You can always tell what your friends think of you, by the people they set you up with.
~J Bertolus
“Oh, and he’s sooooo good with ALL of my dogs, even my crazy new rescue…”
She leaned across the jewelry counter, handing me his card, her giant diamond ring blinding me.
At that point she’d been waxing poetic about this guy for a good fifteen minutes.
Tina was the young, hot wife of a regular watch client of ours. He was a significantly older businessman, she was an attorney, (which never ceased to amaze me, because she looked like Malibu Barbie…seriously) he was richer than Trump – she was Georgia Peach sweet – and they seemed genuinely crazy about each other.
I was turning over every rock in my search for a husband at that stage of my life, and I’d decided, in a flash of desperate spontaneity, to ask her if she knew anyone.
Looking at her, I was sure men threw themselves her way on an hourly basis, and I was right.
She had a stack of cards that could choke a horse in the secret pocket of her bright blue Birkin bag, and when she pulled this guy’s out of the pile, it had his personal cell phone number handwritten on the back.
“He’s an excellent vet, he really is, and a beautiful human being. Honey, call that number” she said, tapping the back of the card with a long crimson fingernail, “that’s where he can be most easily reached.”
“Oh…I’m sure of THAT.” I snarkily replied, turning the card over in my hand. “For a dog emergency, right?”
“Of course. He said anytime, day or night. Isn’t that darling? He’s so devoted…”
I searched her face for any trace of…well, I don’t know; was she for real?
Could she really be THAT naive?
Yes – yes she could.
A handsome, single, forty year old veterinarian; in my neighborhood; that didn’t suck, right?
I gave her MY card, I wanted him to call ME.
I was getting good at blind dating – blind calling? Not so much.
After another five minutes of extolling his virtues, I stopped her by fibbing; telling her I had an appointment coming in, and immediately called the Vatican to petition for his sainthood.
Then I promptly forgot about this Saint Francis of Assisi – and Studio City.
As I remember it, he called, and we set up a time to meet the following Friday night, at the bar of a local Mexican restaurant.
I was usually dressed nice enough for work to be able to go straight out for drinks or a blind date. Nothing too fancy, but waaaay nicer than what I wear now.
If I was dating now – forget about it. I’d have to spackle, and put on pants.
Have I said too much?
The bar was LOUD and filled with every assorted type on a Friday night in the middle of summer.
There were tourists, with their Universal Studios t-shirts, young businessmen in suits, and sports guys, glued to the game on the TV above the bar.
She’d said he was dark haired and handsome, so I just looked past the ferret faced blonde guys.
“Janet?” a man’s voice asked from behind me, so I spun around.
There was my vet – in board shorts, flip flops and a faded surf shop t-shirt.
I had seen him in my preliminary scan of the bar and mistaken him for…something – not a guy meeting a blind date.
Had I made a mistake? Were we meeting to go grunion hunting?
“Oh hi.” I tried not to look as disappointed as I felt. I don’t think I succeeded.
“This place was a terrible idea (mine) it’s too loud and crowded, let’s go someplace else.” He said walking several steps in front of me toward the door.
Maybe he was disappointed as well.
I wasn’t Tina, not even on a good day.
Maybe he thought all her friends looked like they hung out in her Barbie Dreamhouse.
Yet, he certainly hadn’t dressed to impress.
I was hungry, disappointed and stumped. And I wanted to run.
“Were do you think we should go?” he was asking me as we stood outside on the sidewalk.
I wasn’t exactly batting a thousand, since I’d picked the loud, crowded place, and he wasn’t really dressed for anything nicer than Denny’s.
We walked for a few awkward blocks on Ventura Boulevard and settled on CPK – for a blind date – in LA. This was NOT going well.
Just as I’d suspected, it was filled with families and screaming kids at that hour, but I was done giving this date one more minute of thought, since it appeared HE was already phoning it in.
Wine!! I need wine!, was all that was going through my head as we sat down at a booth that was so dirty it sticky/slimed my silk blouse.
After the booze came, we started to make small talk, mostly him, (and if you know me at all, you know it’s rare when I’m quiet) as I chug-a-lugged my merlot.
He loved the animals and being a vet, and he lived up the hill – Nice.
Then suddenly, like a brick to the forehead, “I went to veterinary school in the Philippines, I really LOVE Philippine woman, they’re my type” he said to the curly-haired blonde, stuck to the table across from him.
He had a lascivious look on his face.
How rude was he going to get? His lack of blind date decorum was shocking. Didn’t he know the rules? Didn’t he know he was blowing it? Did he even care?
“Well, of course you do” – I’d had it.
“Isn’t that where the people who can’t get into veterinary school in the states go?”
I sniped.
Okay I know, low blow.
I grabbed a passing waiter’s sleeve as he walked by, “Check” I hissed, almost yanking his arm off.
Board short guy barely noticed; he was still staring off into space, grinning, dreaming of the women in the Philippines.
He grabbed the check and insisted on paying, even though I had my $20 out and ready.
What a gentleman.
He pulled a crisp hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet and snapped-snapped it in my face, to pay the $18 tab, like the flip-flop wearing, high rolling, big shot that he was.
I couldn’t have been more UNDERWHELMED.
I’m sorry to sound like an ass, but I was a jeweler, I counted hundred-dollar bills all day long, so much so, that they’d begun to resemble Monopoly money to me. (But that’s a whole other story.)
He then took several minutes to arrange the change in his wallet according to the bill denomination. I bolted.
“Uh, thanks so much, I’ve really got a run, I have an early….thing” I was literally speed walking to my car, with the vet trying to keep up, flying out of his flip-flops.
“Let’s do this again” he was behind me, out of breath.
That stopped me in my tracks.
“Your kidding right? This did not go well, we have nothing in common and we have absolutely NO chemistry.”
I let him down easy. Hey! That was easy, believe me.
“Oh, okay.” I heard in the distance. I was running now, with the safe haven of my car in sight.
I felt like I was going to need a Silkwood shower to wash off the yuck of that night and what the hell was Tina thinking?
Lost in thought, I didn’t hear the person beside me honking and trying to get my attention.
It was the vet. In a brand spanking new, red Corvette, giving me that same hundred-dollar smile and a thumbs up.
So, the moral of this story is: be really careful when putting out the blind dating feelers. You should ONLY ask the people who know you and love you. And you’ll be able to tell who they are by the people they fix you up with.
PS: Tina was shocked when I told her the vet and I were not a match. He told her I was “out of his league.” What?!
Ladies? Weigh in pretty please.
Xox
