Dating : After a Busy Week

Monday

“I am not taking shots,” I said. “Come on, this is the whole reason we came here,” he told me. Well, that is the reason YOU took me here. Even though I told him that I was starving, he took me to this tiny bar at Astor Place that only served alcohol. “Their special is six shots for $12,” he explained. “I told you I wanted to eat something.” “Well, we can drink here first,” he replied as the bartender laid down six shot glasses before us. We had met at a networking event and gone for a few movies together. It was always fun discussing films but there was nothing else. Then, I asked him for an interview for the essay I was working on, about Millennials, and he said we could do it over drinks. So, here we were, sitting before three shots of whiskey for him and three shots of gin for me. I honestly thought we were just friends. Is it normal for friends to go to a bar where I would be forced to take three shots with an empty stomach? I had a frustrating thought that he might be trying to take advantage of the situation. At that moment, I had two choices. I could get up and leave, or I could take three shots and still manage to get this interview. I chose the latter. It probably has been a reckless decision on my side. Thankfully, he was a talker and in the course of four hours, he talked on and on about his job, personal life, and past. I poured down the shots one by one while carefully trying to shift the conversation along the lines of Millennials. As I stood up to use the restroom, I could feel all the alcohol I had consumed catching up to me. Around 11pm, we each had finished one drink and three shots. I asked him, “okay, can we go get a slice of pizza around the corner now?” He said yes. As we said good night at Union Square station later, he said, “oh your interview, we did not even have a chance to do that. I am so sorry.” I said, “well I got what I needed.” On the subway heading home, I am not going to lie, I felt a little proud of myself. I have not seen him since.

Tuesday

I met up with two young Millennials my friend introduced me for the interview. They were in their early 20s, friendly, and emitting this energy that only younger adults were equipped with. What I thought profound, however, was how insightful they were. They knew how to articulate their thoughts while maintaining their youthfulness. I am not sure if I was as capable as them when I was their age. I was moved a little to find the younger generations navigating their ways to fight back the stereotypes of Millennials. One of them enthusiastically declared that “she would like to speak up on behalf of her generation.” They were still very much young though. One of them confessed to me that he would often use Instagram actively to catch the attention of his crush. He said he would include some selfies with ambiguous texts. How adorable that is.

Friday

I left work around 8pm and headed to Lower Manhattan. I was to meet a guy for the first date. I met him at an event in Midtown on the weekend prior. I remembered that he was kind of forward, sitting right next to me. When we were deciding where to meet, he suggested we meet at a street corner. I felt it a little strange, not specifying a venue. “Where are we going?” I texted him. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise” he texted back. Then I was a little alarmed. I asked a friend if this sounded suspicious and she said, “yeah, that is kind of scary.” So, I texted, “I do not like a surprise.” He replied, “it is nothing scary, just fun places”. At that moment I had two choices. I could just refuse to meet him, or I could take a chance and see where he would take me. I chose the latter. Yet this time, I devised an escape plan. We were to meet at 9pm, so I asked my good friend to call me at 10pm to check up. When I met him, however, he took me to a speakeasy for drinks, then a lovely Mexican restaurant next door. I was relieved and texted my friend, “I don’t need a call anymore.”

Sunday

I met up with a friend for dinner near Times Square. We were to catch a musical The Band’s Visit and decided to have dinner at Izakaya restaurant beforehand. We had first met through a mutual friend who could not make it that night because of her fertility procedure. This mutual friend was a little older than us two. She had been going through the fertility treatment for a while. She told each of us the importance of preserving our eggs just in case we decided to have babies later on. “It is better to be safe than sorry, you know,” she had advised me over Vietnamese food in Greenpoint. I was not even sure if I wanted a baby, but I saw her point. Back at the Izakaya restaurant, we discussed our dating lives and how hard it was to meet a great man. No, we actually complained how hard it was to meet even a decent man. When our conversation moved on to our mutual friend’s advice, we suddenly felt so weary that the troubles with our dating lives now had to include the worry about conceiving.

The Band’s Visit was lovely. The musical was quiet. I know it is a strange adjective to describe a musical, but that was exactly what it was, a quiet musical. It was a story about waiting. People wait for a change. Someone to change their mundane everyday lives. Something to remedy their entangled relationships. A bus to take them in the right direction. One character that particularly stuck with me was a guy standing before a paid phone. He was waiting for a call all day from his faraway lover. Later in the musical, he sang about longing, the longing each of the character shared. As I listened to the song about yearning for connections, I could not help but reflect my life. In this busy city filled with people, we are all same as this guy patiently waiting for a phone to ring. It might be someone we long for, the future we are dreaming about, or simply a bus that would take us in the right direction.

At the end of the busy week

This is really just a recount of my particularly busy week from last summer. I did not find an answer to anything, or I even wonder if I learned any lesson that week. Yet, I occasionally remember that particular week and the somewhat epiphany I had. I have met various people in this hectic yet exciting city. Some were unexpectedly nice, others disappointing. In any case, I cherish every single experience I have been through. Perhaps, that week has reminded me that struggling in life might just as well be worth it.