Category: Dating

I’m Sorry, but He’s Not What You Expected

On By KathleenIn Dating1 Comment
Warning. He might be a rock fall….

When I told my friends I was dating a European gymnast with a PhD, no one was particularly surprised. Foreign, athletic, and smart has been my type since my jungle gym days. He never lasted long enough to meet the friends, so I never felt the need to warn them that the only things he could talk about was “How I Met Your Mother” and Absolute Zero. But then again, I wasn’t dating him for the conversation. #boytoy

“Look, he’s not what you’re expecting.” This, on the other hand, is how I prefaced meeting Euro-Flips-Phd’s predecessor, who had survived long enough to meet my parents and most of my close friends. After that introductory phrase, came a list of reasons why you’d be surprised at me or put-off by him. On paper, “Big Red” was my best match to-date, but in person, there were about half a dozen reasons why he wasn’t what I, or the peanut gallery, had in mind for my Prince Charming. Our divergent lifestyles were visible in his appearance and demeanor.

Later, after he’d won everyone over with the quick sense of humor and general intelligence that I fell so quickly for, I felt bad.  Why did I feel the need to put him down before anyone had the chance to judge for themselves? Was I afraid of how he might reflect back on me? Or did my warning really reflect the concerns I had about us as a match?

You say he only said 5 sentences to you all night? Why are you surprised? I told you he was shy.

Yes, he wore a braided belt with a suit. I told you he was fashionably-challenged. 

My preemptive warnings headed off your criticisms at the pass. I’ve pointed out his most obvious shortfalls, so you’re going to have to work hard to tell me something I don’t know. Oh? You think the’s wonderful? You don’t understand what I was worried about? His beer belly is totally unnoticeable? And you think he’s funny? Awesome.

I was simultaneously setting him up for failure  and apologizing for him in case he crashed and burned on his own. But more significantly, I was revealing my doubts and granting my friends and family permission to disapprove of him… for a finite set of reasons.

In many cases, these warnings I gave my friends and family were some how at the core of why my fella and I didn’t make it to a happily ever after. Most of the time, they weren’t.

“I like him. A lot,” my mother said after she met Big Red. “But I’m going to pretend I don’t like him, so you keep your options open.”

I guess that when I warned her about this thing or that, I was doing the same thing — letting her know I was keeping my options open. I’m reasonably certain that, even though I know it’s not entirely fair to him, I will always preempt first meetings between a boyfriend and my loved ones with some kind of warning. Most likely because I don’t want to jinx anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talking Burpee Before It was Fashionable

On By KathleenIn Dating, Family2 Comments

There’s a chance you read the recent NYTimes Sunday Styles piece called “CrossFit Flirting: Talk Burpee to Me.” I read it too and rather than inspire me to use my morning work-out site as a potential pick-up spot, I was reminded of the story of the rugby players and the tea cups, or how I earned the nickname Tanya Knockyourballsoff…

Real men play rugby... and drink herbal tea.
Real men play rugby… and drink herbal tea.

When I was in college, my father volunteered to help coach my school’s men’s rugby club. He had “professionally” and briefly coached a rival college team when I was in high school — I think he thought helping the fledgling club at my college would be a good way for us to “bond.” (I hoped this would lead to a hunky piece of arm candy,  while he hoped it would mean I would have a team of bouncers keeping other college men off me when I went out on a Friday night… much to my chagrin, my dad’s plan won.)

While my father was up in Riverdale teaching former football players how to tackle like real men, I was in the Varsity Weight Room in Morningside Heights with my female team mates… and the football team.

“Yesterday, I worked in an extra set of push-ups with the 25lb plate,” the girls and I were swapping training stories one afternoon when my father offered to play the part of father and give us a ride back to campus after we came north to watch a rugby match.

“I really like the new plyometeric work-out with the resistance bands the trainer gave us. Think it would be too much to do that with the other lower body work out we’re already doing?”

“Did you see the plan for next week? 150 abs warm-up. I can’t wait!”

etc.

My father, who couldn’t help eavesdropping burst out into almost uncontrollable laughter.

“What!? What’s so funny? Get a hold of yourself, you’re going to drive into a lamppost,” I shouted.

