August 27, 2006
Dating for the Novice
Somehow I got listed as a dating blog on the Yahoo! Personals blog. Puzzling development, considering that until recently, the last date I had was an ill-fated Thursday night in February and before that I said auf Wiedersehen to the Austrian in July 2005.
Maybe I've been dating in my sleep. Or maybe Yahoo! sought to provide a sampling of skillsets -- the uber-dater, the semi-pro, the novice.
In any case, I thought I better come up with something. So I give you: my least favorite and most favorite dates.
Least Favorite
New York, winter 1999. I've been dating Jon sporadically for a couple months. We have dinner at Avenue A Sushi, then a drink at Korova Milk Bar. We head back to his place to watch a movie, and pick up some beer at a bodega on the way. I select Amstel Light. His comment, "What is up with girls and Amstel Light? Do you ALL drink it?" We end up with it anyway. I walk into his apartment, and there on his kitchen counter are six empty Amstel Light bottles.
The End.
Most Favorite
This isn't really a specific memory, just a general favorite: the first time a man takes your hand. It's such a throwback to junior high and high school when All You Wanted was for someone to hold your hand.
There is this moment in My So-Called Life when Angela keeps ditching her geometry review sessions to make out with Jordan in the boiler room, and Jordan keeps Angela a secret, ignoring her in public, and Rayanne tells Jordan he can't treat Angela like that, and then finally, in a moment that burst my heart to watch, Jordan takes Angela's hand in the hall, for all to see.
The first time a man takes my hand, I'm 14 again, when I didn't yet know my first hurt was only that, the first.
Lulled into novice-hood by the heat of someone else's palm against mine.
Posted by jen at August 27, 2006 11:33 PM
Comments
I love the first hand hold!
Posted by: rg at August 28, 2006 12:00 PM
dude, are you reading my mind? i was JUST telling someone about that scene in my so-called life. you know, when i was telling them how that boy the other night trying to hold my hand way too soon was also way too wrong b/c it was so not a tingly heart-bursting situation. it was like my brother holding my hand and that's just wrong
just thinking about that scene makes my hand feel tingly, i think i'll have to watch it when i get home tonight!!! sadly you know about the whole TWO disastrous dates i've had in the last year so i think we're running about neck and neck in that department!
p.s. weirdly, i was also just thinking about this drunken evening spent at korova milk bar when they had 'the shining' playing on all the TV screens. that place always kinda creeped me out!
Posted by: carolyn at August 28, 2006 03:47 PM
That is one of my favorite episodes of "My So-Called Life." I was so mad when they canceled that show.
Posted by: Dagny at August 28, 2006 05:24 PM
Wow. What kind of idiot puts themselves in a position like that? (beer).
Girls are so different to guys! Replace "hold hand" with "hold boob" and it's probably becoming more similar.
Posted by: daniel at August 28, 2006 11:03 PM
Currently reading "Savannah Blues". A chef invites a girl over to his house for lunch. He serves her seafood bisque and Amstel Beer (not light). He must know girls like it.
Posted by: Barbara at August 29, 2006 08:15 AM
got the summer cd- THANKS! it's fabulous! and congrats on your job!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: jenny at August 29, 2006 09:12 AM
Totally agree about hand-holding, unless, as Carolyn demonstrates, it's unwanted. Like you are an innocent 16 year old who agrees to see a new movie that you haven't heard of with a Friend (capital F friend, not only not attractive, but somewhat repulsive) and you walk into the already started Basic Instinct and your Friend grabs your hand to lead you to your personal hell and hand prison for two hours.
I love your bad date--it's the epitome of bad! (probably not what men imagine is bad, it's the somewhat subtle stab that really hurts). Or do you think he was flaunting it?
Posted by: Urs at August 29, 2006 10:47 AM
Hi, I just stumbled across your blog and think it's fabulous. I've been out of law school for five long years but your posts took me right back to 3L bliss. Oh trust me, it's bliss. You'll see. :-)
Posted by: kate at August 29, 2006 05:21 PM
Aw, the first hand-holding is always so cute.
Posted by: Gloria at August 29, 2006 11:33 PM
Thanks for the link :-)
Here's how you got on our blogroll. Our product chief had you in her dating bloglines reader and passed it around. We launched a blog. I read your blog and decided that it was well-written, funny, and entertaining. Plus, since you're single, I thought our audiences were pretty similar. It's not that you blog about dating so much as you blog (at least sometimes) about being single.
I've actually thought the same thing about women and Amstel Light. Too funny that he forgot there were empty Amstel bottles on his own counter.
Posted by: Todd at September 6, 2006 01:44 PM
With those stories, you so deserve to be on Yahoos! Personals Blog!
Posted by: Neil at September 7, 2006 03:50 PM