Flavor of the Week: Dating Outside the Box
I HAD JUST been dumped by another leather clad, black-haired, silver-ring wearing, Im-full-of-angst-please-love-me musician type. I had checked out of my hotel room, my flight back to Toronto didnt leave for six hours and it was starting to pour.This latest musician had hit on me the month before when I was in the city for work. A 34-year-old petite indie-rock brunette from Canada, my job with MTV required periodic trips to the Viacom office in Times Square. I met him in a bar on Rivington Street, and since then I had been receiving daily emails from him telling me how hot I was and how much he wanted to screw me. I booked a ticket and flew down. Unfortunately, the weekend of passion I had been promised turned into two days of watching him trying to shake the effects of the giant coke bender he had been on. I need to use your shower, my skin is burning all over. The sex was good enough, but when he left my room Sunday morning with the words Thanks for your visit, I knew I wouldnt hear from him again. Glancing down Ludlow street, I saw a sign above Iggys Celtic Lounge that said ITS RAINING,GET FU*%$ING DRUNK.
I sat down at the bar beside two cleancut young guys who introduced themselves as Kevin and Victor. Kevin asked about the New Music Express magazine I was reading.
Known to anyone I considered remotely interesting as NME, this was my monthly guidebook for bands poised to become the next Stone Roses. My Wikipedic knowledge of the Britpop subgenre was at full strength as I explained. Kevin admitted to never having heard of most of the names I mentioned.
Shortly afterward Victor asked if I would have sex with him in the bathroom. As the bar began getting busier, Kevin and Victor pointed out a friend of theirs who was apparently Manhattans district attorney.They really liked this guy and said he always had an amusing story about a recent murder case or drug bust. I glanced over, noted the short hair and plain T-shirt paired with Gap khakis, and returned to my conversation. I hardly noticed a few hours later when The DA came over and horned his way into our discussion.Whatever. He had cigarettes, and I was dying to smoke. I barely remember going outside with him to light up but I was so wasted from the free Jger shots that I accidentally stumbled into him, which he mistook for interest. We started making out on the street in broad daylight.
Another drunken regret. He put me in a cab to LaGuardia to catch my flight home. The next day at work I returned from lunch to find an email from an unknown address in my inbox. Hi Rachel, Remember me? Im the guy who hailed you a cab in the LES. If youre ever back in the city, it would be cool to hang out. Oh, God.The khaki-pantswearing DA thinks I might actually be into him. I was so drunk I gave him my contact info. He obviously didnt realize he was not even close to being my type.What did he think we were going to do, drink white wine and watch reruns of Law & Order? I worked for MTV and wore Converse for Gods sake. My next boyfriend, like all others who preceded him, would have long hair and tattoos. I decided not to return his email and deleted it. Two months later, I was back in Manhattan for work and decided to stop by Iggys for a drink. I walked in, and there he was. The DA. Assuming he wouldnt remember me I sat down at the bar and ordered a Bud Light. Minutes later, I heard my name. Rachel? He had initiated contact. After I had completely blown him off. This guy had some guts. Finding his confidence kind of hot, I invited him to sit down in the interwoven nylon chair next to me. I wonder how many seatbelts died to make this chair? he said. OK, that was funny.We ordered beers and talked. He was smart he used words like jetstream in regular conversationhad a great sense of humor and a job where he made enough money to live in Manhattan without roommates. It turned out he was one of 550 assistant DAs for Manhattan, not the district attorney.
Six hours later we slept together. It was the best sex Id ever had. I never realized that being a self-absorbed artist-musician in life also meant being self-absorbed in bed. I couldnt believe that my entire love list, from the moment I lost my virginity to the lead singer of Mystery Machine, had been governed by this principle.
The next day the DA emailed to say how much fun he had. This time I wrote back. There was no waiting two days with him. He just knew what he wanted. It was completely different from the Im only into you because youre not into me bullshit I was used to. Ten months later I moved to New York to be with him.When I arrived at his apartment and used my key to get in, he hadnt yet returned from work.There were no guitar pedals or dirty bongs anywhere in sight. Instead there was Boston College memorabilia and books on criminal law enforcement. It only took me 18 years of dating to figure out that it was the dark, tormented musicians emails that I shouldnt have returned.