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Getting good at picking things up and putting them down was how I earned the nickname Tanya Knockyourballsoff

“Well, it’s just, 15 minutes ago I was standing in a huddle with my rugby players,” he started. “There was this big 6’4 Greek, a 6’2 body-builder, and your buddy ‘Bruiser,’ and they were swapping tea advice — you know, green tea versus oolong versus herbal, cups versus mugs, ceramic versus cast iron pots. And now, here I am, in a car with my daughter and her girlfriends and they’re talking about kettlebells and how much they can bench press…”

“Dad, might I remind you we’re not just any girls. We’re athletes.”

The following week my father sent me a note to say one of his players was in a bluegrass band and that I should go to his concert.

“He likes tea and plays the guitar. He’s sensitive… but he’s also one of our best guys on the frontline, so he can pick things up and put them down. You can talk to him about how many burpees you can do, Tanya Knockyouballsoff.”

Tanya Knockyourballsoff was, according to Dad, a Russian female shot-putter. My affinity for kettlebells, apparently, inspired this new nickname…

Meanwhile, I put his note about the burpee pick-up line in the “shoulda listened to my father” column, along with his suggestion we open a father-daughter business together — a gourmet hotdog shop called Kat’s Dawgs… maybe next year #FathersKnowBest

 

 

 

 

The Dates that Teach you to See Differently

On By KathleenIn Breakups, Dating, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Is that my date? I said to myself. Is that my date LEAVING before I even get there? Am I being stood up? Does he think I can’t see him under that umbrella??!?!?  I pulled the parking stub out of the muni-meter, threw it on my dashboard, and clomped the half block to the steps of the Met.

This was my first time in heels since tearing a ligament in my knee exactly one month and 7 days earlier — I was already regretting the decision.

Pause. Set scene. Flash back to a year ago this August:

I had cashed in a sick day to catch-up on medical bills and made the decision to rain check dinner with an old flame in order to make time in my weekend for a first date. This move was out of character for me — when I give someone space on my calendar, I don’t bump them for “a better deal” — but in this case, it was a choice between looking back and moving forward. Even though dinner with my ex promised to be platonic (and fun), my gut told me I should move forward.

It was in an effort to move forward, after all, that I committed to a one-month, full-paid membership on “How About We.” I gave myself 30 days of open waters fishing. What got caught in the net was a tall, sharp-witted, Ivy-League, UES-inhabiting “Construction Worker.” The Village People stand-in showed intelligence and a sense of humour in our exchanges — he didn’t get thrown back into the sea.

Meet me at the Met
Meet me at the Met

The Met museum would be the site for this first rendez-vous, and as I made my way to 5th Avenue and 82nd, it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what this guy looked like.

What had won me over was a sense of humor and obvious intelligence. The handful of profile pictures gave me no real sense of his appearance, other than that he was brunette and tall enough to see the top of my refrigerator. That wasn’t enough to help me pick him out in a crowd.

I found a parking spot off Madison on 82nd. I sat in my car waiting to purchase my parking ticket, when I stepped out to see a vaguely familiar man in blue gingham walk right by me, half looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

Oh, god. Please let that not me him. 

I was reasonably sure I was being stood up, but I was a few blocks from a friend and knew I’d be able to muster a plan b if Mr. High Rise had pulled a runner.

Oh, no. It’s him. I let out an audible sigh as the man in the blue gingham and the umbrella walked towards me in the Great Hall, hand out-reached and a sheepish look on his face. That’s right, bud. I caught you. I assumed his showing up meant I had at least earned a check in the “looks” column, and for that I convinced myself I was flattered.

The truth is, generally, I don’t like museum outings as first dates. To me, walking around the hushed galleries, swapping insights, is an intimate experience. Gut told me this was a bad idea, especially when our pre-date phone conversation went something like this:

“You live on the upper east side? We could meet at the Met.”

“The Met?”

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

“Errrr….”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Yea…..”

“You’ve been there?”

“Maybe? When I was in college?”

