Little things

Bernice and I were loading our shopping bags into the car when she turned to me and said “Well, now I can see why Bienstock is ready to kill you.”

“Why?” I asked. “Wanna bake cookies later?”

“‘You told about five strangers that you’re going to China with -” she paused- “your boyfriend.“

“Boyfriend,” I repeated, smiling.”I just got new underwear to take on a trip with my boyfriend.”

I have been single a long time. And while I am in NO position to dish dating advice, I will just say this: David is nothing like any guy I have ever gone out with. He listens to classical music and cooks and when we hiked to the top of Bear Mountain he wore long underwear and climbing shorts. Everyone else was in jeans. He doesn’t care that I talk to Bernice 10x a day. And when we do stuff in the kitchen, I never have to ask him to help with the clean up. He just does.

I waited hand and foot on the Bad Canadian. I’d ladle the food onto his plate and do the dishes while he’d watch television with his hands tucked behind his head -feet kicked up coffee table. When he wanted to go to bed, we went to bed. In elevators he’d push ahead of me and he always took the booth at restaurants. I’d sit there in my chair noticing all the other girls were in the booth, and wonder if he noticed too.

The Bad Canadian and I once took a winter vacation. I wanted to go to Mexico. But he wanted snowboarding and so off we went to Colorado. The day we got there? It was his son’s birthday. And when they lost his bags, he kept saying, “this happened for a reason.”

Each day I went to ski school while the Bad Canadian went off on his own. He never helped me into my boots or skis. My friend Sara did.

******

After the Bad Canadian came clean about being married, Sara called me in the middle of night.

“I need to tell you something,” she said.

“Are you pregnant!?” I shot up in my bed.

“You fell in the middle of the road on the patch of ice,” she said. “And he didn’t even move to pick you up.”

It’s so sad, but I didn’t remember. I think a normal girl would remember if she fell and her boyfriend didn’t pick her up. She’d say something to him like, ‘you a-hole!’ But not me. I was used to it. I wanted to marry that. I didn’t think I deserved better.

During the last two months, there have been lots of moments I wanted to tell you about. But here is one: We were traveling all day in the rain and snow. And when we finally got back to his apartment building, there was a holiday party going full swing in the lobby. I was cranky. And hungry.

“Can we just go upstairs?” I asked. “My hair is frizzy. I’m not in the mood.”

“You look great,” he said,  leading me to the table with snacks.

And then he did he did this.

He dipped a chip in the guac and handed it to me.  And just like that-  all I felt was happy. Headache gone.

I know it sounds like the littlest thing, giving someone the first chip – but to me it was huge.

Finally I am starting to get it.

——

Please check out my friend Karen Porter Sorensen’s book: Love (luv) n. Karen is a love researcher and her work has really touched me. Here is a link to her blog on Huffington Post: Looking for Work, Finding Inspiration

new blog

new blog coming really soon! have been having a crazy week

I did it again

I like looking at pictures of people who have gained back their weight. When a big girl gets skinny I’m constantly monitoring for signs that she’s chubbing up again. Then I can say to myself: “See! It’s not just me.” And I can make up excuses for why not to start another diet. “What’s the point when it never sticks?” Instead I think I will just sit here on the couch and look out the window at the rain and eat this Pad Thai.

In the past year I packed on weight, but good.

I wish I could be one of those happy fat people that proudly displays her Christmas ham arms in a slinky spaghetti strap top. When I wear sleeveless dresses, I walk around with my hands on my hips. This is supposed to create a leaner silhouette. “You look crazy,” my best friend Bienstock always snaps. And then I get huffy and storm off. Bienstock doesn’t understand. Bienstock is tiny. She doesn’t know what it is to be completely aware of your body every single second of every day.

I wouldn’t dream of exercising without a shirt tied around my waist. Too much jiggling. I pull down on my shirt so my tummy doesn’t peek out. When I signed up for a trainer in 2006 – I asked for  a woman or an unattractive man.

“An unattractive man?” The guy behind the desk at New York Sports Club asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I won’t tell him.”

Skinny girls love talking about their hot trainers. Of course they don’t make sweat puddles. They don’t stagger off of their machines gasping wildly. They glide fresh-faced off their treadmills – ponytails swinging, legs showcased in shorts as short as tool belts.

I adored Janice the trainer. She whipped me into great shape. Every time I saw someone I hadn’t seen in a while, they would say: “You look fantastic!” Followed by the inevitable: “and so happy! You’re glowing.”  I was. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night just to try on my size 16 pants and watch them fall off. I was proud of me. My closet was filled with eights.

