“Can I Take You Out?”
NY single relationships #2
Most recently a friend of mine requested me to write more personal stuff in my blog regarding my own life. Like for example my dates. Well, what can I tell you… this has been a serious issue regarding my social and romantic life simply because some rituals part of the country have still been unknown to me. I will mention some examples to better illustrate what I have just said.
The other night at the Soho Synagogue gala event at Ground Zero a handsome young man approached me discretely and after exchanging some jokes asked me the following question: “Can I ask you out on a date?” When I heard the question I noticed myself slowly panicking. My answer to him was, “You must excuse me, I am Brazilian and I don’t know what a date is.” His reply was a little tense telling me, “What I mean is can I take you out for dinner!” So I answer very quickly, “Of course, why didn’t you say before?”
The man never called back. Something went wrong. What did I say? What did he mean? What happened? After all he was kind of attractive and cute.
I decided to closely check the subject with American friends, since my European friends did not exactly understand my stress arguing that the guy probably must have been drunk or whatever, making sure I would like to go for dinner @Mediterraneo, our favorite Italian restaurant on the East side.
The next Sunday at the rooftop of the Hudson Hotel at sunset while having a Leeche Bellini’s among few French and American friends the following question was asked: “Hey girls, how many times a week do you date?” My gorgeous French-blonde-blue-eyed friend looked at me a little stressed out before answering to him “zero times…” hoping that he‘d not misunderstood that she is still pretty but does not do “that”. (I kept wandering what would have been his considerations about her so honest answer.)
It seems —after discussing the subject during all this week among friends— there is a huge miscommunication about different habits in romantic relationships in a city like New York, where there are so many cultures and everyone has it all and always better at the next event, gathering or party. At the salon, Cosmopolitan magazine gives out advices of fast escape techniques once you are in a blind date and don’t like it. I suppose you must go armed with the escape technique kit to feel safe enough to make that jump in your new hopefully romantic venture.
According to the semantic definition, dates are social outing with a potential lover, a part of courtship. The problem according to my point of view is that they are pre-scheduled.
The meetings usually are exclusive of two people with mutual interest in one another, to communicate and to understand each other better via joint participation in social activities during time away from work or school. In Western societies, a date is an occasion when one socializes with a potential lover or spouse. In this sense, the purpose of a date is for the people dating to become acquainted and decide whether they want to have a relationship
During dating, people often explore the following traits in one another:
- Character and integrity
- Interests
- Habits
- Attitudes
- Priority
- Maturity
- Preferences
- Religious views
- Political views
- Expectations
- Family, cultural and social background
- Gaps between age and distance
- Direction and stages of personal growth
- Financial arrangement
- Ways of communication
- Views on sex, marriage and child-bearing
Usually, if both parties find out they have poor or low compatibility it signals the end of the relationship.
The reason for the stress is exactly what was mentioned above. Can you imagine the responsibility of pre-determining and pre-scheduling something that might not even happen or come to be of one’s interest? What about if we just would like to go out for dinner and share those pasta al fungi Porcini and the rest we’ll see and just play it by ear?
What about blind dates then? And double blind dates? There is a club –one of my favorites in NY– called Double 07, where I heard some friends of mine were having double blind dates. This is exhausting if you just examine the mathematics and the random probability of getting fond of the cute host at the door, who certainly is not blind and definitely has noticed your short dress getting out of a taxi on the way to your double blind encounter that after all you must not really be sure to whose blindness it belongs, yours or your friend’s.
I am sorry to confuse my readers but, to make it worse, one of the first weeks I was in NY a year and a half ago I was invited for the first time to the Metropolitan opera to watch a concert and then taken to the French restaurant le Cirque for a nice dinner by a man in a Brioni striped suit introduced by my lawyers, who patiently waited for the Crème Brule to be served and literally put me an ultimatum like this one, ”If you want to go out with me with a serious intention I will be delighted to think about a serious commitment, if your intentions are to have fun this will be the last time we see each other.”
The Crème Brule was elegantly swallowed by my throat and the answer was, “To save you time then lets not even ask for tea. Thank you very much for the nice evening, but really my main purpose in life is to catch up with all the fun I can and this is my official, final and formal good-bye. Good luck to you.” Then I left the elegant establishment running as fast as I could.
The other day someone I recently met supposedly for business announced to me that I am a fascinating woman with several issues (analysis after reading my blog), and because I am very beautiful I had no reason to take care of business, but if I would allow him to take care of me, the rest would come; after all, according to his calculations, I’d have only 5 years left for success and I‘d might as well relax, since he was the one that knew what I needed in my professional and personal life.
Another evening I went for dinner at Bette –my favorite downtown restaurant– with a charming South American man; in a middle of a very romantic atmosphere, I was literally offered to “Be taken to heaven” as long as I treated him his way and not my own.
At the Buddha Bar, an irresistible jet-setter from Syria living in Europe told me over pineapple Martinis that if I wanted I could have all Arab countries at my feet, what for a Jewish girl like me sounded ambitious, if I only decided to be less of a spellbound and more of a submissive and easier woman to please.
You see, in NY dating is about trading. It’s about what you have to offer in exchange of what you are demanding. It is in fact relationships’ stock market. It is the pre-conceived deal, meticulously elaborated in every aspect and detail without omitting any aspect that can be misinterpreted, misjudged or misunderstood in the future disclosure.
In my opinion then the settlement has to be for the best, otherwise, of course, nothing at all.
My honest point of view though, if you are really interested to know, is that……
I love misunderstandings and unexpected events, just because they’ll give me the opportunity to surprise that someone else with that out of control passionate kiss, making it at the end, all up.
And that for sure, is the best deal of all.
This post is dedicated to an American friend ( not a date), Bobby Marcowitz who kindly enlighted me one evening at the Hudson hotel Rooftop, with some explanation about the dating concept in America.