Standing in the great hall, staring up at a seemingly friendly giant who had absolutely no preference which way we headed, I suggested we move towards Greece. As we fumbled our way around the Museum, we fumbled our way through each other’s back stories. I thought I knew that museum about as well as well as the back of my hand, but as we walked together, we happened onto nooks and collections I didn’t know existed. Meanwhile, he impressed me with simple but insightful reminiscing — the tile work here reminded him of the tile work in this hotel in Egypt. Did I know this pattern stood for this, etc.

We were ushered out with the final museum patrons.

I could go on about the rest of the night, but I’ve already gone past what I’m pretty sure is most blog-readers word count attention span. And so I’ll hurry to a conclusion:

Despite the facts that he wasn’t my type, he almost stood me up and a few other warning signs, we dated for nearly sin months and broke a lot of rules together (“Stay Out” signs were recommended suggestions.) For the most part, I forget we ever happened, but standing in the Met last weekend, wandering through the Charles James exhibition and some of the other wings, I flashed back to our first meeting and realized: There are people you meet in your life, and people you date who teach you to see differently, who literally show you new things about yourself or about the places you thought you knew.  But sometimes, to let yourself see, you have to go against your better judgement and accept the consequences of being just a little more enlightened.

Considering “Speed” Dating

On By KathleenIn Dating, Love, Mr. Right, relationships2 Comments

As a rule, I generally mistrust people who just meet me and decide they like me. You say you want to get drinks sometime? That we should go here or visit there? Why? What do you think I can do for you?

This is, of course, an unhealthy reaction, but it’s also the by-product of being in a position in life where people generally DO want something from you — like my economics problem set or a solo exhibition or access to myroladex or a no-pants dance party.

So, not surprisingly, when a date expresses interest to see me again tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, I balk. But unlike professional relationships, there’s more to it than a skepticism in the sincerity or intentions behind his enthusiasm.

Cut to scene:

I’m sitting on a corner stool at the counter at Diner, a vintage diner done slightly upscale in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, munching on northern-style southern-style fried green tomatoes, recovering from 3 hours of over exposure to glaring sun, swapping life and dating updates with JC, the requisite “big brother” figure every girl needs to have in her Little Black Book.

(Aside — if you’re a single female in Williamsburg, you have exactly 4 dating options: Mr. Tattooed sleeves, Mr. Bearded, Mr. Tattooed Sleeves and Bearded, or stay single. Apparently, diversity is not counter-culture’s strong point.)

His flame of less than a month was proving a challenge for a number of reasons.

“We’re seeing each other once a week, at best.” He started. “She’s going away. I’m going away. She wants to spend the long weekend with her mother. We live 4 miles apart but that 4 miles is an hour and a half commute.We’re dancing around the issue that we’re just not hanging out. I’m sorry, but I want that big, all-in romance. Where you see each other 2, 3 times a week.”

I wasn’t sure if the scowl I felt forming on my face was visible yet, but I’m pretty sure my “that’s just silly!” made my point.

By “that” I mean the sentiment that it’s perfectly reasonable to expect someone you’ve just started seeing to give you three days in the same week.

In past generations, “walking out” with someone was a weekly occurrence, not a 3x a week event.

When our parents generation was dating, couples saw each other once a week, on weekends. That was sufficient. We seem to need someone’s constant availability to feel like we’re in a new relationship.

To me, that’s jumping the gun.

We live in an age of over sharing and hyper exposure. We move fast. We sign one year leases. We put in 18 months at one firm before we start searching for an opportunity at the next firm. Problems are solved with the swipe of our index finger and the aid of a logarithm. We live in a city that never sleeps and offers endless opportunities for the next best thing. We strive for bigger paychecks. We clamor to build ever-expanding networks. We believe relationships of all forms can be forged on social media or at a cocktail party, and forget that real meaning builds over time.

As someone who has dated guys who have absolutely no out-of-work interests, I wonder about a person whose calendar is so void of commitments — work, family, social, community service, whatever — that they can just squeeze me, a relative stranger, in at beep of a text message. I have things to do, why don’t you?

