Second Edition Follow-Up

Peter Moran
Sep 9, 2018 · 7 min read

The following story serves as a follow-up to a tale told in the second edition of the newsletter. This story is copied to the bottom of this edition, in quotations, for those who did not read the previous edition or need a refresher.

But we did speak again, albeit over a year later. I had moved about 2500 miles from the site of our first date, but because we had followed each other on some form of social media I became aware she’d also moved 2500 miles and they seemed to be the same miles. So I did what any respectable gentleman who had taken a lady out on a date and not spoken for thirteen months would do and followed her on a separate form of social media and waited for a reaction. It came, calling me out (jokingly, I think) for my lack of follow up and I responded by feigning being clueless that my timing wasn’t normal. A few more words were exchanged and a plan was made to meet once more and ask each other about our year.

She asked me why I asked her out again, if it was because I was a year wiser. I told her I was a year more desperate and she laughed. She didn’t used to laugh. I told her she’d changed. She wasn’t the girl I used to know. She told me the city changed her, she’d never be the same. She’d been here two days now, so it seemed fair.

I told her the things I remembered about her and she explained why I was wrong and I wondered if the memory I’d touted for so long as so impeccable was as inaccurate in other circumstances as it was in this one. I hoped not. I asked her if she was still going to be a doctor and she said no and she asked me if I was still going to be a comedian and I said no*. Mostly because I couldn’t support myself off open mics and if she wasn’t going to be an MD then somebody needed to pay the bills. She didn’t disagree.

I brought up the Bachelorette, not because I necessarily wanted to discuss the show itself but because people love to talk about other people’s business and hearing their opinions on what other people do best indicates what they think. I think. But instead of finding out her thoughts on relationships, it turned into a hot take of my own about how the show is actually a more realistic depiction of dating than people assume, because we’re all actually just as fake when we’re meeting someone as we would be with cameras on us and she asked me if I was being fake now and I said maybe not fake but there’s a far worse version of me that could’ve shown up today and I made sure that he didn’t and even though I stand by what I said I could almost picture a second version of myself listening to this version speak and that version was rolling his eyes so far back into the back of his head that it hurt. But she didn’t disagree.

She didn’t want to try the spicy dipping sauce and I told her that seemed unlike her and she said I don’t really know her that well and I said I’d known her for over a year now and she said it’s all the jokes about how long it’s been between dates had stopped being funny and she could see why I stopped being a comedian and I said my feelings were hurt and I can see why I waited a year to reach out. She said that was actually funny and I should try being funny more and I told her that was actually nice and she should try being nice more. But she didn’t want to change for me.

There’s not too much else to say — we drank our drinks and ate our chips and spoke our words until it seemed like a reasonable time to stop doing so. And now we’ll type our texts until it becomes a hassle to do so and we’ll taper off until we are absolved of any responsibility to maintain communication because dating is all about passivity and ambivalence and I’ll probably just wait until all my friends are married before I settle for the closest eligible and willing maid and have some fat, un-athletic children because if all my friends jumped off a cliff I would too and the same goes for if they got married which really isn’t that much different, I assume. Cheers.

*Reasons why I didn’t become a comedian, as indicated by the worst jokes in my notebook.

These were never tried on a crowd, so take them with a grain of bath salts.

-So I recently found out that I’m schizophrenic. It was pretty shocking to hear the news, I don’t know. I feel different from everyone else, like I don’t belong, like I’m the only one going through this struggle. I’m like, “Is it just me?”

-I’m not saying he had bad hygiene, but if he were to sell his shower he could definitely list it as “lightly used.”

-I don’t trust any of my friends. It’s not that I have trust issues in general, but anyone who likes hanging out with me has something wrong with them.

-I hate my roommate. I told him, “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my morning coffee.” Then I quit drinking coffee. Also, I live alone.

“My date with Sandra didn’t go very well. She made a joke about me being a kidnapper when I picked her up and it was pretty funny but I thought about how easily I could’ve been a kidnapper and how crazy it theoretically is to go on dates with people whose face you liked more than someone else’s face based on the picture of themselves they liked best and how I was doing that at the same age my father was raising a child and by the time I had those thoughts it was too late to laugh. She noticed and asked me what was on my mind and I told her how I liked every profile on Bumble because it was more efficient since the women had to like my profile and message me and by the time they’d done both those things they must be fairly invested in me and I could choose from those profiles to try to spark up some witty banter. She told me my strategy made sense but wasn’t very romantic and I told her I knew that but I wanted to demonstrate how transparent a person I was. I realized I probably should’ve been more focused on listening to her than demonstrating what kind of a person I am but it’s hard to do that with a type A personality which I sometimes think is a nice term for selfish. But, regardless, my date with Sandra didn’t go very well.

My date with Sandra didn’t go very well. She told me about her family and how her parents were from Ghana and I told her that mine weren’t and she said she could tell and I asked her how and she said because if I had any real experience with different cultures we wouldn’t be at a California Pizza Kitchen and I told her my favorite Mexican food was Chipotle and she called me basic. I told her that basic is basic for a reason and sometimes the majority is right and then I added that I’d been to Central America twice but I didn’t mention that I only ate peanut butter and jelly the whole time I was there and lost several pounds because apparently I wasn’t as transparent as I thought I was. She told me that if I wanted to be just like everyone else I should go ahead and I said I’m not like anyoneelse but when I stand out from a crowd it’s not going to be because of my eating habits. She sensed a shift in my tone and jokingly asked if we were having our first fight and I said I think we’re having our last and she didn’t respond right away so my date with Sandra didn’t go very well.

My date with Sandra didn’t go very well. She told me she could tell I was a gentleman because I asked her to dinner instead of just drinks and I told her thank you but really I was just hungry. I chuckled a little bit when I said it because laughter is supposed to be contagious but she must’ve been immune. Most of what I say jokingly remains accurate to how I truly feel, and based on how quickly I’d eaten my pizza she could tell I really was hungry or I just wanted the date to be over with. Either way, my date with Sandra didn’t go very well.

My date with Sandra didn’t go very well. She told me I reminded her of her ex and I said it seems like she has bad taste in men and she said he was a good guy but he did leave a bad taste in her mouth and then to switch the subject she said this meal was leaving a bad taste in her mouth because I had bad taste in restaurants. I didn’t respond to the repetition but I told her it’s sad something so sweet can leave such a bad aftertaste nonetheless and she said I should probably leave the metaphor alone now and I agreed. She said I was right, though. She added that we probably wouldn’t have to deal with that because we started so sourly and I asked her why she was allowed to keep the taste metaphor and I wasn’t. She shrugged. She said she could tell this wasn’t going anywhere and I said it was refreshing to hear something so straightforward. She told me there were a lot of fish in the sea and I said yeah, but most of them are ugly and she finally laughed. My date with Sandra didn’t go very well, but at least I made a really good friend. Just kidding; we never spoke again”