So the other night I met a woman for drinks and after 45 minutes of terse chitchat she got up and walked away. "You know what, I think I'm just going to leave," she said as she looked from me to her empty wine glass and back again. My first clue that things weren't going to go well came when she vetoed my idea of going to a peach-colored yuppie bar to play Stranger Chicken (in which you take turns giving your companion dares to approach strangers and perform goofy tasks—bum a cigarette, grab an ass, convince them you're an astronaut…). Both the bar in question and the activity aren't to everyone's taste, but I thought it would be a fun way to spend a Friday night, whether or not we hit it off. Veto.
We agreed on meeting in some hipster alcove where conversation can be subconsciously guided by the Pavement song playing on the jukebox. I was less than enthused about the prospect of a "conversation" date, but went along for the ride. Nobody knows anything, after all. Especially when meeting strangers from the internet for a drink. I got to the bar a little early and, as instructed in her email, waited outside for her to arrive. I eavesdropped on three grad students talking about professors while smoking cigarettes. I debated for a minute about asking for a cigarette. K came riding up on a bicycle a few minutes later. I recognized her as she pulled up and gave her smile. "How are you?"
This was the next bad sign. She raised her eyebrows in acknowledgement and didn't say anything, instead walking her bike a few feet past me to lock it up. This tells me two things: I am less interesting than sticking a key in a U-lock; and I am not worth stepping out of K's comfort zone on a first date. Once K arranges her bike we walk inside. I'm already thinking things have to get better. There's got to be a rebound coming at some point. I am being over-analytical. There are probably dozens of reasons why our first impressions are going so badly, none of which need be personal.
Inside we stood at the bar deliberating on drinks in relative silence. K did not want to drink chardonnay or Budweiser. She settled on pinot grigio. I ordered a Manhattan. She got her wine first and headed back to the booth we had claimed on entering. I stood at the bar for another two minutes waiting for my drink to be made. This was strike 3. As I turned and started walking towards the booth I could almost see the ghostly letters strung out in neon above our table, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…"
As we started talking it seemed like K was offended by everything I said. I told her that Japantown creeped me out because it felt too white-bred. "But it's filled with Japanese people," she informed me. It wasn't a literal presence of white people that made my toes squirm, I elaborated, more the upscale hygienic flair the neighborhood had. The wide streets, clean restaurants with A ratings. The conspicuous absence of homeless people.
K wondered if I liked homeless people shooting up on my doorstep or passed out on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. I do, in fact. It's not that poverty is such a great thing, but it's an inevitable face of humanity that should necessarily be a part of any urban area. We are stupid and fallible creatures. Homeless people are a reminder that there isn't a net beneath us, should we fall.
As I went through all of this, boring myself, K kept taking big gulps of wine every time it looked like she was about to say something. I laughed at her. "You don't like any of this, do you?" I said.
Then we landed on poetry. She asked me where I was from. "Fresno," I said. She arched her eyebrows and took another gulp of wine. If you're unfamiliar, the central valley is to San Francisco what New Jersey is to New York; an execrable backwater. After inoculating herself against what I might come up with next, she asked me what growing up in Fresno was like. "It was okay," I said. There were bad parts, but good ones too. There is, and has been, a rooted poetry scene there for decades (Phil Levine, David St. John, Larry Levis, Gary Soto…).
I told her that poetry is a dead medium. I love it, have given huge chunks of my life to it, keep in close communication with those last few poets still burning the flame here and there. And still, the flame is dying, there's nothing left to say in poetry that will ever matter to more than a handful of people. Things have moved on to film (on its way out too), TV, music, online communities. This went over even less well than the bit about the homeless people. Apparently she still has friends who go to poetry slams and have plenty of interesting things left to say with the medium.
Okay.
"I feel like you're talking at me, not to me," she finally said after running out of wine. Hmmm. Here we go then, the end is near. I'm sure everything I was saying was about as interesting as comparing wood chip prices in a Home Depot. I had lost interest myself almost before I opened my mouth. And still, I didn't want to retreat. She had asked me questions, and I wanted to answer them completely, and honestly. Few people want honesty on a first date. Honesty a pretty idea, but an ugly thing in reality. We all have our own little kingdoms of truth and nobody likes to be confronted with their own walls in the first hour of having met a person.
K looked at her empty glass. There was nothing left to say. I didn't have any questions for her. She seemed to have a mountain of words for me, but none that she wanted to let loose for fear of instigating a confrontation.
And so got up, thanked me for the drink, and walked out the door.
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