Challenge II: Looking at Life (and Men) through Big, Used, Vintage (Rose-Colored?) Glasses (Part the Third)

When the sixth bell rang, I took my own heart, now tender after my interview with such an innocent soul, and went to the bar for another beer. By this time my glasses had gone from snug to unbearable. They had the hemispheres of my brain in their unforgiving vice grip. I decided at that point to designate the first six men I had met as the "experimental group." I would thus be permitted to shed the glasses and conduct my final six "dates" sans specs. The latter six would make up the control group.

Slipping my disguise into my purse, I looked up and batted my eyelashes against the fresh, barrier-free air. In doing so I met the glance of another bar-goer. He smirked and started stroking the strange sculpture that some bauble-loving interior decorator had been loony enough to poise atop the bar. It was an onyx-colored concrete cat.

"Shhhh!" he hissed at me. "He's sleeping."

This guy, evidently a speed-dater who would make his way to my table after our intermission, won me over immediately. I don't know if it was his affection for the concrete cat, his coarse Boston accent or simply the booze taking its toll, but I decided to lay my cards on the table.

"You know...Eric," I said, pulling up on his droopy collar to see his name tag. "I have a confession to make. I'm here under false pretenses." I then proceeded to tell him about everything--the glasses, the "reflection paper" I planned to write, theeeeese fooooooolish games that I had been playing with everyone.

"You're an impostor," he grimaced, seeming genuinely peeved that I would dare intrude upon an event that others were taking very seriously indeed. I tried to defend my behavior, albeit unconvincingly, by claiming that I really *was* having a good time, and that I was so taken by the experience that I decided to chuck my project altogether and just live in the moment--as myself.

I wanted to change the subject. I felt I had injured him.

"That cat." I pointed to the chinks in its smooth surface. "It's all scuffed."

"Like my ego, knowing what you tried to pull here tonight."

He was clever. There's nothing more attractive than a clever man. I may never fall in love at first sight--that phenomenon is a total crock. But I fall in love at first well-timed, acerbic quip about once a week.

When the games resumed, he ended up sitting with me straight away, so we got to continue our conversation without interruption. I was afraid I had fallen forever out of his good graces and I spent the duration of our interview trying to claw my way back in. But if he did believe that I had profaned the event, his resolve to make me pay for my affront wore slowly away, and he eventually opened up.

"Yeah, I thought it was kind of a joke at first, too," he finally conceded, referring to the speed-dating ritual. "My ex-girlfriend used to run these things, and she'd beg me to come join and be a seat-filler. That's when I realized how fun they are. I started asking her if I could be a seat-filler all the time. Then she broke up with me for a guy she met on one of the nights I wasn't there for."

"Wow. That's a book waiting to be written."

"Or not."

"Yeah, or not," I concluded.

The bell rang and Eric got up to sit with the femme fatale at the next table. Yeah, every guy who survived his five-minute commerce with me got a prize: five minutes with the supermodel sitting to my right. Red hair, full lips, no glasses, all legs. Eric and I...hadn't we forged something--a dream, perhaps--during the 13 total minutes we had spent together? So what happens to a dream deferred? A dream deferred because he got to go ogle a voluptuous maiden? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? In other words, how long would the moment that Eric and I shared stay foregrounded in his mind? For how long would the memory of me--my laugh, my imposture, the concrete cat--remain crisp? Wouldn't it just dissolve as the image of this new, stunning specimen of a woman washed over him? In other words, what's the shelf life of a memory of ME? I go to Safeway about once a week and I generally get the same cashier every time. Even though he reads my name from the receipt--"Thank you, Ms. Str..etcher?"--he doesn't seem to retain any recollection of my person. So my guess would be that my face can linger in another's consciousness for about three minutes. Maybe four. Five tops.

So blah, blah, more of the same, more of the same.

I scampered out as soon as time was called on the last interview. I was hungry and excited to dish to Jon and Jay. (I wanted some fucking French toast.)

A note on Jon and Jay...
Like the secondary stock characters in Shakespeare's tragedies, these two may appear at first glance to play minor roles in the drama of the evening. In reality, however, they ended up being the spokesmen for Truth, uttering the maxims and advice that will resound long after this weblog has gone defunct. For example, when we broached the issue of a famous rapper--I no longer remember whom--Jon actually said "He's been pimpin' since been pimpin' been pimpin'." Priceless.

So now for an ugly confession.

