I hate to keep switching allegiances as quickly as Joe Lieberman but the stories we’re getting in our latest question contest just keep getting better and better. Today’s favorite comes from SantaMonica08. Good stuff, Maynard.
NYC circa 2005 (or sometime around there)
I met D. through my best friend’s boyfriend. We hit it off immediately and I was not surprised to hear a long-winded message from him on my voicemail two weeks after our initial meeting. After laughing at his nervous and slightly neurotic message, I left him an equally embarrassing message in return. Several rounds of phone tag later we decided to meet for a drink in the East Village. He was not sure of the name of the bar so he told me to meet him at the corner of 10th and B at 8:30pm. Going on the fact that he lived in Brooklyn and wanted to meet on a corner in the East Village, I deduced that he was a pretty casual guy so I threw on jeans and a pretty casual shirt. He called around 8pm to tell me that he was running late and he would meet me at my apartment at 9pm instead.
The first thing that he said to me when he hugged me hello was “change of plans, we are going to the Ritz.” I muttered something about not being dressed appropriately and he just smiled and said that I looked beautiful. We jumped in a cab and headed for Tribeca.
The bar was on the top floor and we had a view of the Statue of Liberty as we sipped Lychee martinis and ate wasabi peas. We talked about our mutual love of all things Japanese, our views on religion, and the business that he was starting. I told him about my brief stint at a hippie commune in Northern California and my obsession with Reykjevic. Our conversation about travel segued into a discussion of our penchant for hotel rooms, and before we were even through our first drink he was asking the concierge if there was a room available. I could not believe that I had found someone as strange and spontaneous as myself. In retrospect the move from first drink to hotel room seems a little hasty, but since he had asked me to marry him after the first half hour of our date, this seemed to be a natural progression.
He came back and said that the room they have may “not be for us.” I laughed and asked if it were a honeymoon suite. He said it was a $4,000 a night room and he was really curious what it looked like. After creating a fantasy picture of fluffy terrycloth robes, pay per view, and mini-bars, we couldn’t let the dream die and headed further south to the Tribeca Grand.
D. marched to the front desk like a man on a mission and asked the employee behind the counter if he had a room available, and in fact he did. We were at the pivotal point where our fantasy could become a reality. “Last chance.” he said. “Book it” I said enthusiastically but told him point blank that I would not be sleeping with him, at least not in the biblical sense. He took the room and asked the man if there was someone who could marry us in the morning. The man laughed and handed him the key. D. went to get us a table for dinner and I excused myself to make a phone call to my sister, informing her that I would not be coming home.
I returned to the table where we shared an amazing meal and laughed in disbelief that we had actually rented a posh hotel room when I lived just 20 minutes uptown. I felt like I was on vacation, not just geographically, but psychologically- I was on vacation from my predictable life.
When he opened the door to our room he shot me a look like a teenager on prom night, excited and a bit unsure. As planned we immediately threw on the terrycloth robes, cracked open some Heineken from the mini bar and ordered up ice cream- two flavors. The fantasy had now become the reality and it was hard to believe that it had only been a few hours since he appeared at my apartment to take me out on our first date. We laughed and kissed and fed each other ice cream in some sort of euphoric buzzed state.
I turned over at 6:45am to find him wide awake. “Are you freaking out yet?” he asked. I just smiled and laughed “not at all,” I said, deciding in my head which one of my friends I was going to call first. We mused about going to a spa or brunch, not wanting the hedonism to end.
He rode with me in the cab to my apartment, making future plans along the way. Knowing that it would be nearly impossible to top the previous nights date, we decided to do something completely low key the following weekend- drinks in Brooklyn. He dropped me off and kissed me goodbye. Both confused and excited, but mostly tired, I went upstairs and climbed into bed.
The fantasy hardly ever lives up to the reality, but in this case it did…at least temporarily. I had been warned about connections that start out with such fiery intensity. The budding relationship deteriorated somewhere around the third date due to overbooked work and dating schedules and I was ultimately left with nothing but a great story to tell.