More over, I’m skeptical about someone who is so fickle that they can make me the single most important thing in his life and toss out everything to make time for me. I haven’t earned a listing on your “favorites,” so why are you bumping drinks with someone else to meet me for dinner? What does this mean for an “us” in the long run? When will I get bumped for a better offer?

It seems to me, we date like we’re hyped up on amphetamines –we date on Speed. It’s all hot and passionate for a brief while and then it fades. We’re on to the next, and it’s the same. There’s no building smolder. It’s just on, at full intensity. And then it’s off.

While I’m flattered by your enthusiasm, and yes, I want to see you 10 minutes after we say good-night too, I just can’t believe this is a healthy way to get to know someone.

When I look at the most successful couples I know, they began slow and steady. Their approach to dating was “old school.” Some didn’t even like one another when they first met. It took the prodding of mutual friends and gradually spending time one on one to make the relationship blossom. In one case, it was a long distance affair for months, and when the two were finally sharing the same zip code, it was months before they started seeing each other 2 or more times in the same week.

I’ve survived both the slow build and the intense fire. While so far neither approach has got me to a happily ever after, it was the relationships that developed over time that were more satisfying while I was in them, and more painful to lose.

To wrap it all up, I think you need to earn your place in someone’s life. Yes, there comes a time when it’s reasonable to expect spending a whole weekend together, or several nights a week, but not at the start.

We expect Platinum privileges when we haven’t even earned Gold Status.

Take it slow is old advice, but perhaps there are reasons why it’s endured so many generations. Balance and restraint are surprisingly sexy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Giving Up the Gun, Or What the Psychic Said

On By KathleenIn Dating, insights/observations, Love, New York City, Uncategorized1 Comment

Once upon a time, I impulsively dropped $75 on tarot card readings.

That’s right, in an 18 hour period, 2 different psychics had their way with me and the entire contents of my wallet.  What, in God’s name, was I thinking?

At the time, I was broke, uninsured, verging on broken-hearted, and in serious need of a disinterested 3rd party’s reassurance that “Everything will be alright.”

I just didn’t plan to lose $75 for that reassurance. Luckily, neither psychic really told me what I wanted to hear.

The first reading happened at night, in the back of a French restaurant on red leather couches outside the restrooms. The psychic, (a man!), didn’t want to waste any time on assessing my career. After a flash reading, he determined there were no uncertainties there. I knew what I wanted, and it was only a matter of “when,” not if I ‘d get it. He looked at me sideways. “Tell me about the guy… he’s been around a while hasn’t he?”

Caught.

I quickly related the story of the guy I met as a freshman in college, became best friends with, and accidentally and mistakenly fell madly in love with. After 7 years and dozens of close encounters, we were toying with the idea of becoming something more.

My psychic dealt the cards and though he slowly deciphered their placement and relation, he quickly painted an accurate portrait of the relationship between me and HIM. The slow build up. The intellectual underpinnings. The unbalanced emotions (“he’s the one that has all the feeling”). The punchline? Drop him. “You’ll have a long and stable romance, but you’ll lose something of yourself,” the psychic said. “If you leave him behind, as in drop him entirely from your life, you’ll get everything you really want.”

While I was less than satisfied the less than specific assurance about my career, I was devastated by the suggestion to drop the love of my life (up until then.) So of course, I sought a second opinion…

The next day I met my girl AB for lunch at Crema, a nouveau Mexican place on 17th street in the heart of Chelsea. In those days, Chelsea was still the original Hell’s Kitchen, home to the most beautiful beef-cake gay men and flamboyant drag queens. Crossing the street was the equivalent of perusing a visual candy store… but it was not the place to pick-up straight men making it the perfect neighborhood for a girls-only girl date.

It only took one bite of our flautas and 2 margaritas for me to convince her that we needed to have our palms read across the street, under the neon glow of a giant sign that screamed PHSYSIC. That day Madame was offering a deal: free palm reading with tarot.

I honestly can’t remember what she told me — she may have promised I’d meet my soul mate before the end of the summer or that I’d have a job offer tomorrow — but I do remember AB and I sitting in City Bakery an hour later, sharing  chocolate chip cookie and wondering if we’d just been had.

