Several years ago, my neighbour's rabbit died. My neighbour, whom I will call Eric, was really attached to his pet and didn't want to be the one to bury him. So I buried his rabbit for him. (It sounds like I'm making this whole thing up.) Eric came out of his house afterwards and, to express his thanks, he said he'd treat me to a movie or something.
I thought that was fine.
So, on the set date -- here, it really needs to be understood that I am using the word 'date' only to express the technical concept of a calendar day -- I walked across the street to his house and we drove to the Coliseum. If I remember correctly, we were talking about girls the whole time. This is a general rule, I think, because when two straight guys go watch a movie together, they both want to make sure that the other guy doesn't get the wrong idea.
That's also why, when a bunch of guys hang out in a group, you often see them jostling each other and hooting at girls. They're telling each other, assuredly, "Let it be known, guys, that I am soooooooooooooo into girls. Look, there's one now! Observe, if you will, the extent to which I can act Mesolithic."
Anyway, we sat down in the theatre and waited for the previews. But instead a spotlight shone down on a girl dressed up as a giant foam heart; she bubbled through a microphone on the stage below the screen: "We here at Famous Players would just like to thank everyone for choosing to spend your special day, with your special someone, here with us!! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!" Mild cheers trickled from the audience.
Eric and I looked at each other. We had no idea it was Valentine's Day. (Which is a good sign that you're single -- or will be very soon.) Only now did I notice the whole theatre was packed with couples.
You see, when it comes to movies, there's an unspoken protocol that we all, as straight guys, adhere to. When two guys are going out to watch a movie, they both care a lot about what they'll be watching. If you're a guy, the movie you watch with another guy works proportionally to how many girls will be with you. So, for example, if you're watching Sound of Music at the dollar theatre with another guy, you should have at least seventeen girls coming along.
If you don't think this protocol exists and you're a straight guy, call up one of your boys and ask him if he wants to watch a movie. There'll be a moment of silence and he'll say, "Uh, okay, which one?" Insert any movie that Mandy Moore's currently in. You know what he's going to say next? "With who?"
You say, "Just me." And then he tells you he's busy for the next five years.
Anyway, I bring all this up because, within the protocol, it doesn't matter what the movie is: I'm watching a movie on Valentine's with a guy. My only option was to hide deep into my jacket, so it looked like he was sitting next to an extra coat he had brought along. I think I was in high school, and so, my securities weren't in the sturdy place they are today. (...) That being the case, the one thing I didn't want was to bump into someone I knew.
Which, if you are familiar with the way life is ladled out for me, was bound to happen. At the end of the movie, when the lights were coming on, my friend D-Grey and his girlfriend turned around, three aisles in front of us. Grey said, "Yo." That's it. He just said "yo" and stares at me for what must have been five seconds.
As if it explained everything, I pointed at Eric and blurted out, "I buried his bunny."
Coming home, Eric and I wished each other well, and I don't mean, "Have a good week." We wished each other well in graduating, establishing a career, getting married, buying a home, a car, having kids, retirement, and death.
At the very least, we told each other it looked like we were going to be busy for the next five years.
Email of the Week:
"Dear Adrian,
I've been a reader of your site for over two years and just recently came back to reading your site. You've moved a lot both in terms of cities and web address so you're hard to keep track. I found your guides to girls very entertaining, not at all helpful, and comnpletely unreliable. This being the case... and as I am on the dating circuit again... I would love a dating guide. Thank you!
Ps: Has anyone told you you write with lots of commas??
Robert Jenkins, Boulder, Colorado"
Frankly, when it comes to dating, I have very little to say. This isn't because I haven't been on my share of dates; but if your dates turned out like mine, you wouldn't want to share either. Luckily, I use this page to completely dust away any granules of ego still left on my proverbial lap.
So, first of all, in starting, truthfully, to me, dating is nothing more than a chance to see how everything will go wrong. I'm like cesium in the science experiment: No matter what the other variables are, putting me (cesium) into a dating situation (a glass beaker of water) makes for certain explosion. Just as these two things should stay away from each other, my nemesis Dating and I, carefully apart, actually lead pretty happy and eventful lives. Anyway, in sweeping up the glass, below, you can find several examples of ways things can go wrong, and, immediately following, a fool-proof solution.
Case No. 1:
Once, I went to a Thai restaurant with this girl. Back then, I couldn't eat spicy food, so my walking into a Thai restaurant was a little like going into a Dairy Queen with lactose intolerance and no diapers. But I played it safe by ordering fried rice. My date, however, ordered, literally, fire. (Wow, that is a lot of commas.)
