I have just been stood up on a date I never agreed to go on.
How you ask?
Well this requires a little back story.
A few Saturdays ago I was dancing up a storm to some quality hip hop in the cavernous basement of a bar when a gentleman came up to me and asked me what I was drinking.
"Pabst Blue Ribbon" I said, then he disappeared.
A track or so later he reappeared, handed me a Pabst Blue Ribbon and before I had the chance to thank him, he disappeared again.
I was puzzled but not all that fussed. Plus I think the DJ threw on "Lions of Hip Hop" so I was immediately distracted.
A short while later he re-appeared in my orbit.
"So you buy a lady a drink then don't stick around long enough to ask her her name?" I said.
"Sorry...I didn't want you to think you had to talk to me just because I bought you a drink"
This response threw me off and drew me in.
And so began an hour or so of dancing and chatting.
I wasn't reading to much into this because my expectations of men had been significantly lowered through a recent string events.
The previous weekend had held a Friday/Saturday double header and on both nights I met a different guy.
Friday: at a Queen West bar, I was approached by a guy who said he has been watching me all night (I knew this as I had been watching him too, giving all the "come over here and talk to me" eyes I could muster)
He went on to give me a very flattering speech which he then concluded with "but my buddy is waiting for me outside so I gotta go"
Did not ask me my number, not even my name.
I was dumbfounded.
Saturday: at a party, strong & authentic Cuban rum was being passed around by party goers fresh from the sunny island and socca dance music was playing so loud the house shook.
This obviously lead to the inevitable late night dance party.
Again on this night, there was a stranger with whom I was vibing with.
4 30 a.m. rolls around, he has to work in 4 hours, tells me its nice to meet me, gives me a quick hug and moves on to his goodbyes with the others.
I was thrown.
Maybe I had entirely misread the situation ?
While waiting for a late night/early morning cab, my friend (and friend of the stranger) suddenly remembered "oh ya, so dude told me I should bring you around more often and he me wants me to give you his number"
Dumbfounded again.
What is wrong with these dudes that both of them had met a girl they liked, yet failed to do anything to get the girl?
What is wrong with me that I am attracted to these dudes?
This brings us back to the cavernous basement of this bar.
Dancing, dancing, chatting, chatting...waiting for the moment when my favourite track comes on, "hey this is my favourite track too!!!" he'd say.
Then we would stop and look at each other and see our life long happiness in one another's eyes.
This moment would be interrupted with him saying something like "I left my coat unattended on a table upstairs and its kinda expensive..soooo..seeee ya" POOF! Into the night!
BUT
This doesn't happen.
The bar closes down.
The ugly lights come on.
The friends I came with put on their coats.
I start in with "my friends are leaving so I should go"...to which he replies
"cool...um, do you think it would be OK if you gave me your number?"
"sure" I say too quickly, cheeks burning bright red.
I very carefully and thoughtfully recite my number (I have a friend who drunkenly gave out her parents' number instead of her own, and I fear I may one day do the same)
As I give him my number, I realize he isn't putting it anywhere.
He didn't program it into his phone, he didn't write it down.
I just recited it into thin air with a quizzical look on my face.
He then takes my hand, plants a kiss on it says it was lovely to meet me and he will " be remembering that number"
A little dumbfounded again, I fight back the urge to say "um..well...what if you don't?! Wouldn't this be a whole lot easier if you just wrote that down somewhere?"
But more so, I'm chuffed with myself for having broken the recent trend of guys bating, hooking and then choking before reeling me into the boat.
Monday (Valentine's day Monday to be precise) rolls around and a strange number shows up on my call display.
I pick up, and it is the Rain Man himself.
He did remember my number.
We chat quickly, I ask him where he is calling from, he gives a wafflely answer and moves on to something else. He asks if he can call me later in the week.
Sure.
Curiosity gets the best of me and I google the strange number.
Google says "a person calling you from this number is calling from Google Voice Chat"
....dumbfounded.
"Um, omg. He is totally homeless" one of my girlfriends chirps through wine tinted purple teeth.
"A homeless dude with a computer and internet connection?"
"um, heeeelllo??..Internet café!!!"
My other girlfriends then proceed to simultaneously dub him "no-known-address" and "g-chat."
Later in the week the weird number shows up again . I ignore it.
I am scared of what the reason for his using Google Voice Chat might be.
Later in the evening, strange number shows up again...now I am weirded out that he is calling with such voraciousness.
Ignore.
Later on, another unfamiliar number calls, but this one starts the same way as the phone numbers in the neighborhood I grew up in do.So I pick up.
Busted, it's"G-chat."
He explains that he had tried me a few times earlier in the evening but assumed I wasn't picking up due to the unknown number.
"Ya, I don't pick up weird numbers. What is the deal with the your weird area code??"
"Well, to be honest, I don't have a cell phone. I lost mine before Christmas and I decided I wanted to experiment and see what life without a cell would be. I call it 'cell-therapy.' "
Hmm.
"So this is your land line then?"
