The Annals of Dating

I was coffeeing with this one guy the other day. He said that when he writes, it's like channeling, only not as spirtual, you know. Then he took this wrapper from a straw stuck in his drink, rolled it and rolled it into a ball entirely held together by his stress induced sweat, until it was round, and hard, like a Superball. He could have bounced it off the ceiling.

He said, "you know what the word "blog" comes from, don't you? I mean, since you do and all."

"Yes," I said. It used to be web log, as in ship's log, but it's long since been shortened.

"That's right," he said. "But do you know who invented it?"

"Al Gore?"

"No, guess again." He's rolled the one straw wrapper stuck together with sweat into another one, not quite as stuck together with sweat yet, but certainly on its way.

"I give up," I said. "But I imagine it was someone who likes to yack a lot, only nobody listens to them. And now, there are a whole bunch of people who like to yack a lot, and nobody listens to them either."

"That's exactly right," he said. That was when we went back to the counter. He ordered a muffin and I ordered a triple mocha decaf cappuccino with a vanilla shot and an extra helping of arsenic.

"Why the arsenic?" He said. "Not to pry, or anything. Just out of curiosity."

I said, "Whenever they do any post mortem of dead artists from, like 200 years ago. You know the ones, they commited suicide in lofts and threw themselves under buggies and such. They always find lots of arsenic. They found a lot in Napoleon too. And he wasn't even an artist. I figure I'll be in good company."

"You're an idiot." Said my coffee buddy.

"That's true." I said.

Now, you might wonder why I was having coffee with this person in the first place. It's because, these days, it's the second best thing to "speed dating." As far as I can tell, speed dating is when you pay someone 40 dollars, he rounds up a bunch of desperately lonely people, and sticks them in a room together. They go round to different tables and talk to prospective dates for 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to fry an egg in an aluminum (aluminium if you're British) pan, whichever comes first. If you like your date, you bend over and offer him your estrus engorged rump, but only if you're a baboon. If you are not a baboon, you give him your phone number. If, on the other hand, you don't like him much, you pour your drink on his head.

After that, it's the guy's turn and the girls have to sit at the tables. It's all very egalitarian.

Now I don't know about others' feelings in these cyber-turbo-charged times in wot we live, but this whole process seems somewhat unfair to me. What's a female baboon to do if it's not yet her estrus time, the male she likes genuinely wants her to bend over, and she would, it's just that the timing's wrong. What is she to do? Does she have to pay another 40 bucks the following month and hope for the best?

Clearly, this method of dating is somehow, callused. Not quite as callused as the average baboons butt, but fairly callused.

Thus, I elected to have a coffee date at Starbucks.

Now my hard-hearted friend who lives in Los Angeles, says that if, within the first ten minutes of a coffee date, you realize you don't really like the guy who's sitting across the table from you, you should pretend that the cell phone in you pocket is on vibrate, and that you just got a call. When said call comes in, you should say, "Oh, that's my agent. I have to go to an audition."

So I said to my friend, "I'm not in show business," and she quoted from the Kinks song, "Celluloid Heroes." She said, "Everybodies' in showbiz. Doesn't matter who you are."

I said, "That doesn't matter. They're still going to realize it's a load of crap, that I'm simply lamming out because I don't like them."

She said, "then tell them your water heater exploded. The point is, you don't have to spend a whole hour. Nobody expects that anymore."

Well, maybe that's true in the big cold city, where she lives. But in Snakegullet where I live, that sort of thing simply isn't done.

"Not only that, water heaters hardly ever explode."

"That's why I tell them it was my agent," she said.


Next week: Dating Firemen. Five things not to do in order to get them to come to your apartment.