Then story of my life: the weight came piling back on. And I’m back to dodging my reflection in mirrors and buying sweaters to cover my bum. In September, when I spotted the *Bad Canadian, my first thought was: “OMG! I hope he didn’t see me looking like this.”

It’s no way to live.

So here I go again. In March I am running a half marathon. My partner: eight dates.

I am terrified that I’ll have to drop out twenty-minutes in & terrified of running in front of that many people. But today I dragged myself to the gym and I jogged a mile. Just a mile. And I felt so good after ward. I crossed a little finish line.

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*My boyfriend who turned out to be married

Fifth Date

When I checked my email Friday morning and discovered our fifth date would be salsa dancing, I forgot about my oatmeal cooking on the stove and hit reply. “Dear David: have you ever seen a baby bopping around in a diaper?” But instead of  clicking send, I picked up the phone and called my mother.

“Oh, no!” Bernice gasped. “Dancing?”

“Yes,” I said, grimly.

“Maybe you should be honest,” she  said. “Maybe suggest another activity.”

Then the smoke alarm went off.

My freshman year of high school I was in Annie. I had one line* and a dance tutor. If the tutor didn’t work – they were going to have to cut me from some of the dance numbers.

“You’re just not getting it,”  Mr. F. said. “We don’t know what else to do.” Jan the choreographer had volunteered to work with me. “Jan has a special needs background,” he told me. “You’re in good hands.”

Jan had me meet her in the auditorium before homeroom. I came in sweatpants rolled up to my knees like in FAME. I was ready to work.

“Rachel, pay attention,” Jan said, exasperated. “You’re not watching me.”

The routine was a cross between a polish folk dance and the running man. I hadn’t mastered the YMCA.

“I’m watching,” I said, “I really, really am.”

“Eyes on my feet,” she said. “You need to at least try.”

Jan quit after two sessions.

But Annie was a cakewalk compared to the kids production of Chorus Line.

After the first day of tryouts, Tammy the director, called me at home. Tammy was a meatball of a woman with straws of penny-blond hair and a wardrobe that consisted of floral leggings and scrunchy socks. She took the show very seriously. At any minute we could go to Broadway.

“You know Chorus Line is a dancing show,” Tammy said. “Ballet, jazz, tap…”

“Yes,” I said. “I bought tap shoes.” I had been wearing them around the house just for fun.

“I’m concerned about this, Rach,” she said. “You were dancing to a completely different song than the rest of the cast today.”

I twisted the phone cord around my finger, slunk down in my chair.

“Do you want me to quit?” I asked, bursting into tears. “Because I can practice after school every single day. I got a boom-box and I have the Chorus Line soundtrack.”

Somewhere in a box exists a tape of me flailing around in my bright pink leotard, the chubbiest kid in the play. Tammy placed me strategically in the back row, practically behind the curtains for all the group numbers. She also had me wear a long-sleeve denim shirt as a cover-up.

“You’ll feel more comfortable with the top,” Tammy had said. “The other girls are so tiny! It’s hard. Isn’t it? It’s hard.”

It was hard and it is hard. But I have missed out on too much because I feel self-conscious about my body. About my lack of rhythm.  So on Friday I did something I haven’t done since I was 22-years-old: I danced sober with a boy.

David spun me around and a guy named Juan showed us how to move our hips. And I didn’t care if I was doing it wrong.I had fun.

If I looked silly – he didn’t say.

And tomorrow? we’ll have our seventh date.

Here I am outside Bembe telling these people they are great dancers

PS: this happened today… it was my Facebook status update

a dignified looking man just walked out of a hotel, lifted his leg and ripped a fart that made my dress blow up. it like stopped construction. then he chased after me screaming,”hey! miss! u farted!” I couldn’t tell if he was kidding.

*My line in Annie: “It’s a dead mouse!”

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best friends

I am very good naming goldfish and getting lost. If the cab driver doesn’t drop me off in front of the destination, I end up in the bad neighborhood. And ever since I was a little girl I’ve felt the need to make eye contact  with the homeless. This voice inside my head says, “just a glance,” and then the glance turns into a stare because I’m fascinated by their duct tape shoes and umbrella homes. Recently I’ve started shaking hands with the homeless after I give them money. As I walk away I always imagine my touch has made their day. That to them I am Angelina Jolie. Then I go to work and wash my hands for ten-minutes.

Another thing I am good at is falling in love with my best friends.

In the eighth grade I had it really bad for Matt R. When he gave me a plastic baggy filled with Swedish fish, I knotted the bag in a pillowcase and slept with it close to my face. I couldn’t bear to eat them.