A despicable thought took possession of me as I was speed-dating. While I was entertained by the likes of Doug and Sam, I sensed within my heart, within my soul (or wherever my reckless pride is housed) a depraved kind of pity for them. The poor things, I thought. I couldn't help but feel that, unlike them, I, Sarah, would never actually need the mechanisms of speed-dating to find a relationship. I loathe myself for letting this attitude animate me that evening. That said, it DID lubricate my interactions with the men; since I wasn't really looking for a date--I could totally get one on my own--I didn't do and say the stupid, awkward stuff that you do and say when you're seeking someone's approval or reciprocity.

Why, you might ask, was I so deliriously unconcerned with their reactions to me that evening? Simple. Floating in the warm, whimsical seas of my fancy was the image of Josephus. The very Josephus whom I would dream about later that night. I've been crushing on him like crazy-and-a-half (in my sad, pathetic, taciturn way) and had been given subtle hints from him that seemed to indicate a mutual attraction. I thought I had him in my back pocket, you know. Sewn up in a little bag round my neck. Whatever we had together was immature and still very much at or even below the initial flirtation stage, but it would develop into something...right? It had to! Meanwhile, I thought, who gives an F about strangers at speed-dating events?!? I thought I would be seeing Josephus later that night. We would exchange sexually charged glances, I would be happy...right?

Wrong.

When Jay, Jon and I got to the party to which Josephus had invited us, we found the latter with Babette upon his lap. Yeah, they were pretty much dry humping at the kitchen table. Of course that's not the truth. Impartial observers would have seen a couple sitting at the table together and talking cute. Through my lovestruck, thunderstruck, supersauced lenses, I saw more...much more. Whatever innocent canoodling was going on was blown into monstrously pornographic proportions. I had to look away.

I flew into a blind though silent rage. Then I got sad. "So I guess I need speed-dating after all! I'm just as crippled in the looks department and wanting in the charisma department as your average Doug! Oh, I'm lost and to be pitied!" This is what my insides were screaming.

I vented to Jay and Jon. I reviled myself, I confessed, for being so pitiable and love-starved. I reviled myself even more, I continued, for being too proud to reject the stigma associated with on-line and orchestrated dating. I was caught in a vicious circle of self-laceration.

"You know what, though?" asked Jon.

"What?" I wanted the WHAT to be that Josephus was madly in love with me and that he was disgusted by Babette's persistent dry-humping attentions.

"It's hard to meet people. People don't speed-date and stuff because they're losers. They do it 'cause it's just hard to meet people."

He was absolutely right. His words were so right that they stung.

We left the party. As we walked toward the door, I was no longer feeling so cranky and unfulfilled. There was a refreshing, growing optimism in my soul, due in part to Jon's wisdom, Jay's companionship, Doug's heart, and the thought of a certain Eric and his concrete cat. I wanted to embrace humanity, to start afresh, to have a new and exciting dialogue with a stranger and put into practice the lessons I had learned about connecting to another person.

As we stepped out onto the porch in front of the party's apartment building, some people were smoking. One particularly sassy girl was talking about how it was her birthday. "Happy Birthday," I said, taking my new congeniality for a test drive. "Capricorn or Aquarius?" I knew she was Aquarius. I just asked because it felt more clever than anything else that rose to mind. "Aquarius." "BOOOOOOoooo!" I jeered. (I'm a Capricorn.) If it is true that it's simply hard to meet people, it's equally accurate that we all utter the stupidest stuff for the sake of seeming like sociable people with interesting things to say. I actually "booooed" at someone because her star sign was different than my own. Classy, real classy. You know what a "boo" is? It's a malediction, a potent, poisonous malediction.

"Omigod," I thought. "How do you reverse a malediction? I must reverse it!"

I scrambled for words.

"Well. Bless ya!"

That's what I said to her as I took leave of the smokers. I could hear them making fun of me as I distanced myself. "Bless ya? Bless ya? Ha ha ha ha lol lol lol etc. etc. !!!"

Growing furious, I screamed. I don't know what I screamed. Ask Jay, he might know.

"Bless ya!"

I've never said it before and I'll probably never say it again. I wrote the words above but I can barely even look at them now. The only thing I want to do with those two words is this: I want to tattoo them onto the calloused pads of my feet and then donkey-kick that smoking birthday girl in the face. I want those to be the last words she reads before getting disfigured.

Then I felt ashamed of my self-consciousness. I should have let her snide remarks roll off my back. I mean, I make fun, we all make fun. It feeds us--it's our bread and wine. We exist to be the objects of one another's mockery.

