I often look at my love life as if it were a romantic comedy. Girl meets boy, the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, and the heroine and hero must go through much travail before love conquers in the end.
Right now, I’m in the part of the romantic comedy that shows our heroine in a montage of mediocre dates.
When the Marine Turned Business Guy asked me to meet him for drinks at the Four Seasons, I thought things were looking up. I could (almost) overlook the fact that he took his Macallan on the rocks, but I couldn’t ignore the distinct feeling that if I didn’t ask he wouldn’t tell.
Sensitive Social Worker was a wine connoisseur and I dug his taste in tapas. But he was a bit of a lightweight for an oenophile and quite possibly the worst kisser since, well, ever. When he kissed me on the corner of 78th Street and 2nd Avenue, I’d wobbled a bit. He thought it was because the kiss was so potent. I was actually trying to squirm away from the tight, hard lips and darting, lizard-like tongue. The boy who kissed me on the school playground after my eighth grade graduation had more game, quite frankly.
Too Cute was, obviously, way too cookie cutter cute and quite a player at that. Indie Rock Star I was not very sophisticated and kind of a cold fish. And Indie Rock Star II had exclaimed, “I’m a raging heterosexual” one too many times. Well, he said it once and that was really enough for me to think it untrue. (What is it, by the way, with so many 40-something NYC men and the closet? You can come out now. It’s really nice out here.)
Then last week, after leaving a tasting event at Sons of Essex on the Lower East Side with a PSM (he added a few drops of water to an otherwise neat Balvenie Single Barrel 25-Year Old – respect), I noticed that I’d received a text. I was surprised, as much as I can be with my ghosts of boyfriends past track record, to find that it was from Jack.
Hopping in a taxi, I wondered if this was a testing of the waters. I did know this: according to the rules of romantic comedy, it takes a lot more than a text message to get the girl.
