It was dark outside. The temperature had dropped slightly. I don’t remember what music I listened to as I drove towards Manhattan, but whatever band it was, their first album was better. I found a spot to park next to the Strand Bookstore, which left me a nice hike to the bar. I stopped by Kim’s along the way to kill some time. I made sure not to buy anything, because showing up to a date with a Kim’s bag would have opened up a conversation about music, which is the topic I am least comfortable talking about with people I don’t know well. Rosá called once when I was in the store, but I did not answer. Let her wait, I thought.
Once I exited the store I called her. She did not answer. She probably figured that two could play at this game. I walked down St. Marks, past Hop Devil, and decided to hoof it over to our predetermined meet-up point. I chose to stand outside the bar and call her rather than walk inside, because I really didn’t know who I was looking for, and I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable in front of her friends. I dialed her again as I paced back and forth along the sidewalk in front of the bar. There was no answer. After five or ten minutes, she called me to apologize and say she was on her way outside.
The door swung open maybe thirty seconds later, and there was Rosá. She was slightly below average height (5’3″ or 5’4″), and wafer thin. Snow-white face, perfect skin, wearing a black and white striped shirt beneath a black jacket and black pants. She looked like a goth candy cane. Her brown hair was cut just below her chin; her thick bangs were combed over her forehead. She had a narrow face, with big green eyes a slightly upturned nose. Her thin lips were covered in a light pink gloss. Or maybe she had just been licking them in anticipation of immediately dropping to her knees and servicing me. I smiled and said, “Hi” as she approached. We shared a brief hug, and then I asked if she was ready to walk over to Hop Devil.
As we walked, we made small talk about what songs her drunk friends sang at karaoke, and our mutual distaste for certain pubs. I asked her where she normally went to drink or hang out, and she rattled off the usual list of hipster dens. When I called her out on this, she became slightly embarrassed and mentioned how badly she wanted to be perceived as a hipster, even though she possessed few of the qualities that would allow others to pass such a judgement. She said it might have something with her going to Columbia, which immediately gave me the urge to use lots of big words and talk about world affairs. Although my memory is slightly hazy, I’m pretty sure I didn’t achieve either goal. I asked where she was currently living, and learned about how she’s still living in her ex-boyfriend’s apartment uptown, but was desperately looking for a way out. Hmm…
At Hop Devil, we chose a table in the corner near the jukebox. She sat facing the door, and I across from her. I asked what she wanted to drink, but she left the decision to me. I purchased us both beers. She said she liked hers, but who the fuck knows what girls are thinking or why they say whatever it is they say. We spent far too long talking about our e-mail exchanges, blogs, and the weird realization that we knew had known each other all along. We spent crushingly little time on how moist her vagina was, and whether or not is was making her seat slick. We also talked about our jobs. She was currently working in retail, and also holding down a part-time job at an adult magazine, choosing which letters to the editor were printed…or something. We bonded over our mutual career goals, and how we subscribed to similar writing/editing industry mailing lists. We were like a couple of nerds. There weren’t many awkward pauses. I had a second drink, and Rosá did not. She said she didn’t want to get drunk, and retold me the story about how she drunkenly whipped out her vibrator at a bar a few weeks earlier. I could have taken her not drinking as a sign she didn’t trust me not to take advantage of her, but I instead figured maybe she was interested in actually getting to know me and learning more about my life. As the minutes passed, I silently patted myself on the back for not asking a single question about queefs.
After the second drink, Rosá mentioned she was tired and should probably get back to her apartment. She had work tomorrow (yeah, right). I asked which train she took, and she said she needed to go to Essex Street. When she followed this by stating she would have to take a taxi there because she didn’t know which way to walk from our current location, I offered to escort her to the train. She smiled and consented. About three blocks from the station, she changed her mind and decided she was going to hail a taxi and take it all the way uptown, because she was too tired. She thanked me profusely, said something about my being nicer than the guys she usually sees, and we agreed to make plans soon. We hugged, she crawled into the awaiting cab, and sped off into the night.
I was feeling really good about the events of the evening, so two days later, I sent her a text message during work hours that was related to the goods she peddled at her place of business. It was a “useless factoid,” and just geeky enough to be cute. She thanked me and said we’d speak soon.
A week or two later, I was driving back from Baja Fresh with Ken, Jack and Dan, when I received a text from a friend I will call Rebecca for the sake of this story. All it said was, she was bored and had to stay late at work. After first reading it and putting my phone away, I had the impulse to send her a reply. I dug around for my phone and clicked through the menus to create a new message. I wrote simply, “Show me your tits, bitch!” and sent it off into the ether. And then I realized I didn’t actually send it to Rebecca, I had sent it to Rosá.
I was too embarrassed to send an immediate apology. I was frozen, really. I had no idea what to say or do when the inevitable response arrived — if it arrived. And when it did arrive in my inbox, I felt even worse than I would have if she had simply read it and chosen to never speak to me again. Her reply said, “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” What the fuck! Seven days is all it takes to forget a person exists, or erase their phone number? If you had made a date with a person you’d just met, wouldn’t you think to at least store their number in your phone in case you needed to cancel? Are you telling me that it was possible that after seven days I had been expunged? What a crock of shit. I decided not to even grace her with an answer. I was too livid. As I sit here writing this, I don’t still don’t know why I chose to let it go. I missed a perfect opportunity to make a joke out of it, or apologize, and ask her out again. It doesn’t matter though, what I did next was even more retarded.
She called me, about a week after, “Show me your tits, bitch!” And get this — I ignored the call. The first thought I had wasn’t that she could possibly be calling because she found my number and was looking to talk to me. Oh no. In my mind, she was calling to find out who had sent the text message; she had waited a week to try and throw the anonymous text harasser off her trail. This is how I rationalized not picking up the phone. I had missed my second opportunity to apologize and ask her to see me again.
That same night, I signed online to check my e-mail, web stats, regularly visited forums, and my MySpace messages. As I was about to sign off, I saw that she had just posted a bulletin board message. So what did I, the genius responsible for “Show me your tits, bitch!” do? I chose not to read and respond to her bulletin with something clever and cute; thus effectively missing my third opportunity to apologize and ask her to see me again. Instead I chose to post my own bulletin, because in my mind she was going to see it appear directly above hers, and it would jog her memory and she would respond to me, we’d make plans, and fist each other’s asses off into the sunset.
Well, I guess seeing my name above hers jogged her memory alright. The next morning, my MySpace friends list had decreased by one person. I guess she finally put two and two together, and decided I was unworthy of experiencing her Baby Gap-sized vagina. In that moment–when I suddenly realized that I had blown a chance with a really nice, cute girl in the most obtuse series of events imaginable–I don’t think I’d ever felt more ashamed to be me. I actually pitied myself for being so unfathomably stupid.
I’ve since resigned myself to the fact that I’ll never talk to her again. But, to be perfectly honest, it’s just another in a long list of hilarious attempts at courtship gone terribly awry. The horror. The horror.
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