Spaghetti & Meatballs

"So how does this work, again?" I asked while staring at Damian's cake pop.

"I pay Grouper twenty dollars, they go on my Facebook and match me to a girl who has a similar profile. They claim, they match me to someone with similar interests and attractiveness. So they bring two friends, and I bring two friends. It's a triple blind date. Grouper even picks the restaurant where we meet. We won't even know until the day of the date." Damien replied while he moved his cake pop away from my reach.

"So basically, you want me to give you twenty dollars in the hope that a group of strangers will set you up with your perfect woman, and I just have to hope she's not one of these shallow people who surrounds themselves with ugly obnoxious friends so they can look good?" I replied secretly cursing him for buying my favorite flavor. Birthday cake...damn him...

"Pretty much" He said cheerfully while taking a bite out of said pastry, who's name shall never again be spoken.

"You do know this could be a disaster." I replied.

"So you don't want to do it?" He said while he cleaned his face with a napkin.

"No, this sounds so insane that I cant say no."

Next thing I know, I find myself walking with Damien and his friend Waldo to a restaurant on east 50th street. I haven't known Waldo for exceptionally long and other than his annoying habit of texting while we are watching a movie, he seems like a pretty stand up guy.

Halfway there (out of mostly boredom) we come up with subtle codes, to secretly, communicate with each other while on the date. Here, is a basic breakdown...

"I love pickles!!" Means that the date is going fantastic.

"Pickles...meh...." Means that we are still on the fence when it comes to our opinions of the date.

Finally, "I hate pickles!!!!" Means this is a disaster, and I am scared that I will wind up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney. It doesn’t take a group of expert code breakers to see what we are doing...

So with that brilliant plan, we entered the restaurant in mid town. The place was tiny, and you could tell at one point it used to be a straightforward house full of memories of a time when Manhattan was full of real people and not what passes for humanity in the city nowadays.

The first person to greet us was Eleanor, who I was immediately taken aback by how pretty she was. A little too pretty to be honest with you. The kind of pretty that makes you immediately look around the restaurant to make sure you were not on candid camera.  Eleanor was exceedingly sweet. It turned out according to grouper, she was Damien’s ideal match. So you may be wondering how did they match them up? Was it for similar interests? Was it similar personalities? To be frank, not really. So how did grouper match them? Well from what we could tell, they both worked in finance, and that was about the extent of their research. Maybe the "research team" quickly looked at their Facebook pictures and said, yeah i could see them as a couple. But, to be frank I think I am giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Whatever the case maybe, Eleanor soon introduced us to Jeanette. Who i was immediately smitten by, she was pretty, she was smart and most of all she seemed like a sweet heart. Which not surprisingly is kind of hard to find in NYC these days. Jeanette was a consultant and seemed to be pretty excited about our date. Eleanor although exceptionally sweet and outgoing; I got the feeling that her hopes of meeting Mr. Right tonight were evaporating in front of her eyes.

Waldo did not help matters when he introduced Damien as a comic book writer. The expression on Eleanor and Jeanette's face was priceless. Unless you are a fellow geek or nerd, its only natural to look at Damien and picture him wearing Spock ears and large rimmed glasses with a t-shirt that says "Han Shot First."  I quickly had to chime in Damien's resume. This was in order to calm their fears that we would be talking about who was the best Batman (Adam West.)

At this point our final date arrived, Britney who like the rest of the young ladies was stunning. My impression of Britney was that she was a free spirit. This is what my nerdy brain calls the trinity. Basically you have a sweetheart, a hot nerdy girl and a free spirit. I see this a lot in Manhattan, I actually think its pretty cute. No matter how old we get we never get over our childhood habits of making friends.

I quickly realized that both Damien and Waldo were not used to New York dating. They still had the dating perceptions of back home. Where brutal honesty and black/white views of the social scene are the norm. Somehow I was now in the odd position that I was the NY dating veteran. It sounds arrogant I know, but  unfortunately we now lived in a neurotic Woody Allen world. Back home you could mention that you were divorced and had a 5 year old daughter on a first date. This would be seen as sincere and upfront, quite frankly its the gentleman thing to do. It would work in your favor. Here, though, it just freaks most folks out.

