The second I heard her voice, I knew this was a wasted effort.
It had been over two months since my last date with anyone...
not for lack of trying...
Yet lately no one was biting...
No one was interested.
Katherine had sent me a teaser wink on Match.
com...
meaning she saw my profile, and professed interest.
I wrote her back, and set up a date...
all through email.
Her profile was not particularly appealing to me...
she was a few years older...
and with a child.
Katherine looked nice in her pictures...
or at least nice enough.
I felt I needed to go out on a date again...
if not with someone of my taste...
at least with someone who...
well...
seemed decent enough.
I mean...
look...
when NO ONE is biting...
no one...
one has to do what he can...
Beggars can't be choosers...
right? As Katherine lives in Brentwood, I set up a date at my Westside home away from home...
The Arsenal bar in West Los Angeles...
site of many many dates in the past.
My mouth was still in pain, as it had been the past few days...
so I took two advil pills before I left my office.
I arrived early, made sure to get a decent spot.
One of the many things I liked about the Arsenal was the fact that it always had low lighting...
making it moody, and perhaps...
romantic? Katherine arrived around 830pm...
looking a little better than her picture.
As she walked over to my table, I could see the disappointment in her face.
She sat down, and we started chatting a bit...
Katherine did not think I looked like my match.
com pictures.
She said had I not waved her over...
she would not have recognized me.
Very odd, as my pictures were all fairly recent.
Perhaps it was my hair? My main match.
com profile picture was only from a few weeks ago...
Was that not recent enough? She was polite, and suggested that the low lighting made me look different...
and made my blonde hair darker.
Weird...
I was little put off by this...
Yet, maybe she was right? My hair was longer than three weeks ago.
We spoke some more...
wait...
did I detect an accent there? I listened closely...
maybe her voice was distorted by the music playing over the Arsenal speakers...
Finally I asked, playfully...
"Is that an accent I detect?" Turns out Katherine was a Jewish woman from Iran, and came to the U.
S.
when she was 11 years old.
This could be a problem.
You see...
how do I put this? My style, my persona, my sensibilities...
are all very American.
I am an American boy through and through.
It's not that I don't like women from foreign countries...
I do..
..
it's just that I have found in my experience that with my personality...
there's usually a bad disconnect if a woman doesn't understand my American attitude, humor, thought process, etc...
I've tried to date woman from all different parts the world...
Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Israel, and yes...
even Iran...
yet in all cases...
the best of me just didn't translate well.
And then there is the matter of accent...
For whatever reason...
I am attracted to some accents (British, and Southern) and turned off others (German, Italian, Spanish, Middle Eastern, Russian, etc...
)...
That said...
I still like to keep my options open...
and anything's possible.
No use limiting myself...
So I choose to give Katherine the benefit of the doubt...
Maybe she'll prove my theory wrong? We spoke some more...
turns out Katherine was of all things...
a Dentist!! What are the odds of that? I started to tell her about my current teeth problem then stopped myself...
This was a date, no need to discuss my dental issues..
..
Katherine's son was 13 years old...
and was working with a coach to learn/improve his basketball skills.
We talked about dating, and I shared with her some of my dating horror stories.
She laughed as we spoke about things...
and eventually said to me "I think you have a funny side to you"...
Say what? What an odd thing to say to someone whom you just spent 10 minutes laughing with.
I was tempted to respond by saying "No...
I do not have a funny side.
The fact that you are laughing at the things I am saying is accidental, and perhaps offensive.
" Yet I was polite, and told her that I did indeed have a funny side.
I asked Katherine about movies...
and music...
Yet she didn't seem to have too much of an interest in either.
She told me she maybe went to the movies once a month with her son, and that she likes music...
yet doesn't really keep up with it.
In her free time, Katherine likes to paint, hang out with friends, eat sushi...
She's an early morning person..
..
getting up usually before 7:00am each day...
maybe sleeping in to 9:00am on the weekends...
yadda, yadda, yadda..
..
I was bored.
Her personality was pleasant, and nice...
yet it did not have enough charm, nor character in order to sustain my interest.
She asked me about my work...
We talked about religion.
She was surprised to learn that I currently do not watch any sitcoms on television...
and I told her what I thought was funny...
and what was not funny.
I told her about my night owl tendencies...
The conversation was flat, yet serviceable...
At 9:45pm, Katherine wanted to leave.
We were simply having too much fun.
Part of me thought that was lame...
part of me was relieved to get out of there.
I paid for our drinks...
and walked her outside, giving our car tickets to the valet.
As we waited, it got very awkward.
There just wasn't much to say to each other at that point.
My car arrived first.
I gave her a quick goodbye hug, and got out of there.
A very mediocre date indeed.
I was down, and my teeth and head were in pain..
..
so I did what any sane and rational person would do: I picked up a black and white cookie at Canter's Deli, drove home...
and eat it (with milk) while reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine...
Found some interesting articles about the battle over Michael Jackson's estate...
as well as a curious feature story on legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker.
So...
the date was the low point of the evening...
upstaged by the simple pleasure of a cookie...
a glass of milk, and a magazine...
Hey, whatever it takes...