So the night of speed-dating and misadventures came to an end, but not before we stopped at the Doubletree Hotel in Burlingame and stole a tin of welcome cookies.

"Last night was fun," I told Jay in the morning. It definitely sounded more like a question than a conviction when I said it aloud. I was actually terrified at how I had behaved, and I worried that my childishness had gotten in the way of Jay's good time.

He agreed, then paused.

"You had some crazy mood swings."

I laughed. It made me feel good to hear him put it so delicately.

So...

In light of The War on Perfect, what purpose did my Crash Course in Speed-Dating serve? Well, after a few days, Cupid.com posted my compatibility results. I had spoken with 12 daters, right? Each had been asked to indicate on-line whether he wanted to talk again, or whether he'd prefer to suspend commerce with me. Guess the fuck what!?! All 12 wanted to continue talking to me! Or at least all 12 clicked on the "Let's Talk Again!" radio button. With or without specs, I'm appealing? With or without specs, they're desperate? With or without specs, they need their green cards? I don't know what to think. I'm not sure if the experience truly helped me to feel more comfortable in this imperfect skin of mine. Not really, I suppose. I mean, that very night I dreamed that I was unworthy of Josephus, and worse yet, that I was unworthy of sincere affection. I'm clinically afflicted. It's going to take more than the Oregon Trail and Cupid.com to get me to slough off my perfectionist burden. O, but it weighs so heavily!

But the bi-weekly challenges will continue. Challenge 3 involves the following:
-Rush hour at the gym
-A capella stylings by yours truly

Arrillaga Sports and Recreation Facility, Thursday, February 15, 5:45 p.m. Be there.

Challenge II: Looking at Life (and Men) through Big, Used, Vintage (Rose-Colored?) Glasses (Part Deux)

So this gentleman, whose nametag read "Kavin," ordered a beer and asked if I had done "this" before. Nope! He hadn't either (or so he claimed). Kavin? I asked. Really? What kind of a name was Kavin? What terrible thing did the letter "e" do to his crazy stoner parents that would have led them to exact revenge by banishing it from their son's first name? One day he will meet some girl named Staphanie and they will live happily ever after. Maybe not Staphanie, the initial "staph" syllable is too evocative of other unfortunate "staphs/staffs," like staff meeting and staph infection. Jassica? As for myself, I've got all the correct vowels in the correct spots, so I knew it wouldn't work out between me and Krazy Kavin.

As Kavin and I made nice, I looked to see if my bespectacled face was making him uncomfortable. He didn't appear to be ruffled by anything more than the ordinary awkwardness that comes with socializing in general. I squinted about the place to take in the crowd. There were no trolls, no lepers, no maniacal haircuts, no strange odors. Speed-daters are normal. Speed-daters are just like you and me! The bell soon rang and I took leave of skatchball.

I sat at my assigned table and waited for the hottie parade to begin. My first victim was Mexican Sam, an ambiguously gay ballroom dancer from the East Bay. "Have you seen Mad Hot Ballroom?" I asked. This is really my only point of access into the world of ballroom dancing, so I thought I'd milk it. "Yeeees, I HAVE!" I motioned toward the high ceilings above us and whirled my head around to look at the all of the dating chaotics. "This is kind of a mad hot ballroom in and of itself, isn't it, Sam?!?" (Has anyone said anything stupider? EVER?) Anyway, I pressed on. "It's so fabulous that you dance! I could NEVER do that, I have NO rhythm!" I shrieked. Why, I wonder, is it part of my social repertoire to deny that I have any know-how or talent when it comes to what my interlocuter is interested in? I do this all the time. If they tell me they're into surfing, I'll scream "That's incredible! Oh, I could never!" and then I'll feign a zealous, dazzled, crackpot kind of curiosity, demanding that they tell me all about this or that hobby. "You kill people, like, in a serial fashion? Wow, that requires so much ingenuity, thinking of a theme and whatnot! I could never!" Someone could tell me that they read French literature for a living and I'd play dumb. "Oh my GOD, what is THAT like? I could NEVER!" I unwittingly give the other person license to talk about himself for ages on end, then I end up complaining that he was too self-centered. My bad. So Sam started banging on the table with a flat palm, keeping a well-timed tempo. "Can you do this?" he asked. I started banging in time. "Then you can DANCE!" By Sam's logic, cranky toddlers and hungry mental defects--the world's best bangers--are on their way to a career on the dancefloor. I was skeptical. But Sam was charming. Maybe we would have hit it off if I hadn't been fairly certain that he would have rather shared his green eggs and ham with Kavin, not myself.

