Wisconsin Guy
Every once in a rare while, usually after my eyes have glazed over from staring at so many mediocre similar profiles, one just pops out and there is only one word that comes to mind: perfect. He lists his attributes as “having most of his teeth” and “no discernible limp,” while claiming his latest enjoyable read was the instructions on the back of a pad thai box. And he finished up with, “I went to a small liberal arts school in Wisconsin. Moo.” So I sent him a short message trying to take a stab at where he went to school. And he wrote back, so…perfect.
He asked me out while I was in New York, and I showed the message to Zibs, getting all squealy.
Z: Oh my gosh, you haaaave to date someone from Wisconsin. I’ve had such good luck dating people from Ohio! (her home state)
It was a pretty dumb leap, but what she was saying made a lot of sense. I was getting even more excited, if that was at all possible. Lauren also had her input.
J: Is 42 too old? (a seemingly nice guy had messaged me but was…ehmmm…42)
L: Yes!
J: What about 39? (Wisconsin Guy’s age)
L: No!
J: O…kay.
We planned a date (the two days he suggested I was already going on dates with other people and I felt like a hussy) and I was ten shades of excited. BUT, then he sent up a follow up message saying, “Just to warn you, I’m growing a beard. I’ve gotten mixed reviews on it, and I’ll probably only keep it for another month or so, but I thought you should not be scared should a scruffy Midwesterner approach you.” Okay, scruffy Midwesterner? Heart. Beard? Not so much. Why in the hell does he feel the need to WARN me about it? So of course I went into the date expecting something of epic ZZ Top proportions. A massive Jesus beard. An enormous Santa Claus beard. A gigantic hobo’s rat’s nest. And yeah, I was scared.
As per usual, I show up late, like a jerk, and oh thank god, his beard is quite small and not a ZZ Top like-will-engulf-you-if-you-get-too-close large, and eeeeeee, he’s really, really cute even WITH a beard, which you know I hate, so that’s saying something. Maybe it was because I was preparing for the worst, so yeah, cute! And so, so sweet, even with the, “It’s so nice to meet you” was just…well, so Wisconsin quite frankly. You could tell he was being truly genuine and that he meant every word. And then I swooned a little.
We sat down and I immediately felt at home and just wanted to wrap myself up in his smile. Which was bad, because I had guzzled a late afternoon coffee in hopes of not passing out in my dinner (grant deadline and multi-date night week-induced exhaustion was having its way with me) and needed to pee. SO BAD. But I didn’t want to leave because then I would have to leave that pretty face. But I suppose wetting your pants on a first date isn’t good form either, so I tore myself away. He’s hysterically funny, as in holy crap, I think I might choke and die on my food if he keeps talking. At some point, the fact that I was in band camp somehow came up. I was trying to quickly gloss over the band camp part and get to the relevant part of the story, but of course he was all, “HOLD ON. Did you just say BAND CAMP? What did you play?” J (miserably): “Clarinet.” Him: “Why didn’t you start with that? That’s so…SEXY.” I was so horrified I couldn’t figure out if he was mocking me or not. He was a graduate student at MIT (mechanical engineering! So smart but so normal!) He’s working at a company developing special hydrogen-powered fuel cells and is all earth save-y and amazing. Am I gushing too much? Sometimes he whips out his guitar (AGAIN: OF COURSE) and plays on a street corner. And people mistake him for a homeless person. And try to give him food. The man is a freaking genius and manages dozens of other geniuses all day and people are all, “Do you want our doggie bag?” His company used to collaborate with a car company in France and he was talking about all his travels to Paris and I was literally drooling with envy and then he said something about us going to Paris together. Which…did that just happen? Did a guy just ask me to go to Paris with him on a first date? Swooning the second.
