I was in the midst of a downward-spiral-private-pity-party when I got the sudden, strange urge to peruse the personals of the Dallas Observer. Nothing really caught my eye until ... there it was in glorious bold print: IVY LEAGUE GRAD.
My heart pounding and pulse quickening, I read on with glee. It was a shorthanded bit of words, can't really remember, however, I do remember that it also included PREP SCHOOL GRAD, which quite frankly, just sent me over the edge.
I am intoxicated by education. Ivy League educations. They're romantic and hallowed and wonderful and exclusive and remind me of all the movies and books I've ever read which feature people who are lucky enough to have been afforded this privilege: Love Story. Good Will Hunting. But prep schools. Oh my. The Catcher In The Rye. A Separate Peace. Makes me all tingly just saying their names.
All those rumpled, ruffled preppy-clad shaggy headed boys, some ne'er-do-wells, some scholars, some day students, some boarders, shuffling across glistening lawns, fresh with fall-fallen leaves in gold, scarlet and orange ... names like Beowolf and Keats and Hemingway just bubbling, dropping — no popping — out of their mouths like Jiffy pop popcorn, their souls afire with learning.
Well, this romantic scenario, it just touches my heart somehow. Especially since I went to public school. (Side note: growing up, my minister's son, Clayton, went to St. Marks, the most prestigious school in town, and I had a date with some of his friends to a few dances. When I entered the school gym, I felt like I had, indeed, arrived. I had the stamp of approval. Maybe just by breathing this same glorious air I could score higher on my SAT! Erroneous logic as I was a teenager. But I digress.)
After a few phone calls, I made contact with my Mensa-minded fellow. He had, indeed gone to Princeton — yes! And did graduate work, I think he even finished, at University of Chicago. A little Midwestern for my taste, but yet, still up there, you know, suitably discriminating. And, best of all, he had attended Choate Rosemary Hall. Not just a private school. But a boarding school. And there, yes, he boarded. Then, when I thought it couldn't get any better — sizzle, sizzle — he had studied filmmaking in L.A., and had recently relocated to Dallas to work for American Airlines in some unknown capacity.
As we spoke on the phone, he was energetic and glib and spoke at a fast clip. I got all wound up and started speaking fast, so fast I was almost unintelligible, like I had inhaled some helium. But somehow during my fits and starts of sentences and dropping words like "non sequitir" and "quid pro quo" (the only Latin I know), we were able to set up a meeting place. He was living in "Swinglesville," a place called The Village, but just temporarily, he assured me. Corporate housing. So we decided to meet in the vestibule of the TGI Friday's in the shopping area near his place. It was called Olde Towne, pronounced Oldee Townee. Anyway, the die had been cast. I would finally get to see this man, The Most Perfect Man in the Universe.
It was nightfall by the time I drove up to the TGI Friday's, and I could see that they did, in fact, have a little vestibule that was wooden and glassed in with small window panes. Kind of quaint. So out I got, all dressed in my work-into-evening finery, black, head to toe, I approached. There was no one there, so I opened the door and sat down on the little bench. Now, I must say that I'm not a fan of theme restaurants. (There's nothing wrong with them, I just prefer to frequent places that don't line the walls with dark brown plastic wood.) But inside, there they are, hunched over menus waiting for you: inappropriately friendly wait people who fling their faces into yours, blasting out the news about their P.J. McHooligan's Special. They tend to make me a little nervous. So I was hoping we wouldn't settle there.
A few people walked in. Then a woman. Then a man. Then another man. Then two women. This parade, which was nerve-wracking, went on until a little man walked in.
He looked at me over his thick, rimless glasses and said, "Lisa?"
"Jeremy?" I said.
"It's so great to finally meet you," he said. As I stood up, I realized that I just kept going until I was looking at the top of his head.
Yes, I had worn heels, but I absolutely towered, ridiculously so, over this man. I have always been such a big, tall dork. He had said on the phone that his "height and weight were proportional" after I had asked if he worked out. He wasn't lying.
I stepped back to observe my tatty friend: he had a shock of black curly hair, styled much like the top of the Citicorp building, and was wearing a coat like Inspector Gadget and Florsheim black loafers with tops that looked like a duckbill platypus' bill with gathered stitching circling the toe. The heels were a little sloped — not like the sloped-heeled gentry I had hoped for, but just, well, the poor man needed new heels.
"Must have been on scholarship," I thought to myself.
Then I heard it. That laugh. "Heh HEH." Then again. "Heh HEH." Short, sharp bursts. Like a flock of geese had flown over. He would speak, then there it would be, "Heh HEH! heh HEH!" And he would twist his lips over to one side as if he was blowing up a balloon from the corner of his mouth. "Heh HEH!" "Heh HEH!" Nervous twitch or Tourettes, I couldn't tell, but it was definitely something, a sound, a laugh, I had never heard come out of a human ever in my entire life.
"Do you wanna get something to eat?"
"Yes," I said.
