single. Besides, there’s plenty of time to find the one, if he even exists. That’s what I keep telling myself. Now I just have to believe it.
I’m early, as usual. The bar is crowded, but there are plenty of empty tables. The after-work crowd is mainly interested in alcohol. I can relate.
The newest hot spot, Café Blue, is a long narrow rectangular space with soaring ceilings cut by a row of swirling fans. The drinkers are packed together on one side of the room, and a small group of diners is chewing together on the other side. Of course, the whole place is painted in shades of blue. I’m here to meet my good friend Katie for dinner. She has been dying to try Café Blue, and she made me promise not to go without her. What she doesn’t know is that I have already been here. I came two weeks ago with Bryn, so I now know that the food is overpriced and the service is subpar. Bryn and I had tentative evening plans a couple of weeks ago, but in the afternoon she left me a message asking me to meet her “at that new place Café Blue at 8”, and then she never answered her phone again. I was stuck. I actually met Bryn through Katie, but they’ve since had a falling out and are mutually ignoring each other. I haven’t mentioned that I’m no longer a Café Blue virgin to Katie.
As long as I’m here early, and in an effort to make the best of it, I casually walk up to the bar and discreetly angle my way in. From my last visit, I can recall several nice-looking, suit-wearing, likely employed men hovering around. From what I can see, they are back tonight.
Having just come from the office, I’m wearing a pair of navy Bermuda shorts topped with a frilly white peasant shirt. I have on a pair of uncomfortable, but flattering, strappy sandals. This outfit is a step up from my usual Converse sneakers and T-shirts. I work in marketing at a computer software company in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston. The high-tech world has a very casual dress code.
I reach a hand up, checking that my dark curly hair is still neatly contained in a clip. I’m fairly presentable, I think, for having just walked a block to get here on a muggy August night. As I’m attempting to make eye contact with the burly, nose-pierced bartender, I feel someone move in beside me on the right. A deep voice with a smooth cadence says, “I’ll get his attention for you.”
I look over and find myself eye-level with a grey button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves over tan forearms, topped by a striped tie loosened at the neck. Glancing upward, I meet a pair of smiling brown eyes shielded by trendy frameless glasses, and thick sun-streaked hair that’s combed to the side and in perfect order. He doesn’t have to worry about his locks springing out in all directions when the humid summer air sneaks up on him. “Thanks.” I smile at him, astounded by how quickly this has come about.
“What are you having?” he asks.
“Just a Chardonnay,” I answer, eyeing the exotic drinks being consumed around me. Hard alcohol does not agree with me, despite my many attempts to convince it otherwise.
Within moments he has flagged down the bartender and is moving a chilled glass of wine toward me. I reach out and place some bills on the bar, shaking my head at him, but still smiling when he tries to pay. This is something of a problem. I don’t like other people paying for me. It becomes especially difficult in dating situations. Not that this is a dating situation. But in this case, a nice-looking stranger trying to buy me a drink could take my refusal as a rejection, even though I’ve tempered it with a friendly smile.
This whole category of etiquette confuses me. It seems as though who should pay on a date is an elusive concept to both sexes. I’m an independent gal making a good living, but I’m under the impression that the gentleman always pays if he does the asking. I’m not necessarily comfortable with this, but I can conform to society’s dictates. Once a relationship forms, expenses can even out a bit more. At least, this was my thinking until various men I’ve dated complained about the “gold-diggers” with whom they had previously gone