When the plates came, I, clearly thinking of first-date impressions, hungrily shoveled food into my mouth. When I looked up, I noticed that she had barely moved a grain of rice. It turned out she could not eat anything spicy either and had inadvertently ordered the spiciest thing ever to sit on a plate. So, being chivalrous -- or, in Olde English, "completely out of my mind" -- I offered to switch plates with her.
I don't have much else to say about that night except for the fact that I almost died.
Fool-Proof Solution: Never bail the girl out. If your date has the idea that ordering something neither of you can eat is a great idea, just smile, tell her you're not responsible for anything she orders and have her demonstrate this understanding by signing a written agreement. Tell her you're doing this because, from the way things were shaping up, the likelihood that the two of you will be seeing each other again is slim and, that being the case, you'd like to at least have enjoyed your meal.
Advantages: The advantages are two-fold: 1) Girls love it when you take tough-guy, assertive stances on important issues like dinner, and 2) nothing starts a first date off with a bang quite like letting your date know there is no room for her to screw up her order.
Case No. 2:
Now, diarrhea is never a funny thing. At the time, anyway.
I was driving with my date in Toronto on our way to a nice restaurant. We were only on our second date, so I wasn't comfortable being completely candid with certain things. On our way there, I suddenly got this incredible pain in my stomach. The kind you know needs to be dealt with immediately. Seeing a McDonald's and being entirely devoid of creativity or, say, sincerity, I suggested, "Hey, do you want an ice cream?"
She was like, "Uh.. no, thanks. Aren't we going to eat?"
I was sweating here. "Yea." I have no idea why I even brought up ice cream. Maybe it's because, when you have the runs, that's exactly what you don't want: A nice big cup of smooth laxative. Maybe I wanted to bring up the possibility of ingesting something on the complete opposite spectrum of what I wanted in order to avoid suspicion. Desperately, I pressed on, "You sure you don't want a sundae or something?"
"Do you?" she asked, confused.
"No," I said, wavering. "Yes!" I suddenly exclaimed, with perhaps a little more urgency and enthusiasm than the concept of ice cream usually warrants, and stopped the car abruptly, right there on Bloor Street. It's impossible to find parking on Bloor so she had to hop over onto the driver's seat and circle around while I ran to get "ice cream". Fifteen minutes later, I came back concocting a weak excuse about there being a line-up and handed her a chocolate sundae.
She looked at me. "I didn't want ice cream."
"Oh yeah?" I eyed the chocolate fudge warily. "Um, neither do I."
Fool-Proof Solution: Don't, under any circumstances, have diarrhea.
Advantages: The advantages for not having diarrhea are self-evident. Diarrhea is always against the recipe for success: You don't want it during a date, you don't want it in the middle of a job interview, and you definitely don't want it in your pants. In virtually no event would you add diarrhea and suddenly find the situation complete. However, in the remote chance that you're in your house and suddenly your basement is flooding, three of your walls fall down, a plane carrying only grand pianos has just exploded 20 000 feet above you, you accidently left your stove gas on, you're inches away, you decide this is the moment to take up the very intelligent habit of smoking, and you strike a match -- well, you might as well throw in some diarrhea.
Case No. 3
Picking my date up, I opened the passenger door for her. As she was coming up behind me, I misjudged the angle of her approach, and flung the door straight into her abdomen. She keeled over and curled up on the pavement. Out comes her father, who hears her daughter crying. He carries her back into the house with me following stupidly behind. She tells him to tell me she'll be fine and that she'll call me later. Her dad delivers the message and, after inspecting my face for any ill intentions, chuckles and pats me on the shoulder. Standing there, I realized that this was by far the worst and shortest date I had ever been on, our date having lasted ten steps from her porch to the car.
Fool-Proof Solution: Stay at home.
Advantages: Though you may not realize it, many times, staying home benefits everyone. You could save gas and time because you wouldn't have driven over there just to escort her from her porch to the driveway, a driveway she would kiss in wailing sobs, and be carried back into the house by her dad. Another advantage might be that she probably wouldn't be kissing the driveway in wailing sobs and be carried back into the house by her dad.
There you have it. Act like a jerk, don't get the runs, and stay at home. Stick to this three-point plan and you'll have no problems on a date. Of course, you probably won't be on any dates, but, as they say, prevention is the best cure.
This morning, I decided on making an omelet. I cracked open an egg and out flopped two yolks. I stared at them for like a minute. I didn't know whether this was a good or bad thing: A double-yolk day could very well be seen as a good day, but then I would be, essentially, eating twins. Something about "eating twins" seems so very wrong.