But even sweet Mike wasn’t able to see past how I looked. He wanted my friend Becky who looked like the Noxema Girl because of her perfect curls. Every day we’d talk on the phone. “Hey, Rach,” he’d say, and my stomach would do flip flops at the sound of his voice. “Becky sat next to me in Math today. I love watching her play with her hair.”  Then he would ask me to tell him something funny. And I would make him laugh.

The hope was, that one day Mike R. would realize I was the one for him. That okay, maybe I wasn’t classically beautiful, but I was easy to talk to. And loyal. I would have settled for being his girlfriend in private. Becky didn’t see the things I did. She didn’t appreciate him. I still feel that way a lot.

In graduate school it was hot Jeremy. He was a drinker and a big word user and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t understand his stories. “So similar to David Foster Wallace!” the class would muse during fiction workshop, and I would sit there doodling vegetables with faces. Nobody understood what we did when we were alone together. This is it: He would cook dinner in my apartment and I would watch The Nanny. My brain registered this to mean that we were husband and wife.

I am incapable of having male friends.

One night, when our mutual friend Gary noticed me sulking in the corner while Jeremy was swaying with a piece of dental floss in low-slung jeans, he yanked me aside.

“Jeremy is NEVER going to like you,” Gary said. “You need to get it through your head that he is NEVER EVER GOING TO LIKE YOU. “

I swallowed.

“I’m sorry,” Gary said. “Someone needed to tell you.”

My best friend Bienstock had to do the same thing this year  but with Kevin.

Most people understand only 20% of what I say. But Kevin understood about 80%. And I thought that meant something. I stopped trying to date. And started to think like a rapist: All I needed was to get Kevin drunk in my apartment and let the magic happen.

“If he liked you more than a friend,” my best friend Bienstock said. “He would it known.”

“He says things in his emails,” I told her. “I’ll forward them to you.”

She didn’t see it the way I did. “Those sound very buddy-buddy.”

“You’re just being negative,” I said.”Are you sure you don’t secretly want him?”

Finally I flat out asked him. And it was not good. Not good at all.

Have you ever googled “Can you die from a broken heart?” I have. (According to Dr. Holly S. Andersen, the answer is Yes.)

It’s a beautiful story- the best friend story. But it’s not going to be my story. And that’s okay, because I’m starting to like option 2 more and more. I really liked it earlier this week when a certain someone was kissing me. But that isn’t the point. No matter who I end up with, I love the idea of a fresh start. A new beginning.

Check out my friend John Thomas. His work is unbelievable. My favorite: the love birds.

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YOUR STORIES: (thank you so much for sharing with me!)

“I have no guy best friends i have not been in love with. and i have not been in love with anyone who was not a guy best friend sigh. bad luck, i’ve had… i don’t ever know which way things are going, and wait til it’s definitely friends to see if the feelings had been mutual, if i even get the balls to ask. i’m  ALWAYS in the whole romantic friendships thing that dan savage talks about.”

“I had a very long history of falling for my male best friends — one of whom I lost my virginity to during a lengthy and soul-destructing Friends With Benefits situation — but I think the hardest to get over was (let’s call him) Mike. I met Mike while I was working at an ad agency, my first job after college. The first thing I noticed was that he was gorgeous — a cross between Tim Robbins and Matt Damon, very not-Jewish but my hormones didn’t care. We were both living at home and were totally miserable, so we would spend hours and hours of every workday talking, and then we’d go out to dinner after work and stay out until 11 p.m., and then start again at 9 the next morning. We hung out most weekends, he tought me how to play guitar, he fell asleep on my bed while I smoothed his hair, he bought me CDs just because, we never ran out of anything to say. Part of what we were chatting about so passionately was the women he had crushes on, but I always held out hope he’d one day realize we were perfect together. Which, of course, pretty much never happens, but hope is sometimes a very strong, very dangerous emotion. At one point, I finally broke down and told him how I felt. He took it well and gently explained to me that he just didn’t feel anything more than friendship for me, that it wasn’t “there” for him. We both accepted it and moved on without missing a step. But it hurt like a bitch and made absolutely no sense to me at all.

One day a few months before I moved to New York, we had The Perfect Day. We got started early and drove to downtown Detroit to see the Heidelberg Project, which was a residential block of houses and yards that were painted all varities of colors that you would never paint your house, and were decorated with shoes and hubcaps and doll heads and tires and countless forms of recommissioned junk that all together created a living art space. There had been movements for years to try to dismantle Heidelberg, calling it an eyesore, but it attracted all kinds of people to come and check it out and take photos. For me, it was a new excuse to go down to Detroit, as Detroit had become a city you needed an excuse to go to. It was fascinating, and it was a gorgeous February day, so we spent the good part of an hour or so walking up and down the block, totally overstimulated by what we saw. On the way back to our neck of the woods, I took him on a tour of my youth — the house I grew up in, my elementary school, the swimming pool where I had birthday parties. We went out for a sushi dinner, then headed back to my house where we played guitar and fell asleep and he left around 5 a.m. Nothing physical ever happened.

