My (rough) introduction back into the scene came one Saturday night with JM. We decided to once again take advantage of the free bottle service in Meatpacking. Tonight was RDV which I hadn't been overly-thrilled with last time. I was less so this time. The table was crowded with a bunch of mean-looking, not so cute girls. One, who really resembled a mole, even had the audacity to grab the bottle away after I had poured myself a drink. She held onto it and glared in our direction. This really got JM going, who glared right back while telling me she was ready to take her if need be. It was so out of character for sweet and sunny JM, that I was a little terrified. And she was not the only nasty person present there that night. When I got confused by the lack of organization of the bathroom line and unknowingly cut in front of some people, some nasty bald Brit yelled at me to get to the back. Chill the fuck out SIR.
Needless to say after scoring some free drinks we decided RDV was not our scene and headed to a nearby bar to escape the club scene. Since JM is a guy-magnet, literally as soon as we stepped foot in the door, there was a guy there offering to buy her a drink. Luckily I was able to reap the benefits and he bought me one as well. Except the thing was so strong that I almost gagged when I took a sip. He was apparently there with his two buddies, celebrating one of their 30th bdays. What a celebration. I'm also convinced that the number was closer to 35, but we will never know the truth. The guy whose bday it was, was not bad looking at all but their friend looked like a cross between JM's lesbian college volleyball coach and Bruce Jenner.
Luckily this guy bowed out gracefully and left early, leaving JM and I with our new antique friends. My guy (bday boy...ahem man) was actually pretty nice. We surprisingly carried on a decent conversation and we agreed to head to the diner with them after last call. I chatted with the guy throughout dinner but there were two red flags though which gave me a snob alert--asking where we had gone to dinner before heading out for the night and asking me not once, but twice, what my parents do. Come on guy. You don't ask that to someone you've just met unless you are shaaaallow. And the other guy turned out to be even worse. We both went to go to the bathroom and he let me go ahead of him. While inside, I heard him basically yelling to the guy behind him that he needed to get laid tonight. Can't you even try to be discreet about it??
Needless to say they did offer us to stay the night at their apartment instead of going all the way back to Brooklyn. I think my guy got the hint though when I asked how many beds he had. He then tried to give me cab money, which was very gentleman-like, but I did not accept it. He asked for my number but I never heard from him. Probably not a huge loss. But JM and I once again violated our rule of not accepting more than one drink from guys we aren't interested in. Instead we made out with about 3 free drinks, and a free meal. Oops.
Now here come the actual dates. This developed quite randomly and like Mason, was another blast from the past. I had of course gone to my favorite bar, the Ninth Ward for Mardi Gras celebrations and was gifted with an absolutely gigantic, Flava Flav-sized mardi gras bead. I posted a pic of me with it on good ole Facebook and noticed that Jersey had liked it. Now I had met Jersey one summer in Cuse, roughly 7-8 years ago. He was visiting fam there and we were getting late night food up on SU hill. We chatted and he took me to a ridiculous house party, like the ones you see in teen movies, a few nights later. We talked on and off throughout college on AIM but I hadn't seen him since that night. In my drunken haze I decided why not reunite again. I sent him a message to which he responded with an enthusiastic invitation for dinner and drinks. Pleasantly surprised I agreed and about a week later we were out. As I clomped towards the restaurant (Morimoto) I began to get really nervous. WTF was I doing, agreeing to go to a nice dinner with someone I barely knew?? The Mason thing was fresh in my mind and my self-esteem was not quite where it should be.
I thought that I would be able to shake it off during dinner, but to my surprise I could not. I was nervous and felt like an awkward high schooler. He was shorter than I remembered and though very nice, he was also very intense. He kept looking at me very intently while I tried to gracefully eat my giant sushi roll (impossible). We did manage to have a decent conversation but the whole thing was just a bit too much for a first date. And speaking of too much, I had overlooked the fact that everything I had ordered contained raw tuna. My mercury level was through the roof and I was starting to feel sick. I'll blame this on the fact that when he tried to put my jacket on for me, I decided to rudely and awkwardly grab it away from him instead. I'm not really into chivalry to that extent and apparently don't know how to conduct myself in public.
Needless to say I was convinced we wouldn't be going out again. But to my surprise when I sent him the polite thank you text the next day, he asked me out to a second dinner. Luckily this place was a bit more casual and I was feeling a bit more myself. The date went much smoother and I even agreed to go out with him about a week later, when we took a walk on the Highline and got a drink at the Standard Beer Garden (my other fav bar). He started to joke around a bit more that time, which was a relief. I'm currently on the fence about this one. Pros: polite, remembers things, always pays, could be opening up. Cons: loud voice, bit of a Jersey bro, still do not feel quite at ease.
But as we all know, New York has its dating surprises, so who knows where this will go...
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