We stepped outside, and, as if Mother Nature knew what was in store, a torrential rainstorm started. We ducked into his car: a cream-colored Impala station wagon. Mid 1980s, I would guess. When we got in, the rain was pounding on the windshield. Then, he whipped out this Passbook — the size of a Sears catalogue — full of discount coupons, and started flipping wildly through it.
"Hope you don't think I'm CHEAP. Heh HEH!" Again, that disquieting, goosey, geesey laugh.
"Oh, no, don't be silly," I said.
He continued to look, as I did, at all the selections: Bennigan's, Spaghetti Warehouse,
some bad fondue place.
"Fondue? Is that FonDOable? Heh HEH!" One last short burst.
I winced. He kept flipping.
We finally settled on King Pao Wang. Some Chinese place that was just across the street, so we didn't have to go very far.
We drove about 50 feet, and we were there. But of course, we couldn't find a parking space that was near the front door, so we still had to tromp through deep puddles and were pummeled with sheets of rain.
Once inside, my hair drenched (he didn't have an umbrella) and his thick glasses fogged over, the hostess greeted us.
And then I saw them. Some not-so-close friends of mine, but close enough so that they knew who I was. I had face-recall. At that point, a foreign force overtook my body and I shot ahead, running, literally, to the table that the waitress pointed to, way ahead of Mr. Ivy League and sat down so that the "they," those all-important, Not-Really-My Friends-friends, wouldn't think I was on a date, but that he had met me there. Oh, the depths of idiotic shallowness that I can descend into!
"Wow, you're quick," he said, and sat down.
I picked up the menu, and it was so large that it completely obscured my face. I stayed back behind it for a bit, deciding, discerning, and yes, hiding, and all the while hearing a bit of muffled talking — which I would respond to (I'm not rude) which was then followed by "Heh HEH!" I popped my head out in intermittent bursts and blurted out "uh huhs" so at least the people at other tables wouldn't think him psychotic.
We finally ordered and then did manage to have somewhat of an endurable meal. He was articulate and his vita was real. The honking even subsided a bit. I don't know what we talked about. I think I did all the talking and didn't say anything even remotely clever or corny so as not to evoke a laugh.
We left. Climbed into his car. And drove 50 feet back across the street to Olde Towne. As we drove, he turned on the air so much that the windows fogged up. He started aggressively wiping the windshield with his sleeve and said, "Wanna come over and see my digs? Heh HEH!" And just when I thought the thing had subsided, there it was: Heh HEH!
"Sure, why not?" I said.
Then, seconds later, "You know, I've got a stomachache. I'm not feeling so well. So maybe I better not."
He looked kind of confused.
"Really, I do. I have this stomach thing. I get it sometimes. Maybe it's the MSG," I said, then whispered, "think it's gas."
I had never before performed such an obvious bail, but I did, darn it, I did.
This whole exchange made me wonder. Why is it that the things I make up in my mind, rarely line up with reality? Why do I have such preconceived, stereotypical notions about someone when I read about him in a personal ad that does not contain a picture? Where do these mental pictures come from? Moreover, why does my mind not invent more original characters when I'm fantasizing? Say, someone with a little pot roast tubby belly or who is slightly balding? What is this about for me?
Certainly the media — TV, movies, advertising — propagate these vanilla, cookie-cutter people images (not that if people are vanilla cookie-cutters they're boring), but relying on "the world we live in" for my excuse or reason for my imaginings is weak.
The bigger reason is perhaps that I toggle somewhere in my self-estimation between thinking myself pretty darn cute, and then pretty darn unattractive. I guess, like most people, I have my doubts at times. So perhaps since I'm caught in this seesaw between healthy and less-than-optimum self-esteem, when I imagine my date, my partner, he fills in the areas where I'm lacking. I make him perfect because I am decidedly not. Maybe I need someone to "complete" me (I know, it's that ubiquitous Jerry Maguire reference, but it works here). Maybe that's it, if I have any real explanation at all.
I honestly think that our ability to fantasize, to dream and, in this instance, our ability to manufacture images from words, is what makes us each a creative being . And, well, human.
But also, what it comes down to is this is the age-old dilemma I seem to inevitably find myself in when I meet someone: I'm intellectually, mentally and emotionally attracted, but not physically. Or I'm physically attracted, and not anything else. Why is that? I want the inside and the outside to match. That is my wish. But finding that, well, that's another story.
We parked back in front of the TGI Friday's, and I got out and went over to his side of the car to thank him. And bless his heart, if he didn't ask to see me again.
I said, not knowing how to say "no"s at this point in my life, "That would be nice. Just call me. Call me. You know my number." And at that point, I gave him a concave chest hug and jumped into my car.
"Bye...SEE ya! Had fun! Heh! HEH!"
That night, as I waved goodbye, I looked back at him, my Ivy League Dream Man, in my rearview mirror. He was standing there with one hand in his pocket and one in the air and looking skyward, waving, into the cloudy night. And waving, maybe, just maybe, to the geese.
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