The emotional high point of that day for me was at the tail end of my Youth Tour. I took him to the synagogue where I grew up and where I would eventually get married. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous building, and the aisle in the main sanctuary is one of the longest in Michigan. He was very curious about Judaism and had long before borrowed the copy of “The Jewish Book of Why” that my dad’s lawyer had gotten for me for my bat mitzvah, so we walked around the building and he saw my old Hebrew school graduation photos on the  walls, I told him stories about where I would go when I skipped class, and then we headed into the sanctuary. At the front of the room are two towering stained-glass windows, several stories high, and with the lights off, the entire room was splashed in this eerie color. We walked down the aisle together to the pulpit, and I read him some Hebrew from a piece of paper left on the lectern. I kept thinking, “Oh my gosh, this is what it would be like to marry him.” Funny thing is, I re-created the same tour for my husband while we were dating, during his first trip to Michigan, and I took him to the synagogue, which was lit just the same as it was the day I took Mike. As my husband and I walked down the aisle, he took my arm and said, “This is going to be us one day.” It was totally different.

It took me moving halfway across the country to get over Mike. For several years after I moved here, he’d visit all the time. Sometimes he’d drive from wherever he lived and we’d head out to Coney Island or secluded beaches out by the airport. We went to the theater. We once spent an entire day sitting on my couches reading while, on TV, helicopters searched for JFK Jr.’s missing plane. For the first year or two after I’d moved, we’d regularly clock four-hour phone conversations, often finishing the New York Times crossword together. Eventually during his visits, I’d feel less and less, be less and less concerned about what I looked like and how much weight I’d had to lose before he came. And then I met my husband, and all bets were off. One night before I moved in with my husband, Mike was in town visiting while I had a girlfriend from London staying with me. He was supposed to spend that night at another friend’s place, but things didn’t work out and he came back to my place around 2 a.m. or so. My girlfriend had the couch, so Mike crawled into bed with me, in my husband’s spot. It was the first time I’d ever spent a whole night in bed with him, and we spent the entire night talking talking talking until the sun came up. I admit to getting the chills a few times during that night, but it never occurred to me that something should happen. The next morning, my husband came over to spend the day together. He saw Mike in his spot in my bed and I told him what happened.

“No problem,” he said. “Can he come with us today?”

We’re still friends, though we only talk on the phone not even a handful of times a year. I miss him, but we’re busy. He lives in L.A. with his wife and two children. I’ve become friends with his wife and she gave me tons of great advice when I was trying to get pregnant; my husband is in his rotisserie baseball league. When I got married, Mike signed our marriage license as a witness. To this day, though, I never thought he was right: I never thought we wouldn’t make a great couple. I’m glad things worked out the way they did, but every time I see him, even if I don’t feel anything anymore and I know that I have something far more special and strong than anything Mike could offer me, I know why I fell so hard for him.”

“he was my best friend. but he was always a little too short. and i couldn’t imagine having good sex with a man who so loved peanut butter sandwiches.
to make a long teen drama short, he began dating a friend of mine at the end of our senior year. she was a junior and had slept with his best friend, yet she told everyone she was a virgin. he was about to lose his virginity to her, and thought she was losing hers to him.
thinking i was being a friend, denying to myself that the thought of this peanut butter lover actually having sex with someone else would kill me…i told him that not only was she not a virgin, but she has slept with his best friend.
neither of them ever talked to me again but went on to be together for 3 plus years.
now, he is marrying my best friend from kindergarten. not even the same girl im talking about.
disaster.
am i over it? yes. but…what if…will haunt me. i imagine.”

” I had a MASSIVE crush on my best guy friend in high school. Sadly, he had a massive crush on my older sister. He was my age and in all my classes. He was 6 ft 2, dark hair & captain of football team and basketball team. The whole tall, dark and handsome package. He was incredibly intelligent and knew that he wanted to be a doctor (specializing in pediatric surgery becs he loved kids–sigh!). I used to go out after football games with him, to movies, dinner, the local amusement park, summer camp, etc. I remember buying matching shirts and asking him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. We went “as friends.”

