Jazz-Physics Boy, Wolf Man, and the Whisperer

I wrote this a couple years ago. I still find it amusing.

I had my bout with Match.com a couple years ago – a bout that lasted 3 dates (which, I realize, is very half-assed). I am not a big date-r, it’s never been my thing. But New York City felt like a howling wilderness at the time, I missed my wacko busy social life in the Windy City, I wasn’t meeting anyone, and my co-worker had recently gotten engaged to someone she met on an online-date site. She was very big on giving online dating a shot and she overcame my objections forcefully.

“I hate going on dates. I would rather read a book.” I stated.

“Come on, Sheila, you’re not looking to get married – if it doesn’t work out, who cares? It’s just one night! You try people on, if you don’t like it, you don’t go out with them again.”

“I hate small talk.” was my intelligent reply.

“Look at it this way: A couple nights a month you’ll get a free dinner, and maybe you’ll meet somebody nice.”

So whatever, I signed up.

I went on 3 dates before I threw in the towel. Maybe I’m too rigid. (It is highly possible.) My friend who ended up getting married had gone on … 70 dates or something like that … before she finally met a guy she clicked with.

70 dates??

Here is a brief description of each one of my Match.com dates:

1. Date #1 – Jazz Physics Man
The morning of my date, I woke up with a summer flu. I am sure it was psychosomatic. I didn’t want to go. I was meeting the guy at the Central Park boathouse for brunch or something like that. I felt like it was a CHORE. My nose was red. I wanted to stay in bed.

But I got it together, powdered the red nose, and went to meet him. He was pretty normal, he had responded to my profile cause I said something about Einstein … which was kind of a mistake because he proceeded to talk about physics the entire time, as we ate our eggs benedict. He talked about physics and asked my opinion, and it went way over my head. I had nothing to contribute.

He also loved jazz. Sorry, folks, but in my book, that is a very bad sign. Not in terms of their music taste, but in terms of their … general social skills and romantic potential. (I’ll get a lot of flack for that one, I know. It’s not jazz I have a problem with – Not at all … it’s the obsessive jazz FANS. If you start raving to me about how so-and-so played the tuba on the summer sessions in 59 and how it literally changed music … Whatever. It’s not my thing. And don’t yell at me. I’m sure there are plenty of girls who go ga-ga when you mention that so-and-so played the tuba on the summer sessions in 59 … go date HER then.) Anyway – there was no spark. He never called me, I never called him, no big deal, buh-bye. I was glad I got it over with – no biggie.

2. Date #2 was with someone I ended up calling “Wolf-Man” in my head, AS the date was occurring.

He met me outside of work and we walked to a nearby bar for a drink. I towered over him. He had not put his height in his profile. I am only 5’5″, so that gives you some idea of his short-ness. Please understand that wanting a tall man is just a personal taste of mine – not an indictment of an entire body-type. I like big tall strappy jocky guys. Can’t help it.

We had a drink. He talked a LOT. A bit too much – but it was okay. He was funny. He was a tough guy. With a crotchety sense of humor. Kind of self-deprecating.

I enjoyed him, until: He had wolf tattoes up and down his arms. I commented on them, and he said, “I love wolves. I love wolves mainly because they are monogamous and they mate for life.” I almost burst out laughing in his face. (I’m not saying I am a particularly easy woman to date … as a matter of fact, I am a nightmare.) It was just so … so … hilarious – like he had read it in a book somewhere: Tell her that you love swans because they choose one mate. Who knows, maybe he really does love wolves because they mate for life. I love wolves, too, but not because they are monogamous, for God’s sake. I love wolves because they are fierce and gorgeous with unbelievable eyes. So – I held back the laughter and nodded seriously. Trying to keep my face impassive. I am sure he was looking for SOME kind of a girlie response from me, which is usually a mistake when you are dealing with me. I may be afraid of “s”s, but I’m not really “girlie”.

We left the bar – it had begun to rain. We ran for the train. I didn’t care that I had no umbrella, I was laughing up into the downpour, and he was completely blown away by this. He couldn’t believe it. He must date nightmare high-maintenance women or something. “Wow! You don’t care that you just got rained on!!” gushed Wolf-Man. I almost scorned his enthusiasm but again – I restrained myself. He was obviously a freakin’ SWEETheart, to tell you the truth.

