Chris P. Toast
Tonight’s date was Chris P. Toast, a slightly shy and charmingly curmudgeonly artist. We started out at the Brooklyn Museum. Me: Well, they’re pretty. Him: These paintings make me so angry. We did notice that all the children seemed eager to escape the museum. Our moods didn’t seem culturally oriented, so we turned to a culinary tour of the lower East side: Krif Dogs, Pommes Frites, Burp Castle (which has great beer, if you don’t mind the monk theme). It was a fun evening, and I cracked up at Chris’s roommate stories (exposed nipples!) and sly sense of humor. Honestly, though, guys, I think I’m really flagging. This is exhausting. I feel like every night the guys get an increasingly shabbier date-showing from me. I mean, okay, dating is kinda like the most infamous mantra of my sixth grade sex ed class. I don’t know about you guys, but I vividly remember middle school health classes. Coach Twitchell told us about condoms and Megan in the back row told us about hair in new places. The glitchy VHS tape told us that feeling new, weird feelings was totally normal, and that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to them. Everyone told us that we would definitely contract herpes, because when we slept with someone, we were also sleeping with everyone they’d ever slept with. When you go on a date (especially a first date, and even an I’m-Not-Sure-This-Is-A-Date-So-I-Wore-A-Bleach-Stained-Sweatshirt-Oh-Shit-You’re-Wearing-A-Cravatte date), you’re kinda going on a date with everyone you’ve ever dated and everyone he’s ever dated. We’re perpetually (and usually unconsciously) comparing the prospects we meet with the abandoned, uh, imbroglios of the past – It’s impossible to do otherwise. By “we,” I obviously mean “me,” but I’m going to pretend that this applies to everyone. Dating is one of those areas where we almost never learn from our mistakes, but where we’re nevertheless perpetually analyzing past forays. Given this, I find it especially disorienting to go on so many dates in close succession, because now the multiple guys I’m thinking about aren’t past prospects – they’re all current. It’s tiring. I’m going to sleep.