I was beyond devastated when he asked my sister to the prom and she said yes….I could have cared less what her dress and fancy updo looked like. I went to the dance w/someone else, but mostly watched them dancing all night. When my sister left for college, he and I started dating, but it never worked out. We fought all the time & we knew EVERYTHING about eachother so it was easy to say really hurtful things in the heat of the moment. Plus, I hated being seconds. People who say that dating can ruin a great friendship are soooo right. I don’t buy the “When Harry Met Sally” dating theory.  The guy was my best friend for 7 years and we never talked again after the day we broke up. Of course, I am now married to my best friend, but when we met we were total strangers. We became best friends while dating. No history or childhood memories together. Just us writing our own story as we go along “

“I was head over heels for a very good guy friend of mine in high school. We tried to hook up once, but it was a total disaster. I could not do it and he was “alllll in!” So, needless to say he was angry with me for a long time afterward and we did not talk for quite a few years. We have since found each other again- I am married. Now, I believe he is in love with me, but its waaaaayyy tooo late for that.”

“Mike and I had known each other since preschool, but didn’t become friends till my sophomore year in high school. He was a dorky freshman, which made him seem like a very safe crush. We struck up a conversation on a bus ride back from a double header day of games – he was the catcher for the baseball team and I was the catcher for the softball team. I had hurt my ankle and he held the ice pack on my ankle the whole ride home from Staten Island (a truly horrid place).

That evening I got advice and courage from my best girlfriends and eventually called him and made plans to hang out. Much to my dismay he was a perfect gentleman, not even remotely romantically interested in me, so we developed a painfully platonic friendship. From that summer on we were together or on the phone all the time. He knew I wanted more and I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Despite the platonic label we would walk arm in arm, hold hands and engage in other G-rated activities. Everyone thought we either were or should be a couple – but him.

We continued on this way for over a year until the fall of my senior year of high school. My mom was away most of the time due to a family illness, which left me with my own place. Mike spent almost every evening at my place. Finally during yet another evening of us cuddling on the couch and me wanting more – he leaned over and kissed me. I honestly felt like I was dreaming. Things progressed very quickly from there, and we dated on-and-off, but mostly on until a couple weeks before my graduation from college. Living in different states and growing into different people took its toll on our relationship over those years, but I was entirely unwilling to let him go. Finally, a couple weeks before my college graduation he sent me an e-mail telling me it was over for good. He didn’t return my NUMEROUS calls or e-mails. I was devastated.

The hardest part about the breakup was not the end of a doomed relationship, it was losing my best friend at the same time. With a “normal” breakup you turn to your best friend to get you through pain, but I couldn’t do that because I had lost both in one fell swoop. About a year after the breakup Mike e-mailed me to wish me a happy birthday. We spoke a few times and actually met once for lunch.

When I met with him as a 23 year old, I had the same butterflies in my stomach that I did when I was 15 and talked to him for the first time. The sporadic e-mails eventually came to an end when I told him I was getting married. He wished me the best and the part of him that was my best friend truly meant it. I now have a wonderful husband and children; however I still can’t think about Mike without tearing up. So, while falling in love with your best friend can be wonderful, it can also be painful whether it turns out to be unrequited or not.”

Popular

The popular girls pushed two lunch tables together and wore white t-shirts on class picture day so everybody knew they were friends. I was an expert on their lives: when Lucy K. started peeling the stickers off her oranges and sticking them on her Spanish binder, I started doing it too. But I did it at home so she wouldn’t know I was copying her. It was seventh grade.

They were like collector dolls, the popular girls. Each one had a different talent. There was the blond soccer star and the one who was almost cast as Cosette in Les Miserables. The good dresser. But the one thing they had in common was that they were all beautiful and they were all hard to talk to. “G-d made a mistake when he made Jessica pretty,” I wrote in my diary (4/15/91). “She is really mean. If I were pretty I would be nice to people and I wouldn’t talk about my sleepover party in homeroom so everybody who wasn’t invited had to hear about it.”

Most of my hostility was directed at Olivia and Betsy, my best friends who I transferred to public school with in the seventh grade. They were supposed to let me tag along and make it okay for the other girls to like me.

But on the first day, Olivia stopped me when I tried to sit with her in cafeteria.

“What are you doing, Rach?” She asked. “It’s sort of crowded here.”

“But I don’t know anyone,” I said. “Please.”

Just one week earlier, we had peeled cucumber masks off each others’ faces in her bedroom.

Finally she slid over. But only after she sighed loudly.

“I have Mr. G for math,” I said, unwrapping my sandwich. “He’s a nightmare. Does anybody else have him?”

When I looked up, everyone was staring.

“Um, sorry,” Jessica said, raising her eyebrows a little. “We were sort of talking about something.”

What they were talking about, was a mother-daughter shopping trip to New York City.  And now matter how hard I laughed or nodded or agreed nobody invited me to come along.

