then headed back. Between the 2/3 stop and my house, this guy looked over at me. I looked over at him, because he was looking at me. I always do that. I like to know when people are looking at me. Besides, being Chloë-aggravated, my street-harrassment self-esteem kind of needed a boost. He was older but not too old, kind of cute. He smiled. I smiled. He asked where I lived. I evaded. He asked if maybe I'd like to have a drink later. I gave him my phone number.

Now, realize that this is totally out of character. It's just that there was this yesterday with Chloë, in which there was not only the loneliness but also the mutually expressed desire to be taken out for drinks. A goal. And here it was. I never, never, never give out my real phone number to sketchy guys on the street, which this guy pretty much was. But I didn't want to fade away. And I'd talked with Zibby this morning about sex drive. About fear. I didn't want to back down.

And the funny thing here is all the choices. If I hadn't gone to the Promenade. If I hadn't decided to get Tasti on the way back, if I'd transferred off the 2/3 onto the 1/9 that was pulling into the station instead. If I hadn't done that "look over when you sense someone is looking at you" thing when he was looking at me. If I hadn't given him my real phone number.

It was hideous. Hideous. We sat outside at a French place near my house. I had a glass of wine. He had a Coke. It was clear from the very first second that we had nothing to say to each other. I asked questions and talked to fill the silence. He took my hands across the table and stroked them creepily. I realized suddenly that I was biting my lip. Hard. Tried to relax. He talked about sometimes needing to relax. I tried to take that to mean that he had some insight into my tension, which didn't work because it wasn't true, because he couldn't have cared less about anything I had to say. He asked when I had to wake up in the morning. Early. Very early. (Huge lie, naturally.) I invoked the "I'm not that kind of girl" defense. He tried to kiss me over the table. His tongue flailing disgustingly. Unbearable, unbearable. He moved his chair closer to mine and kissed my hand. I said I'd never been out with someone more interested in touching me than talking to me, which is not, in fact, true, but I've never wanted to be out with someone more interested in touching me than talking to me, which isn't true either, but not in the creepy way. You know? Anyhow. He moved his chair away and apologized. Paid the bill. We got up to go.

Walking down the sidestreet smoking a cigarette with my shoulder a solid six inches from his, we passed my old therapist. She looked quite old. I said "Hi," surprised, and she didn't loook up. I don't think she recognized me. I don't think I recognized me, smoking a Marlboro and keeping this 27-year-old guy at bay.

"I used to know that woman. That's very German-movie," I said, and he didn't say anything, which was pretty much the final nail in the coffin. As if it hadn't been sealed tight already. When he went for a goodnight kiss, I turned my cheek.

So I was done, out of there as quickly as possible, thinking of the story-points I'd garnered and trying not to think about the fact that he said he'd call.

Walked up and down Seventh Avenue a bit. Trying to shake off the grossed-outness and the cigarette smell. Bought the Frozfruits that my father had asked for when I'd told him I was going out to meet Chloë (interestingly, my first use, at nearly age twenty, of that classic teenage lie). Thought I'd head home.

There was a guy smoking out in front of the bar on my corner. I was starting to get out my keys, my walk slowing down, and he stopped me, asked me how I was. I said I wasn't great, actually. He asked why. I wrinkled my nose, said I'd had a bad date. He asked why. I said the guy'd had nothing to say. He asked why. I said I didn't know. He said I'd looked kind of sad as I walked back and forth. I said yeah, pretty much. He asked if he could buy me a drink. I looked at him. He was cute. He was clearly not the stupid, silent type, and that's a start. I said sure.

He bought me a Guinness and we introduced ourselves (his name is Rob). He introduced me to his friends. He said he was a graphic designer and in school. He asked what I did. I told him I was a full-time student. He said he was drunk. I promised I wouldn't take advantage of him. He said, "If you do, it's all good."

He said he was twenty-five and didn't blink when I told him I was nineteen. He asked what I was into. I told him it's not something that usually gets much respect in a bar, but I'm kind of a poet. He looked at me: "I'm a poet too." We talked about emotional connection with oneself. He told me it's hard to be in yourself emotionally.

If there's anything I know, it is that.

"Do you," he said, when I told him by way of starting to head home, that he'd been nicer than the first guy. "You'll find the right guy. If they don't respect and appreciate you for who you are..."

"This guy didn't care who I was."

"...then it's nothing. Forget it. Do you."

There were more words, because he was drunk (although I have to say, one of the most clearheaded drunks I've ever encountered), but that's the gist. He gave me his email address, told me to drop him a line. We both went our separate ways.

Convergence, again. Anni on the street, and Chloë yesterday, and Zibby this morning, and spending the afternoon pondering the fact that The Fat and Witty New Yorker met someone who seems so nice by chance in the park yesterday. Convergence.

And maybe other things, too. But I'm too tired to think what they are.

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