We pooled our remaining cash (#brokegradstudents) and bought another cookie — for when in doubt of life’s next step, chocolate usually solves the problem more certainly than a foggy crystal ball.

Chocolate has all the answers. (Image from the City Sage)

 

The Boy Who Played with the Brontosaurus

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Dating1 Comment
They say opposites attract… well, we were very attracted opposites

“I don’t understand why you’re still single,” Vince said to me after our first kiss.

I was undeniably smitten.

On paper, there was nothing about the two of us that suggested any kind of compatibility. I was the 25 year old Ivy-Leaguer, All-American athlete with a career in the arts and a passport with more stamps than pages to fit them. My motto was “you rest, you rust.” Vince was the 30-something former state-school frat boy whose sport was beer pong and whose great ambitions were to grow old, fat and retire to Florida.

Our common interests began and ended with the New York Yankees and a love of laughter. The former brought us together, while the latter seemed to inspire a closeness and familiarity with one another that was entirely unfamiliar, at least to me. It wasn’t love at first sight, and he didn’t have me at hello, yet from our first shared drink to our final kiss, every moment felt like a moment spent alongside a long-lost bosom buddy.

A few days after our third date, I got a text message that would simultaneously verify he was serious and mark the beginning of the end of our budding romance:

“I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but when you have some time, give me a call. There’s something I want to tell you about myself because I like you so much.”

I panicked.

I knew I had counted my hens before they hatched. Sure he lived with his mother. And sure, he had an anxiety disorder that meant he had a fear of crowds, but he assured me a new prescription meant he’d be up for coming to an exhibition opening. So what was it that he had to tell me before we could go any further? A thousand possible scenarios ran through my head.

Maybe he wanted to warn me about how fragile his heart was. Maybe he thought he liked me more than I liked him and didn’t want to be disappointed.

Maybe he lived with his mother because he had just been released from prison, serving time because he had taken the fall for a fraternity brother who stole a keg from a gas station.

Worse! Maybe he was really a Red Sox fan.

In all the “maybes” I conjectured, it never occurred to me that Vince was a father.

“I wanted you know sooner rather than later so you have the chance to get out now, before I fall any harder.”

A bizarre mixture of relief, confusion, and attraction knocked the wind out of me and I paused to take it all in. I was 25. I had avoiding being in a serious relationship, and yet here I was, falling for an older man who came preloaded with a family. Could I handle that?

“Well?”

“Don’t think you’re going to get rid of me that easy.”

Vince’s son knew his dinosaurs from A to Z

With a chuckle, we both exhaled and he let the walls come down. He began to gush. He revealed that having a son forced him onto the straight and narrow, that his heart broke when the boy’s mother took him away to California, that every night he would read “Dinosaurs A to Z” to his son over skype, and that his adult life was as much shaped by the daily absence of his son as by being a father.

I was flattered by desire to let me in. I was touched by the tenderness and pride in his voice. Most of all, I was relieved he didn’t have a criminal record.

Children and I have a notoriously tenuous relationship. In theory, I want one, but not yet. But Vince’s suggestion that I meet his son had my mind wandering. The zoo, the dinosaur halls at the American Museum of Natural History – all of a sudden, I was planning family-style afternoon excursions and making mental notes to pack extra sunscreen so the little tyke wouldn’t get sunburned.

A few more dates happened. Sitting along the Hudson one unseasonably cold summer night, he  told me his son was coming to visit him for a few weeks. When I got home, I went to my bookshelf and pulled off a beautifully illustrated fantasy book about worlds where men and dinosaurs co-existed. It had always looked funny next to all the Jane Austens and John Steinbecks. Vince and his Brontosaurus-loving son would appreciate it better. I wrapped the book in paper mottled with baseball caps and catcher’s mitts, stuck a flirtatious “I just can’t resist temptation ;)” card with it, and set the package aside for our next date — his birthday.

There was no next date.

Like so many before and so many will after, our relationship quietly evaporated until we officially ended with an apologetic/well-wishing set of emails.  He had decided to be a father, and that meant picking up and moving west. Of course, I understood. I’m not sure we ever would have made it much further than we got, but it doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes wonder what he’s up to, and if his son still likes the Brontosaurus best.