Afterward? I wrote Jessica A NOTE apologizing for interrupting her. A note. I told her I loved her dangly earrings. Then I wrote Olivia thanking her for letting me sit at the table and she responded that it was okay but I should really make an effort to branch out on my own because we were starting fresh.

I started thinking about all of this – not because I’m angry with Olivia and Betsy – but because I need to get this off my chest:

That summer I terrorized a girl named Debbie while I was at camp in Maine. I despised Debbie from the  moment I laid eyes on her: she was big all over with a frizzy chin-length tangle of black hair. Glasses that she was always leaving in the dining hall.

Her dream was to be a news anchor.

“Debbie, aren’t anchors usually little and blond?” I asked her.

My best friend Bienstock – who was in our cabin – likes to remind me of how I put Nair in Debbie’s shampoo. I feel worse about what I said to Debbie’s face. She never knew about the Nair. Her hair never fell out. It’s the stuff she might remember that is making me cry as I write this.

I have never forgiven myself.

And while I can’t go back – I can do this: I can be careful not to treat people badly because I am feeling badly about myself. It is hard sometimes.

At camp, Debbie shared the contraband candy that her mom sewed into the belly of a stuffed monkey. She wore a Disney t-shirt to the social. One night when I found a spider in my bed, Debbie picked it up with her fingers and brought it outside. “Charlotte’s Web!” Debbie said. “You can’t kill a spider!” That is what kind of person she was. A good one. She wasn’t popular and she didn’t care either. She is exactly who I want to be friends with.

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My favorite mints.  You can eat anything & you won’t taste/or smell gross. eatwhatever

Also: If you’re in San Francisco. Moonbabycakes are to die for. better than any cupcake I’ve had in NYC

Full speed ahead

My last boyfriend, Pete insisted on sleeping with two laptops and peed in a pickle jar next to my bed because he was afraid of falling down the stairs. Everything made him anxious: Mosquitoes. Humidity. Leaving his apartment. And to top it off: he wanted me to weigh three hundred pounds. “It’s not a fetish,” Pete explained to me when I confronted him about the obese ladies on his Facebook page. “It’s a preference.”

But here’s the thing about Pete:  he was really, really good looking and I liked toting him around. He was my trophy. Except as our relationship wore on, all I saw were the callouses on his fingers.

“I think we should break up,” I announced on day 54.

“Okay,” Pete said.

“Okay?”

“My blood sugar is low. I’m hungry,” he said. I could hear him typing. “I need to eat something.”

“Shouldn’t we discuss this more?” I asked. Even though I had absolutely no desire to be his girlfriend anymore, I was hoping for a little drama, some sniffling that he would try and pass off as a cold.

But no. Pete just wanted to get off the phone and eat a sandwich.

*

Pete said “I love you” on our second date. It was a muggy June night and he kept grabbing my hands and kissing them wildly.

“Do you love me back?” Pete asked.

“We hardly know each other,” I replied. I didn’t know Pete’s middle name. Or if he would save me the last bite of dessert. Or that he was insane.

“I see you for who you are,” Pete said, “This has never happened to me before.”

I shuffled my feet on the ground and stared at my toes. I cried when the Bad Canadian told me he loved me. Same with my college boyfriend Rich. Hearing the words too soon was like reading a rich, gorgeous ending to a novel without knowing the characters.

But at the same time it felt good enough. I felt relief come over me. Someone loved me. I was done dating!  So that night in the park, I rested my head on his shoulder and I lied, I hoped the feeling would come to me.

After six years in New York City I’ve come to the conclusion that men want to fall in love just as badly as women do. One good date and suddenly the boy is calling every night. He wants to know your family tree. But after two weeks, something shifts. The spell is broken. This is when the initial excitement wears off and he realizes things are moving too fast. He barely knows you! “Listen,” the boy says, “You’re a great girl. But we need to pull on the reins here.” He’ll make you think it’s your fault. It’s not.

I believe guys are born without brakes, and it’s up to us to set the pace. This goes for sex stuff too. I believe the best relationships unravel slowly. But I believe this too: when you meet the right person none of this stuff matters.

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My hilarious British friend is figuring out how to date American-Style… check out her blog.

Recycling

Every once in a while, I convince myself that a ghost from the past is the one who got away.

I’ll think, ‘You know, that Jason was always so sweet to me.  Maybe I just wasn’t ready for a relationship. I think I’ll send him an email.’ And then my best friend Bienstock will point out, no, Rachel that wasn’t the reason, it was because he constantly had diarrhea.  You could smell his BO on his couch pillows. You weighed more than him.