Then came Ross. I'm generally not into blondes, but Ross was a vision. Jay and Jon had predicted Ross, the guy who was having trouble meeting the ladies because they were too intimidated to approach him. Either that or they assumed his GQ exterior was hiding a base, philandering personality. The devastating truth was that Ross was boring. That said, it was opposite Ross that I felt most uncomfortable in my specs, which just goes to show that physical beauty is universally unsettling for those who look upon it. And Ross, I sensed, encountered some difficulty coming to terms with a woman who would make such a poor eyewear decision. He sorta cocked his head to the side when looking at me--he needed to avoid the straight eyeline that led from his peepers directly through my hideosified glasses. Now that I think about it, though, Ross was wearing very high, very blue bluejeans. He might have been a Latter-Day Saint, which would explain everything.

Then came Todd, then came Phillip, then came Michael P., then came Doug. I will spare you the deets. Well, Doug deserves a bit of a paragraph. He was squat and pale, his shiny brown hair hung down to his shoulders, framing his shiny face. Really, his hair and skin--his coat, collectively--were genuinely brilliant. He must eat a lot of omega-3s, I thought. Or maybe he washes his face and hair in mayonnaise! I sniffed deeply in his direction to see if I'd pick up on a whiff of Hellman's. No Hellman's. Just fear.

Doug teaches biology at a community college near Berkeley. I asked him what his class was dissecting.

"This year we're looking at a sheep's heart," he said.
"No way!" I replied. "What ever happened to worms and frogs and such?"
"Yeah, we do those, too."
"Do you live in Berkeley?"
"No, I live in San Francisco. I love it. There are just so many oddball things to do."
"Oddball?"
"Yeah, I mean during the holidays I met up with this group of Santas."
"Santas?"
"There's this rogue group of Santas who dress up like Santa and do a pub crawl in Santa garb. It's awesome."
"Sounds awesome, Doug!"

The most discerning humanist, the most character-attentive novelist, the keenest eye for people COULD NOT have written a Doug. Doug was one of a kind. My small, beating human heart--quite unfit for dissection--leapt out toward him. He was loveable à ravir, kind, beautiful, unattractive in the most charming kind of way, quiet, generous with his spirit. I imagined his typical day. He wakes up in a lonely bed, then walks to the mirror and notices that the hole in the underarm of his Styx shirt is getting bigger--by now he can stick a whole bundle of fingers through it. It makes him feel so old and despondent that he wants to swear, but he says "Aww, man!" instead. Then he walks to the kitchen to put Meow Mix in the cat's bowl. Eventually he leaves to teach a bunch of young, unappreciative syphilitics about the left and right ventricles, the very core of the human organism.

This man deserves a queen. He deserves an angel. He'll find her, I tell myself. He will.

Challenge II: Looking at Life (and Men) through Big, Used, Vintage (Rose-Colored?) Glasses

Last night I attended a houseparty, an excrutiating little event to which Jay, my roommate, had invited me. While he isn't exactly boon companions with the hostess of said party, Jay is certainly on more intimate terms with her than I, who had only met her once before. It's always difficult to go to a houseparty when you don't know the host or hostess directly, when you're there as the "friend of a friend." You see pictures of your mutual friend on her strange walls, maybe the two of them are laughing and drinking. But the worst is that you're surrounded by strangers, though they are not at all strangers to your mutual friend. He works the crowd easily. He nods to his acquaintances, greeting them with a "What's up?" and navigating smoothly through this solar system of friends that you knew nothing about. Meanwhile you're fumbling to and fro, wondering if it's okay to put your drink on the table without a coaster, wishing your picture was on their strange walls, too.

So I woke up from a terrible dream this morning, which I attribute in no small part to my experience at the houseparty. This dream was so fantastical, it will blow your mind. ENTER THE DREAM SPACE. I was invited to a rehearsal dinner (at the very same apartment where last evening's party was held). The real-life hostess--let's call her Babette--was getting married to her real-life boyfriend, whom we wil call Josephus. Because Babette and Josephus had expressly requested the pleasure of my company, I was asked to sit at the star table during the dinner, right next to the happy couple. Babette's parents, I remarked, were fawning all over me. They had "heard *soooo* much about me," "were desperate to meet me"--these and other kindnesses were doled out in a sickly saccharine tone of voice, but for some reason I lapped them up like a love-starved puppy.

Babette's mom had heard I loved oatmeal, so she took me by the arm and led me into her kitchen.

