Dating While Dad
Early March 2016. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, 3rd and La Cienega.
#tinder #datingwhiledad #mysinglelife
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She’s there first, already with her coffee, looking just like her pictures.
She stands, shakes my hand, then gives me an awkward hug.
This is my first Tinder date. Is the hug part of the protocol now? It wasn’t how we did it the last time I was doing online dating. Bill Clinton was president then, and I dialed in with a phone line modem to meet my matches, and this woman was probably dressing up as Sporty Spice with her friends, and jeepers, Hugo, that’s a dumbass thing to think.
It’s just a hug. Maybe I’ve forgotten. Maybe we did do that back in the day.
I buy a sparkling water. Two weeks out of the psych hospital — what better time for dating apps? — I’m still adjusting to some heavy meds. The Naltrexone in particular leaves me nauseated most evenings. Coffee and tea disgust me. All I want is cold bubbles.
We make small talk, and I start to feel more comfortable. It’s early March, the heart of the primary season, and we continue the teasing exchange we’d started online: she’s feeling the Bern, and I’m with Her. Playful disagreement can start to feel an awful lot like flirtation, and maybe we’re there. She makes a crack about my age, and I return it right quick, rewarded with a smile and an eyebrow raise.
But I’m distracted by my stomach. The Perrier is useless, the lemon infusion more than gagworthy. Something is rising inside me. I am probably making very strange faces at her.
I have no choice. I excuse myself, go to the restroom, and throw up. I do it as quietly and quickly as I can. Three messy heaves, and relief.
Standing up, I notice that I left the house with one pant leg tucked into a sock. Better yet, my socks don’t match. I envision an ex, laughing at me, only a little unkindly.
I rinse my mouth, but have no gum or mints. I must go back to her with puke breath. That’s manageable across a table, but what if we get closer?
And we do get closer. My stomach emptied, I feel my confidence growing. She laughs, her face gets warm. This isn’t so bad! I’m holding my own!
“How about a walk?
“I’d love that.”
We head east on 3rd. The night smells of rain, but the sky is partly clear. The conversation flows easily, as we swap anecdotes that edge us ever closer to revelation. It all feels familiar. This is something I know how to do.
We’re walking too close together, our shoulders and knuckles brushing. At any moment, I ought to reach for her hand. And then — I see D’Amore’s Pizza, famous for its generous slices. My empty stomach roars for attention.
“It’s really good here,” I say, “would you like a slice?”
I might as well have asked her if she’d mind lying down in traffic. She takes a perceptible step away from me, thrown off her rhythm and out of the moment.
“Uh, okay.”
The two large slices are unwieldy to eat when walking, and though she could have said no, I’ve now cajoled this woman into marching in the cold with sticky cheese she didn’t want on her fingers. Nice, Hugo, winning all the Tinder prizes.
My stomach is happy though, and with the pizzas consumed or tossed, I do my best to steer things back to that shoulder-brushing moment. She hesitates.
“It’s not a big deal,” she says, “but full disclosure, I’m on the autism spectrum. I’m a 28.”
I know little about autism, but I’m surprised. And then ashamed of being surprised that someone so talkative and apparently perceptive could be so close to full-blown Aspergers.
I ask her what that’s like for her, and then, in the spirit of a candid moment, just as we pass Crescent Heights on the way back, tell her that I’m Borderline and Bipolar.
This shouldn’t be first date conversation, we say, and we laugh. I feel that warm glow that comes from playing “If you’ll show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
The shoulder brushing is back, and I reach for her hand. I make a hash of it, trying to take her whole hand in mine, and she assumes I want to interlace fingers. We go with her idea.
All this is fine, but my mouth tastes like pizza and vomit. I cannot kiss her like this, much less anything else. And I changed my sheets and everything, just in case. (Nothing good to say about the socks.)
We’ve reached her car. In the final moments of the walk, we’ve cycled back to Bernie and Hillary, and she remarks that for someone so deluded (she must mean my politics, not my illness), I’m not so bad.
We lean into each other, a split-second of a Roman arch, adjusting for our weight and height disparity like two people who’ve known each other’s bodies well.
I must be very wrong about Aspergers, I decide.
It is goodbye. The moment of truth looms: the smell and taste of my mouth will be a vile coda to the evening. Not even attempting a kiss at this point will seem dismissive. I opt for a hug and — oh readers, I am made of Fail — I KISS HER FOREHEAD, safely exhaling over her hair.
If she’s puzzled, it’s only for a moment. She drives away.
Minutes later, I open the Tinder app.
I had a great time, I type. I’d like to see you again.
Me too, she types back, thank you. She adds an indecipherable emoji.
The next afternoon, I go back on to look for her. I want to ask her about a second date.
Her profile is gone. We have unmatched. I don’t have her phone number.
Ghosted.
July 4, 2016, maybe 1:00AM.
In my little room, next to the bed, we kick off our shoes. We’re breathing hard. We’re moving quickly.
The faint boom of far away fireworks adds a rattle of promise. If I were younger, I think to myself, it would also add pressure.
She unbuttons my shirt, and I grimace. I haven’t had time to caution her about what her eyes and fingers are about to find, the scattered constellations of scars.
“I’m sorry, I should have warned you.”
As her fingers graze the raised bumps on my shoulder, she looks down and laughs.
Um, so not a good time to laugh. Then I see.
Someone gave my daughter a flash tattoo kit last month, and ever since, she and her brother have been decorating themselves and their friends. And their father.
In addition to the permanent ink, there is now a spectacular sparkling gold and silver pigeon on my belly.
The pigeon is upside down. The pigeon appears to be vomiting.
(No, I am not sharing a photo.)
She (my date, not the pigeon) grins.
“That’s something else.”
“Well, you know, my kids.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
Too early the next morning, we sit on my bed, sipping coffee. She examines the cup in her hand. I bought it for the Diamond Jubilee, and on one side there’s a photo of Queen Elizabeth from 1952, and on the other, one from 2012.
“You look a little older than you do in your pictures.” she says. For a split second, I think she’s speaking to the queen. She smiles, turns, studies my face. “It’s not a bad thing, though.” She lowers her gaze, and bites my shoulder.
I gasp. Half pleasure, half obligation.
She takes another sip. “This is really good coffee.”
“I’m glad. I usually make it too sweet.”
“No, it’s perfect.”
She runs her thumb over the veins on the back of my hand. “I should probably go.” She looks at the cup. “Could I -”
“Would you like a to-go cup?” I ask, guessing right.
She nods. “Yeah, is that okay?”
In my tiny kitchen, I find three travel mugs: two are gifts from my children with their photos emblazoned all over. The third says NPR, an old premium from the days when I could afford to pledge to public radio.
I fill it for her, and walk her to her car.
We hug goodbye.
“I guess I have to see you again,” she says with a smile, hoisting the mug. “Collateral.”
I grin and kiss her, and watch her drive away.
***
That afternoon, I’m at the drug store.
I see a travel mug on sale.
I buy it.