Suddenly we’re writing back and forth, fun flirty letters and it’s exactly what I need in a dating drought. A little lift. All I remember are the good moments.  And the bad ones? I shake them out of my head like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Inevitably someone will tell me a story that goes like this: “My fiance had to chase me for years before I realized he was the one!” “Physically he wasn’t my type. But then one day, Rachel, I realized I couldn’t live without him.”

“I have a feeling that is going to happen with [JEWISH NAME],” I’ll say, giddily. “He really GETS me.”

But as soon as I see him & smell him- I remember. I remember why I told him, “listen, maybe we’d be better off as friends.” And no matter how many pep talks I have with myself in the bathroom- after the check is cleared and he says – “wanna come up to my apartment and watch a movie?’ my response is always: “How about we do one more bar, first?”

I’ve noticed my male friends don’t doubt their decisions. They will end things with a girl and never look back. “She wasn’t for me.” And that is that. They aren’t thinking OMG! That could have been my LAST CHANCE. What I have I DONE? No. They’re thinking I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with her anymore.

I revisited the really, really tall guy who took me to see a comedy show. After ward I stalled outside asking a man with a mini-pony a million questions like, “what does the pony eat? where does the pony sleep? Does the pony like wearing his sneakers?” Because I was afraid my date was going to try and kiss me on the way home.

There was Mr. Positive. I’d get into his car and he’d boom: “Who looks beautiful today!?!? The LOVELY RACHEL DOES!” “WHAT MAKES AMAZING RACH SO AMAZING!?! She cares about people!” (in his defense I was having a hard time with my parents’ divorce and I think he was trying to give me a boost). “I keep going back to him,” I wrote in my diary – “because I think he’ll be a great father.” The problem was that he made me really, really nauseous. Literally. I started throwing up before our dates. A wave of nausea would hit me and BAM.

Most recently I gave it a few shots with Jacob who spoke in a falsetto. The day we met was the day my rabbit Archie died and he was doing everything he could to console me. But the sound coming out of his mouth was comparable to a toddler banging away on a Baby Grand. “Do you want me to get you another rabbit?” He squeaked. People were staring at us. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really grieving. Do you think we could skip dinner and just finish our drinks?”

When I got home Jacob sent me an instant message. “HAD GREAT  TIME. WOULD LOVE TO COOK DINNER FOR YOU. SATURDAY?

He got the better as friends note.

But Jacob and I work in the same building and one morning when I was ordering my coffee I heard him. I heard the voice. “Hi,” I said. “Hi,” he said.

When I got to my desk Jacob had already emailed. Why are you going out with him again Bienstock demanded.

“Because,” I explained, “It’s not his fault that he has a falsetto voice. And If I want someone to see past my imperfections, I need to see past theirs.”

“Okay, Rachel,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You just wait,” I told her. “I have a really good feeling. He’s very smart.”

“Right.”

“He went to Harvard Law,” I said. “He wants to make me his specialty macaroni and cheese.”

Our last rendezvous ended on the sidewalk with him shrieking”YOU.CAN’T.KEEP.TOYING.WITH.ME!” before speeding away into the night with his peacoat hanging out of the taxicab.

On October 5, 2009, I know this: You can’t force yourself into liking someone.

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And check out my out my super-talented musician friend Austin Hartley-Leonard. He looks like Bradley Cooper. And when we were talking about relationships he said something really simple & really wise. “Just be nice to each other.” Austin Hartley-Leonard

Drunk dating

Some girls are great at dating even though they will say they’re not. These are the same girls who complain they are fat when they have bellies as flat as empty pillow cases. They know how to apply lip-gloss mid sentence and how to hold the shampoo smell. And they’ll nurse the same glass of white wine for an hour.

Okay. Gabe the cardiologist? He’s actually a psychiatrist. And he was obsessed with my date-drinking. “You get scared & you self-medicate,” he told me. That was the only thing he was ever right about. Put me at a table with napkins & a member of the opposite sex and I freeze. All of my thoughts empty out of my head like a pinata.

When the boy asks if I want a second drink, I always do! Because the first one somehow relaxes even the tips of my toes. My jaw loosens. I remember some of my words. I’m not as worried about what he’s thinking about me / or if he’s having fun. Suddenly I’m having fun.

This brings me to Graham.

It was October/Perfect night and I did something that I’ve vowed to stop doing. I started noticing all the other girls in the bar and comparing myself.  That never leads to anything good for me.

Four beverages in – I had a really good idea.

“I’m going to steal one of these pumpkins,” I announced.

Graham laughed. “You are?”

“Yes,” I said. “I would like a pumpkin.”

“We could buy one,” he told me.

At this point we were holding hands.

“I’d really like to steal the pumpkin,” I said. “I’ll just stick it under my cardigan.”

So that is what I did.