"I have something to show you," she beamed. "You will go ga-ga. Oh, you're such a dear!"
She produced from behind her back a small kitchen appliance that looked not unlike the coffee-makers that grind your beans right before you brew.
"What do you like in your oatmeal?" she asked,
"Lots of stuff. Sugar, apples, nuts, chocolate."
She proceeded to empty a scoop of oatmeal, some sugar, apples, nuts and chocolates into the bin atop the oatmeal machine. When she hit the rocker switch to "on," the machine began whizzing, chopping the apples, dicing the nuts, boiling the oats and so on. The contraption made a kind of "ding" sound and she pulled the bowl of piping hot oats out from under the hopper, just as if it were one of those brokeass Nescafé machines you find in office break rooms. She bid me eat.
"Don't you just love it? Oh, I'm so glad you came!"
I don't remember if I enjoyed the oats or not, I don't think that the sleeping brain can register the taste and texture of dream foods. Though John David Stutts would have begged to differ, for his alter dream ego was colorblind, yet he was able to ascertain that he was eating lime jello during a dream because of its taste.

The oats were just one of many marks of appreciation that Babette, Josephus and their parents bestowed upon me over the course of the dream dinner. I swelled with pride and self-satisfaction as they continued to express how wholly they accepted and adored my presence.

At some point I stepped out into their foyer to stew alone in the warmth of their compliments. That's when I saw my dad, sitting in an overstuffed chair and looking forlorn. He was wearing a big, billowy polka-dot blouse.

"Aren't you having a good time, Dad?"
"Je suis l'invité d'un invité," he said in French. (I was invited by another invitee.) "It's not much fun when you're not intimate with the bride and groom," he continued, still in French. (This was perhaps the funniest and most curious part of the whole dream sequence. My dad doesn't really manipulate language very well, so it was hilarious to hear him speaking French so perfectly. In real life he can't even properly imitate Homer Simpson's "Doh!" Though not for lack of trying, I might add. He says "Duh!")
Anyway, I protested. "But they're lovely people. See how they're treating me? You'd think I was some sort of Danny Thomas!"
"I don't get that reference."
"Me neither. But look, they love me!"
"They HAVE to be nice to you," Dad explained. "That's the rehearsal dinner custom. If you're invited personally, they're obligated to dote upon you obsequiously. Those not invited directly get shat upon."

So that's how I found out that the wedding party wasn't really captivated by me, but that they were merely obeying some odd tradition. I felt ill all over, partly because I had been duped, but mostly because my big billowy dad was sad. I don't know what happened after that, but I like to think my dad and I left together to go get ice cream.

I didn't intend to record that dream, but I suddenly feel that it will serve as a good prologue to the present entry: The Post-Speed-Dating Recap.

In the afternoon preceding the event, I prepared my toilette as I normally do. I makeuped, blow-dried, and then tossed my hair into a messy up-do. As for my attire, I wanted to appear as if I was coming straight from my job, from some kind of classy urban workplace. I put on a dressy sweater, black hose and a smart skirt. Then for the pièce de résistance, a pair of thickly-rimmed, disturbingly vintage bifocals that I rented from Palo Alto's "Trappings of Time." I also bathed myself in Clinique Happy, for if someone is quirky in one aspect of their self-presentation, it's likely that they're quirky in another. So I decided to be that girl with the weird glasses who stinks of too much perfume.

Jay and Jon Jones drove me to San Francisco's University Club, a lovely building in downtown reminiscent of the Toledo Club. I clip-clopped up the stairs and entered the venue. They had a nametag prepared. I slapped it on, checked my look in the mirror and ambled into the bar area.

When I took my first sip of Sierra Nevada, I heard the unfamiliar sound of glass-on-plastic as the beer mug clicked against the frames of my unfortunate spectacles. This was real. I was really wearing goofy glasses in a speed-dating venue. "Don't get scared now!" Kevin McAllister m'a soufflé.

How are they perceiving me? I wondered, scoping out the crowd through the top half of my specs. Lots of pretty little Asian girls and dapper-looking men. The men were standing with their hands in their pockets. Were they thinking about boning? I think it would be awfully telling of male nature--to its detriment, I might add--if they had already been thinking about bedroom things. It was such an eccentric situation, there was a flurry of activity, no one quite knew where to stand or what to say. What with all that chaos, you'd have to be a real nympho to have bonin' on the brain at that point.

A young guy (of 27, as I found out later) approached the bar and engaged me in conversation.

TO BE CONTINUED...