She brought the dog. On a recent Sunday afternoon, the young woman in the black puffer coat and sunglasses ambled towards me, first tending to the pug beside her. The night before, on the popular dating app, Hinge, she messaged that she’d bring her dog to our first date, that he was “so excited” to meet me, but I didn’t think she really would. If only.
As we entered Oslo Coffee on 75th Street between First and York, the dog, or Kenny as he was named, got all of the attention. “Oh, he’s adorable. So cute. How beautiful,” was the gist of the compliments for little Kenny. By the time we got to the register, as the compliments and smiles kept coming, I was spent. Who brings a dog to a date?
It was like that time, a few weeks later, I traveled to Jersey City for a date and the woman brought her dog, too. The plan was to sit and talk at a corner café, even form some kind of connection. Alas, my date paid more attention to the dog than to me. Wrangling the pooch as he ran in circles around our table and almost made it topple over, my date was barely there.
Towards the end of the date, the waiter even brought a “pup cup” for the dog. “Is that whipped cream?” I asked the woman. “No, it’s a pup cup,” she said, handing it to the dog, our conversation coming to a close.
Still, having trouble legging it back in Manhattan and wondering if the woman had any intention whatsoever of seeing me again, I texted her that night asking if she wanted to get dinner sometime. Hours went by. Days. No response. She “ghosted” me, as they say. So it goes.
The phenomenon of ghosting, in which one person never answers another back and disappears like a ghost, is particularly perplexing since, these days, everyone seems to be seeking their “person.” Just one glance at Hinge, or other dating apps like Bumble or Coffee Meets Bagel, reveals numerous single individuals each looking for their “person,” their “forever person,” and their “ride-or-die.”
As we all enter our mid-to-late-thirties, we’re no longer youths and are perhaps getting desperate. We’re love-thirsty, eager-eyed, looking for affection. So why ghosting? Why the disappearing act? As Jefferson Airplane sang in their classic “Don’t you want somebody to love? Don’t you need somebody to love?”
But, on some level, perhaps ghosting is understandable, if not nice. After all, it’s hard out there. People are causing all sorts of indignity, doing everything from no-showing to cheating. And there’s so much more. Stories abound.
Attempting propriety, I can only speak from personal experience. And I’m far from perfect, my own kind of sap.
There was the time I overslept one evening, rushed into a cab, and still arrived to a date forty-five minutes late. There was the other time I felt no attraction to a woman and, needing to rush uptown for a separate date, made up a lie about needing to help my super with something. I hoped it was a white lie, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was a shade or two darker. My foolery, my pedestrian cruelty, only continues. But I’m trying to do better.
Just last week, I went on a date. No dogs this time, but it still went awry. To my distress, the woman got to the bar early and inadvertently upset my order of balance.
Sitting up in my apartment around the corner, trying to get in a few minutes of pure, uninterrupted relaxation before the date, I suddenly got a text from my date saying she was already here and I felt a jolt of anxiety. I wasn’t ready to go down to the bar. Not yet. I needed some more relaxation. But, not wanting to keep her waiting, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.
My anxiety peaking, feeling jittery, I rifled one question after another to the woman. Detecting my restlessness, she asked, “Are you okay?” I wasn’t, my mind racing, but I tried playing it cool. “Yeah, just a busy day at work,” I lied. As I asked more questions, she arched her brow and looked at me like I had five heads. So it went.
“Don’t you know?” the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song goes, “There is no modern romance.” And maybe it’s true. Maybe the odds are against me and all of the erstwhile lovers out there. But we’re here, looking, hoping against hope for somebody to love.
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