This is where things get really good. We took our pumpkin to a deli and carved it behind the counter. As the cashier snapped our photo I remember thinking, ‘this is the best date I’ve ever been on in my whole life!’ Then? It was off to South Street Seaport because I told him I’d never been and it was a lifelong dream! “lets do it!” he exclaimed.

We named the pumpkin David & left him on a payphone

We hit a roadblock at South Street Seaport. Nothing was open & it was starting to get really cold & I can’t walk more than three blocks in heels.

But then we saw light coming from a building, which turned out to be a party for the New York Queer Experimental Film Festival. “Wanna?” he asked.

When he turned around I text messaged my best friend Bienstock: “MET PERFECT GUY.”

Next thing we were rolling around in a pit filled with plastic balls and surrounded by happy naked people. Also I was drinking beer. I felt beautiful that night.

Everybody kept telling us what a cute couple we were. “You two look like you’ve been together a long time,” a guy wearing nothing but angel wings told us.

Graham winked at me.

At midnight we found ourselves in a small dark room with three lesbians in chains paddling each other and a shirtless, old man with stringy gray hair smoking a joint on the floor.

“This is so weird,” I whispered.”I kind of want to go.”

Graham leaned in and stroked my cheek and then he kissed me, sweetly. Perfectly.

We kissed all the way home in the cab.

Before I stepped onto the sidewalk, Graham took my hand.

“Rachel,” he whispered. “This was such a great night.”

“Perfect,” I whispered back.

When I got into my apartment, I threw up.



The next week we had our second date at a restaurant. There were no pumpkins. I came straight from work in my work clothes. He didn’t look the same. He didn’t look at me the same. We had nothing to talk about. He didn’t think I was funny anymore. It was a horrible. horrible.

“From now on I’m limiting myself to two glasses of wine on a first date,”I told my friend Joe recently. “Liquor makes everything seem magical.”

“It took you this long to figure that out?” Joe asked.

“Yes,” I said.

I’m a slow a learner learner, but I’m gonna get there.

(If you have any advice. Please post.)

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I can still get butterflies

Eatery. 798 9th Ave.

Jared was waiting in a dark corner booth. My heart sunk when I saw he was with a friend and they had ordered without me. But I made my way over and flopped myself down at their table. Smiled widely.

When I looked up, I realized I didn’t know either of these men.

The real Jared was at the bar.

We hugged a long hug. When we pulled away my heart whispered “I remember this.” And just like that I was filled with hope knowing that I can still get butterflies. It’s been so long I was starting to worry that I’d never feel them again.

Jared suggested we move to a table. So we did.  On purpose I sat far away. I just can’t get too close to him.

When our salad came he picked out all the good bites for me. “I’ve really missed you,” he said, pushing a forkful of lettuce and cheese towards me. “I know I keep telling you that.”

“Why are you all the way over there?” he asked. You could fit a washing machine between us.

I inched towards him and then he did it: Jared finally noticed my boobs. It was quick and I can’t be sure he wasn’t just adjusting his eyes – but it was 100% more than than the time I wore a low cut dress and got my makeup done and he sat there YAWNING.

And suddenly it hit me: he was finally over his ex wife. He was finally over Meg.

Meg wasn’t white & she wasn’t Jewish and it was hard for his family. You would never know they were divorced from the way he talked about her.  “Meg comes off as tough,” he once told me, “but she’s so soft inside.”  He would jpeg me pictures of her nieces and nephews. “Aren’t they adorable?”

After the waiter took our plates, Jared handed me his Blackberry to show me a photo from his trip to Kenya. And that’s when I saw the name at the top of his inbox: Meg. It was the last email he had received & it had an attachment. And my first thought was: It’s a shot from Africa. He didn’t go alone. They went together.

“Maybe we should get going?” I said. I had to get away. I could feel myself spinning into crazy mode.

On our way to the cab I stopped to pet an English Bulldog but Jared hung back.

“What’s wrong?” I asked afterwards.

“I don’t like Bulldogs,” he shrugged. “They’re a little messy. Just not my favorite.”

“I’m messy,” I joked. But I wasn’t really joking.

I let him walk me to my cab. But I stuck my hand out and I hailed it myself. And when he hugged me goodbye I pulled away first.

I always got the feeling Jared wished he could love me because it would make life easier. He knows it would make his parents happy and he wouldn’t have to hide us. On paper we make sense. But I am not seconds anymore. I deserve better than that. I kept repeating that to myself as I climbed into bed alone that night.

At dinner Jared & ate I too many appetizers, and one of those 20,000 calorie salads that has crunchy things mixed in. For dessert: red velvet cake. If anything, he is bad for my diet. We always overeat. And I never feel good when I’m done.

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