But, I mean, I've had two-egg omelets before, so the moral struggle definitely isn't against the cholesterol. I suppose the very concept of a twin brings about something human and rooted in the value of family that I'm not yet ready to reconcile from my breakfast. Or anything I'm going to eat, for that matter.
Though it does point to the fact that, in any given carton, we could be eating three brothers, two sisters, and maybe a cousin. Who knows how far neighbouring eggs are related. I've decided to swear off eggs. At least until tomorrow morning.
I played a concert this year and afterwards Jean-Michel, my teacher, wanted to take us out to eat. He suggested a tapas bar. Tapas bar, pronounced topp-as, sounds a lot like "topless bar", and, delivered with Jean-Michel's trademark accent, I was ready to conclude that the French celebrate in entirely different ways post-concert. This not being the case, I've come to learn that tapas is basically Spanish dim sum, except with olives and, when you're incredibly hungry, really annoying.
What is it about small things that people find delectable and cute?
Last weekend, Dave, Yuri and I went to Napa Valley, not because of a hardened case of dipsomania, but because of the shopping in the outlets. While walking through the complex, I was struck by how girls just seem to see things differently. I'm always shocked to realize that girls are going to actually wear what they buy; the entire time prior, I had thought they were shopping for their nieces or something. I think it's part of the same complex they have with miniature soda cans and fun-size chocolate. Guys maintain there's nothing 'fun' about getting less chocolate, and miniature soda cans are as annoying as, well, tapas.
When I'm shopping, I'm usually looking for the biggest things I can find. For some reason, the thing that looks most like a parachute tent on a hanger turns out to be the thing that looks best on me. Fashionable clothes are supposed to accentuate and flatter the good things about our figures, I guess. I've given up and just try to hide myself in them. I suppose the reason for my liking things like big pants is that, on a whole, I'm more MC Hammer than Michael Jackson -- though it could be that centering myself between these two goal-posts may indicate why I had been single for so long.
That, and I used to joke that girls like shopping because they're fascinated with new things the same way that babies, and other forms of undeveloped intellect, are with shiny objects. Though I've been asked by several people close to me never to give dating advice again, let's just say that saying this doesn’t get you very far on a date. Or a date at all.
Anyway, Dave, Yuri and I had split up because we had different shopping agendas. You'd think this is why Dave and I ended up buying the same pin-striped pants. Because we had no idea the other had interest in them and, realizing only upon meeting back at the car, it was too late. Two people who see each other all the time don't buy the same pants. But the fact is we both saw the pants and walked to the counter assuring each other it was good for our quartet performances. Lots of quartets wear matching attire to create the idea of uniformity. I'm undecided, though, whether or not we both thought matching on stage was geeky, but both liked the pants, needed an excuse, and now Dave is quietly concocting an elaborate plan to kill me so we don't have to whip out our instruments when we accidently bump into each other wearing the same pants down the cereal aisle at Safeway.
As long as we're there, though, we might as well pick up some eggs.
Dear Adrian
I am a big fan of your site. Maybe I should say 'was' because you don't update anymore. Are you on Friendster?
Carol, New Jersey
Yes, I'm on Friendster. No, I don't like it. I resent the day I joined. It's the worst because people will add you as a friend and you a) vaguely remember what letter their name starts with and b) have to accept or reject their advance. And, from what I gather, people take it very seriously if you don't add them as a friend. Or don't check and it's a month until you've added them. I've decided that, today, I've sworn off Friendster. So in the very same paragraph, No, I'm not on Friendster.
Now, I'll preface this by saying I could be wrong. Since my absence from the site, I've realized that there's been weeks when I didn't get any hate mail at all. This was such a nice change that I stayed away another month. I figure a good way to keep nice emails coming in is to to say, first and foremost, that I'm wrong. It doesn't even matter if I've even formed an opinion on something yet. I'm already wrong. As a human being. And I'm an idiot. And ignorant.
That being said, isn't Friendster kind of like an internet popularity contest? I especially like it when some people put up obvious photos of them in scantily clad nothing, trying to catch the attention of the opposite sex -- and then select the option that says they're on Friendster solely to 'help out'. Myself, I'm just happy to know that posing in our underwear can now be finessed into a philanthropic purpose.
People think I hate Friendster because I have only like, three friends. First of all, that's not the point. Second, they're wrong. (I have five.) But, while I was on Friendster and browsing around, not only did I realize that I have exactly 850 friends less than everyone else, but there's a certain trend going on with the types of pictures people decide to put up.
