ISO: A “Dazzler”
Until you meet the right person, there’s a lot of waiting involved. Waiting for them to text you back, waiting for them to plan the date (and then show up on that same date), waiting for someone to suggest another date, and eventually, waiting for them to lose interest so you have permission to do it all over again with someone else you’d actually like. Waiting, waiting, waiting. And so that’s how I feel right now, I’m waiting. Except in my particular shoes, I’m waiting to be what I kindly refer to as “dazzled.”
I have been dazzled before, and certainly dated a dazzler in my past, but it’s a rare phenomenon these days to experience for oneself. To me, to be dazzled is to be awoken. Ah yes, I’m in a West Village bar (the same one I always am) but for some reason (an obvious reason) this night feels so different (a handsome guy whose actually smart is by some complex miracle finding me mutually attractive) and I wonder what it could be (why does making eye contact feel athletic right now?).
A dazzler should be attractive enough, be unassumingly charming, and most importantly, make conversation worthy enough for a British person to call it “banter” (“ban-tah!”) and mean it. I think of it as playing word-tennis. I hit a clever quip, you hit back with a witty joke, I move up to the net with some nonsensical word play, you return with an equally as charming double entendre and guess what folks? The score is Love-All! (aww!!!) But these clever chatterboxes walk among us in silence, which doesn’t make sense because I’ve never heard a chatty person shut up –and I should know, I’m their leader.
So what do you do if you can’t find a dazzler? Well, that’s simple. You get bored. Or, in my case, you start developing hobbies. My accumulation of hobbies is not unlike that of an old man who’s preserved the instructional manual for every single appliance he’s purchased throughout his lifetime. We both think, “Hey, you never know, you might need this someday!” Except instead of Bob from Cleveland keeping his blender instructions in all seven languages, it’s me, (hi!) learning how to knit and bake bread because that is more rewarding than doing my hair for someone who will not even make it off the bench for word-tennis.
The other night, I met a man so boring I somehow kept a conversation going about fried calamari purely for my own entertainment. I started to do bits with him, you know like, comedy bits. Like I was working out a tight five minutes with him before my set on Fallon. I just feel like I’m getting to a point where being single in New York is a point of pride; I didn’t settle for calamari boy, I knew better. Ta da! (Applause break.)
I often like to ask men, “All things equal, would you rather be tasked with the chore of putting dirty plates into the dishwasher, or unloading them once they’re clean?” Why would I ask this? Simple. I don’t want to marry a dishwasher-loader, because I myself am a dishwasher-loader and I believe in this complicated, twisted, tortured world that I at least deserve a life where someone prefers chores opposite to mine. Said another way, I cannot unload the dishwasher my entire life, I just cannot. So I’ve started at the beginning, where it all matters. What’s his stance on dirty dishes? Dirty laundry? How about shoveling a snow-covered driveway? And then once I clear out all the core competencies I get onto the smaller topics of whether or not we want children and what religion he is, blah blah blah. Do you like to unload the dishwasher or not? I can compromise on children but not on chores.
So, in this undazzling dating pool, I remain as you found me: waiting. But don’t confuse my waiting with hopelessness, that’s a different beast altogether. I’m just not dazzled…yet. But, by all means, if you’re rich and handsome and cultured and deeply enjoy unloading clean dishwashers, you know how to reach me.