Still I tried to help out and tell jokes, brag about my friends and just keep things light  and fun. We all were having a fabulous time, the only draw back was the restaurant itself. Apparently this was a new place because we were constantly pestered by the host to order drinks. A common encounter would go like this.....

"So then as I was saving the orphans from the fire..."

"Hey guys! So we have some lovely rum fresh from Venezuela, it was distilled by an elderly couple who only have sex on the winter of every blood red moon. It has a herby ground taste that reminds you of your first pet.... "

"Well that sounds terrific but all I want is..."

"We also have an assortment of exquisite wines, to just look at the menu it will be 20 dollars, most of the wines are cultivated in brazil by a blind one armed Mexican child named Pacito, his real name is Brian, but we call him Pacito which he hates but it makes the wine taste so urban."

"Yeah well I would just like a.."

"We also have a liquor who's name is unpronounceable, we don't know where exactly it came from it just showed up on our doorstep one day, it has a minty coconut taste, and if we talk about it in a negative way we fear that it will devour our souls..."

"Can I just have a freaking diet coke?!"

"What kind of diet coke would you like? New Coke, Crystal Coke? Vanilla Diet Coke, Coke with the C faded away? A coke with a Santa printed on the side of it?..."

"Oh God Damn it!"

I found myself talking to Britney quite a bit. We both had a love of film, and it turns out she works in promotion for Broadway. It was neat, and I honestly felt we were all having a marvellous time. Then I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror and reality hit me like a freight train. My hair was scruffy, I had horrible bags under my eyes due to lack of sleep (not to mention allergies.) My beard needed a trim, and even though this was a new shirt; I might have just as well have picked it out of a thrift store.

I began to go over the facts in my head as I looked in the mirror. They were living in fancy apartments in the east village. Their rent would probably be something I made in a year. Their closets were probably filled with clothes with labels like Gucci, Armani, or designers who's name I would never know in my lifetime. They spoke about spending the summer in Spain or Argentina, how they would visit these countries on a regular basis not only for pleasure but due to work. The most exotic place I ever visited was Costa Rica, and I had to save up for a year to do it. I didn't even stay in a fancy hotel. Hell, if it wasn't for a coupon I found online; I probably would never had even gone. This wasn’t me, having low self-esteem or putting them on a pedestal.

These women were lovely, they were sweet, they had no egos about them, and I would have loved to have had the chance to take any one of them out but, I had to face facts. They were from a different world, a world that I could only get a glimpse into, but I could never live in. It was a moment in time that could never be repeated, both our universes had collided in a freak accident, and  we shared the same pocket of time, but it was a once in a lifetime event. At the end of the night, no matter how amusing or cute we were. We would turn into pumpkins. Life just couldn't let it happen.

So for the rest of the night, I smiled, made them laugh, and i took advantage to enjoy the  time both our worlds overlapped. It was gratifying to pretend that we dint live in a world of social class. Were we could be the tramp sharing a meatball with the lady.

And at the end of the night, when we said our goodbyes and shared our contact information. I looked at them and spoke from my heart.

"I had a great time tonight, and I hope to hear from all of you. But, if not then it was still a pleasure to share in your company."

So as we walked home that night and the guys talked about who was the sweetest or who was the prettiest. All I could think about was that for one  little moment, I got to play in a world I would never normally  be a part of.  Sure, we tramps can complain that we should be able to a share a spaghetti & meatball with a lady more often.

But its OK if we don't, there is nothing wrong with that. Dating someone should not be a statement against society, If two people dig each other and can see themselves in a relationship regardless of their station in life, then kudos for them and if not that’s their personal choice. I’m just glad I was able to live in that world for just a little bit. Even if I never got to push a meatball with my nose....