"No I don't have one of those either.I was thinking you would pick up your phone if you saw a Toronto number so I came down and used the pay phone instead! Damn its cold out here! Anyways, what are you doing this weekend?"
"ummm, I am kinda busy actually"
My mind is now reeling as I grapple with what kind of man, in a time where 7-11 sells cell phones and phone credit for under twenty bucks, stands in a phone booth and calls a girl?
He is a drug dealer and his line is tapped by the dudes from the fucking Wire.
He IS homeless and is using the pay phone outside the internet café.
He is married with children and his wife examines the details of each phone bill closely.
We end up chatting for a while and despite the scenarios running through my mind, he makes me laugh a couple of times and doesn't come off as that crazy.
Eventually I say I have to go, but that we should try and do something next week.
"OK, ill call you. Pick up when the weird number shows up on your display!"
I make a strange noise that mildly resembles giggling as I remember that this man is calling from one of the few phone booths left in the city and quickly hang up.
I tell this story to one of my guy friends who asks the question:
"if this dude had a phone would you think twice about this?"
"well... no..but the point is he doesn't have a phone!"
"oh who cares?!! he 's in between phones! he's a kooky free spirit! Its not a big deal! Stop acting a fool"
I tell the story to a girlfriend and she says "are you doing the thing where you automatically stop liking a dude because he is actually showing interest in you?"
I take this in and make an about-face.
I am now an open minded person, accepting of all people and their communications preferences!
Weird number calls back.We decide we will grab a drink sometime in the next week:
"cool, well I'll call you- (as if there is a choice) and we can set things in stone"
"okay, talk to you, um...then?"
Later this week, weird number calls.
I send it straight to voicemail. I am back in the office after several sick days and am in over my head playing catch up.
He leaves a message:
"Was thinking we could maybe do drinks tonight? I will give you a call back around 6:30 'cause you said you are usually home from work around that time. Hope you are having a nice day. Talk later"
I am immediately annoyed by the fact that I cannot call him back on anything to let him know this won't work for me.
Today is the first day that I have not spent 95% of it, horizontal.
My muscles have atrophied during my illness.
Walking from my desk to the photocopy machine requires a five minute cool down.
And when people speak to me it sounds just like when my hairdresser is washing shampoo out of my hair and simultaneously asking me to fill on what has happened in the 6-8 weeks since my last appointment.
My only solution is to wait for the 6:30 phone call, explain my predicament and suggest we do drinks tomorrow or over the weekend.
I feel guilty but remind myself that this was a "last minute invitation to which I am not even able to rsvp."
I get home, throw on my pjs in an effort to keep my resolve strong.
I throw in laundry, I hand wash and hang my delicates.
I throw on the stove, wash the dishes, make a salad.
My BFF calls, we chat about our respective days, I tell her "no-known-address" is calling soon and I am going to have to rain check his invite, again.
"So this is never gonna happen" she says.
We hang up.
Its 6:30.
Its 6:45. The chicken strips that go with my salad are ready.
Its 7:15. I'm done eating, Ben Mulroney is pretending not to be gay on the TV screen.
Its 7:30. Cojo declares Nicole Kidman worst dressed at the Oscars.
Its 8:00.
It's 8:30.
What. the. FUCK.
I am enraged.
I can't help but think, what if I had got that message and decided to be reckless? What if in spite of my feeling under the weather I had rushed home, showered. tossed on something casual cute then waited...Waited...WAITED.
I WOULD have been stood up. And COULD have been very upset about it.
Dumbfounded. Confounded. Perplexed.
I have just been stood up on a date that I was never going to go on??
For me this whole thing lost steam when google informed me a man I didn't know just called me from his computer.
Yet I forged on thinking I was just being a pessimist! or closed minded!
I heard the well meaning platitudes of those in my life worried about my descent into spinsterhood and muffled my own instincts.
The fact is, I think I should be allowed to maintain at least the minimum requirement of phone ownership when fielding potential suitors.
OK fine, I am going to be 27 this year and no closer to finding a husband than I was when I was 12 and video tapping Backstreet Boy appearances on the Rosie O'Donnell show. But...
Does this mean I should be entertaining offers from the type of dude who calls me from a payphone and asks my answering machine out on a date? NO!
(right? you all said no too right?)
A friend follows up on my potential date with "no-known-address" and I fill her in on the whole debacle.
"Maybe his internet was down?" she offers tongue-in-cheek.
Maybe moments after leaving me a message, police raided his grow-up and the quarter meant to finance our "setting it in stone" conversation, was put toward calling his lawyer?
Maybe this man is an Island who cannot withstand the pressures of being accountable to other human beings So he has freed himself from the shackles that come with telephone ownership, and is thus no longer at the mercy of those pesky phone calls from those wondering why he didn't show up when he said he would!
Whatever it is that prevented him from following up is not the point. The point is this person should have been disqualified the moment it became clear that he was unreachable.
My girlfriends and I have a saying "if it smells like cheese, its probably cheese."
This smelled, looked and tasted like cheese. Yet there I was ready to take a big ol' bite.
Dumbfounded.