Unfortunately, during my date with Wolf-Man, I had one of those weird “flashbacks” (no, not drug-induced) – but one of those moments when the past rushes up from out of the past, and overwhelms the present. Like when you hear a random song, and are suddenly catapulted back 25 years in time. Or you get a whiff of ginger cookies, and you feel like you are 5 years old again. Well, I had one of those moments on this date with Wolf-Man, and … it was pretty terrible, actually. If anything, you want to stay in the Present Moment on any date. I was waiting in line for the bathroom, (basically to get a moment’s PEACE AND QUIET from my date’s constant chatter) and suddenly I looked over at the waitress station. There was a coffee pot, I could see the gleaming orange light on the top, the light that tells you it is “on”, I could suddenly smell the fresh coffee dripping down into the pot … and suddenly, out of nowhere, I got this huge sense of overwhelming melancholy. Tears welled up in my eyes. For whatever reason, the sight of the waitress station made me feel lonely for a guy I once loved – I yearned for him – I remembered how he and I had laughed so hard we cried …

And a big crack opened, and grief came up out of me like lava.

WHILE I WAS ON A DATE.

This is not good. You do not want to be having a nice beer with somebody and suddenly be filled up with hot lava. I got myself together and went out to join Wolf-Man, but I already knew that I wasn’t gonna be his wolf-mate. He didn’t stand a chance.

3. And now we come to The Whisperer. Or: The Last Match.com Date I Went On, Thank the Good Lord

I had written something about TS Eliot in my profile (I’m so pretentious). He and I were meeting up at the Atrium in the World Trade Center … so strange, to remember that space now. Anyway, we were gonna have dinner. I had very much liked his emails. He was Irish. He had a way with words. All was well. As long as it was completely digital.

I approached a bench in the Atrium with a single man sitting on it, holding a book up, reading. He was the only man alone, so I assumed it must be him. As I got closer, I saw what book he was holding up – The Collected Works of TS Eliot.

I almost turned around and walked away then and there.

If you want me to explain to you why – I will. Some women might have swooned and thought this was so sensitive, so sweet, so great. But I immediately felt warning signals go off inside – “freak! freak! freak!” Should have listened to those signs.

We went out to dinner. He was extremely nervous. He was awkward, fumbling … and very much in love with me already. He had never met me so this was my clue that he was a little bit insane. He spoke to himself, IN MY PRESENCE, “Okay, calm down, calm down, everything doesn’t need to be settled tonight…”

Uh … no shit, Sherlock.

But the single most annoying thing about the whole night was that he never spoke above a whisper. It was like that Seinfeld episode, with the “low talker”.

I was trying to be polite, really I was, even though I did not want to be on a date with him, the second I saw him reading TS Eliot. The whispering made it worse, but I tried to stay nice. I kept saying, leaning across the table, “I’m sorry … what did you say?”

“And so you were saying … what was that again?”

Or more bluntly, “Huh?”

Finally, at the end of the dinner, I had had it. I said, “I am no longer going to ask you to speak up. I cannot hear a word you are saying.”

He laughed – nervously – but I saw a flicker of panic and despair in his eyes.

Oh God. Get me out of here. If he starts to weep, I do not know what I will do.

I asked him if he went to college, and he had this entire freaked-out response … He shrugged, he blushed, he rolled his eyes, obviously there was a HUGE story attached to the answer to my simple question … and I had asked the question in all innocence … When I saw his flustery rolling eyes I said, putting on the brakes, “It’s okay. Don’t tell me the story. Please.” He did anyway. (Although I had to strain across the table to hear it.) Turns out, he had had a nervous breakdown and had to withdraw from school so that he could be hospitalized.

Again – no judgment on that! But … on a first date?? It was … sorry to be so juvenile, but … it was ikky.

Basically – he was head over heels with … the idea of me. And there is nothing that annoys me more than someone being head over heels with the IDEA of me. It happens to me a lot, I suppose. What – the REAL me ain’t good enough for you? You’ve got to go reaching for the IDEA?

So we strolled back to the subway together, him talking, and me saying, “What did you just say?”, and him repeating what he had whispered, in a just slightly higher voice, and me nodding like I gave a shit.

At the subway, he whispered, fluttery, “I suppose it’s too early for a kiss.”

I said, bluntly, “I’m very shy.”

He nodded and whispered, “Okay.”

You know who he reminded me of? Laura in The Glass Menagerie. So sensitive that you could shatter him if you looked at him wrong. Afterwards, when I thought it all over, I found compassion in my heart for him. It took a while though, because the date had been so annoying – but I did find it. GOOD for him for trying Match.com, and being brave enough to put up a profile – because obviously the man is too shy to speak at a normal volume.

One small note:
I am FAR from perfect and I do not post these stories under the category of “Sheila’s Proudest Moments”. I am sure those 3 guys left me and said stuff about me too. “She looked like she was about to burst into laughter when I told her about what wolves mean to me, and then she came back from the bathroom and she obviously had been crying. What a FREAK.”

Update 2:
About jazz freaks: As should be commonly known by anyone who reads me, I adore obsessives. But not jazz freak obsessives. If you sit down and start babbling to me about baseball stats from the 1941 world series, I will be enthralled.