There's the guy who has a picture of himself without his shirt on, showing his muscles by means of dim-lighting and awkward camera angles. He might have another picture where he's wearing some kind of hip hop headgear to show that, though he's on Friendster, he's also incredibly street savvy and dangerous. I like this kind of guy. Because the first thing a real gangster does is make sure people can find him online.
Insert another obligatory picture of him shooting pool with his boys. And maybe a couple of pictures where he's posing with car show models, acting like he knows them personally with a "Just kickin it with my girl Heidi" caption overhead. Your "girl Heidi" seems to be under the impression that normal girls her age lounge around on the hoods of cars, wearing the very practical combination of a bathing suit and high heels. But I guess it's a good way to go through life. Denial, I mean. I actually have no comment on the high heels.
Then we have the girls who take pictures of themselves highlighting such telling things like their collarbone, their left earlobe, or an enormous extreme close-up of the pupil of one of their eyes, because they're obviously very attractive.
The whole thing is like a charade that was not at all unlike high school. Speaking of high school, I remember the big thing back then was Asian Avenue. Yesterday, it was Friendster. Today, it's Facebook. The neat thing is that Asian Avenue was, of course, geared towards Asians and enormously popular -- I assume it's because whoever was on the Avenue felt as though they were part of something. Friendster is built on the idea that we're all friends, and Facebook, which is only for those in college, shows that it's hip to return to exclusivity. The trend, it seems, is in segregating your market. People aren't embarassed to hook up online as long as there's some kind of online shibboleth. Like meeting someone in pottery class opposed to meeting someone in a bar.
And I think that's fine. I'm just saying I'm not going to a bar in my underwear.
Being surrounded by a land of oenophiles here in California, I've found myself sampling wine, somewhat as a hobby. I wouldn't say I'm a connoisseur, but I have a vague idea of what I'm looking for in wine. And, given my new-found expertise, I'd say a good wine sits somewhere between grape juice and vinegar. (As a side note, I've realized being as broad and vague as possible allows for you to never be that wrong; the downside, though, is that you're pretty much useless in any given situation.)
On one of my visits to a Napa Valley winery, I noticed a row of blueberries hanging in a perfect line on a nearby table. Since we were on a tour, following the ill-founded principle that there were no stupid questions, I asked, "What's with all the blueberries?"
The guide cocked his head and said, "Uh, those are the grapes, son." There was a weary silence. "Wine's made from grapes."
Before everyone gets the wrong idea, this I knew. Who doesn't know that wine's made from grapes? What I didn't know was that the grapes we make wine from don't look like the grapes we normally eat. They're rounder, smaller, and look exactly like blueberries. I realize that this story convinces no one that I have a university education. Had the wine tasting happened prior to this tour, I'd have an explanation involving mild inebriation and I'd leave it at that. This wasn't the case, though, and I realize my blueberry question is akin to going to McDonald's and asking them what's with all the upside-down W's.
My first excursion into wine was actually in New York at a restaurant called "House" in the Village. Or maybe it was called "Home" -- and in SoHo. Whatever it was, I remember it had something to do with a residential structure characterizing the cozy nostalgia of familial intimacy, and it was somewhere within the vicinity of Lower Manhattan. The waiter was a man of grand gestures and great pomp. One of those guys who take their work very seriously, serving you with proud arms and their chests puffed out, as if they were carrying out a mission of iron will and high stakes. Somehow, you feel like you can't thank them enough for bringing you the breadsticks.
Anyway, the guy unscrewed the cork and held it very close to my face. I had no idea what this was about. Was this a magic show? I knew that the cork comes out. Later, I learned I was supposed to smell it. But, knowing nothing about wine, I finally decided he was showing me how great he was, what with his managing to take the cork out without it breaking. So I congratulated him.
Then he poured a little bit into the glass and looked at me expectantly. I looked back with equal expectance because I had obviously paid for the whole bottle and intended on having more than just a sip. Was I supposed to tip him for having taken me so far? Was he testing my tolerance? I suppose if I keeled over into a fit of drunken laughter from one sip, his foresight and restraint would be commendable. But not wanting to take the bait and prove myself a lightweight, the waiter and I maintained a mute, polite and ultimately awkward exchange for five seconds. Emily, who knew things about haute-couture and had the privilege of being thoroughly flustered and embarassed, leaned forward and told me to try the wine.
Apparently, I was supposed to taste it and tell him it's good. How was I supposed to know that, when it comes to the restaurant, the serving of wine is like some kind of ritual? With no words, you're supposed to just know your role. I felt like I was thrown into some improv act but had no clue what the plot was.
I spent the rest of the night being as vague as possible.
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