But oh my god, I was still having trouble getting over the genuineness as I was getting pretty used to doing without it. He CONGRATULATED me on getting a Ph.D. Which, in retrospect, shouldn’t be that strange, but it just wasn’t anything I had gotten so far. And I was all, oh yeah! Good job me! And then he asked me what it was like, coming from Wisconsin and California to Boston. The most obvious answer that sprang to mind was (at least California to Boston) a very different receiving of my multi-ethnicity. Maybe it’s unfair since the Bay Area is like a mini Asia, but I got pretty used to telling people there that my mom is from Thailand (or them being able to tell without me saying anything about it) and then I would get a pretty standard list of follow up questions: Do you speak Thai, do you have family there, do you travel there a lot, etc. Out here, it’s more like nothing. I’ve never been asked any sort of follow up question to that whatsoever. And I don’t think it’s any type of racism, but maybe just…vague uncomfortableness? Inability to synthesize and process information they’ve never gotten before? I don’t know, I’m a dime a dozen out there, but here I seem to be a bit strange. But I thought it would be a bit unfair to say that to Wisconsin Guy since the topic hadn’t come up yet and it would be like accusing him of not doing something that he hadn’t even had a chance to do. However, my fingers weren’t exactly crossed after all my experiences. So I said something else about my transition experience, and the conversation wandered elsewhere, and then it came to my family.
And then: “So, can you speak Thai?” “Do you have family there?” “Do you travel there a lot?” etc.
I almost hurled myself over the table to make out with him then and there. Instead I settled for swooning the third.
He gave me a ride home and we hugged and I got out and was walking away when he was all, “Oh, you forgot your leftovers!” (which is something I have consistently done on every single date that I’ve taken leftovers home from. Or maybe I thought he was a hungry homeless man, hee!) and he opened the door to hand them to me. And then got out of the car to hug me again. And I went upstairs to grin myself to sleep.
THEN, I had to struggle through a stressful set of days wondering whether he was going to call. We had discussed plans for candle pin bowling (I know, such dorks) but I was suddenly having creeping doubts that he didn’t mean it. It’s a very small sample size, but I’d literally been batting a thousand in terms of having the guy contact me in some form or another the day after for all my dates. And just when I thought I’d have to suck it up and call him my damn self, he called. I had just gotten out of the shower and he called and I didn’t even think, I just answered. And then proceeded to sweat actual buckets through the eternity of the phone call while we made plans for bowling and chatted about our weekends. I thought I might have to get in the shower again after that perfusion of nervous sweat during that endless phone call. The call that almost drained my battery because it was so long. The call that was so long the weekend was over and there was no longer any point in discussing my plans for the weekend because I had just spent them on the phone with him… Okay, so I just checked my phone. It was 8 minutes. Whatever.
Swoon the fourth.
He asked me out while I was in New York, and I showed the message to Zibs, getting all squealy.
Z: Oh my gosh, you haaaave to date someone from Wisconsin. I’ve had such good luck dating people from Ohio! (her home state)
It was a pretty dumb leap, but what she was saying made a lot of sense. I was getting even more excited, if that was at all possible. Lauren also had her input.
J: Is 42 too old? (a seemingly nice guy had messaged me but was…ehmmm…42)
L: Yes!
J: What about 39? (Wisconsin Guy’s age)
L: No!
J: O…kay.
We planned a date (the two days he suggested I was already going on dates with other people and I felt like a hussy) and I was ten shades of excited. BUT, then he sent up a follow up message saying, “Just to warn you, I’m growing a beard. I’ve gotten mixed reviews on it, and I’ll probably only keep it for another month or so, but I thought you should not be scared should a scruffy Midwesterner approach you.” Okay, scruffy Midwesterner? Heart. Beard? Not so much. Why in the hell does he feel the need to WARN me about it? So of course I went into the date expecting something of epic ZZ Top proportions. A massive Jesus beard. An enormous Santa Claus beard. A gigantic hobo’s rat’s nest. And yeah, I was scared.
As per usual, I show up late, like a jerk, and oh thank god, his beard is quite small and not a ZZ Top like-will-engulf-you-if-you-get-too-close large, and eeeeeee, he’s really, really cute even WITH a beard, which you know I hate, so that’s saying something. Maybe it was because I was preparing for the worst, so yeah, cute! And so, so sweet, even with the, “It’s so nice to meet you” was just…well, so Wisconsin quite frankly. You could tell he was being truly genuine and that he meant every word. And then I swooned a little.
We sat down and I immediately felt at home and just wanted to wrap myself up in his smile. Which was bad, because I had guzzled a late afternoon coffee in hopes of not passing out in my dinner (grant deadline and multi-date night week-induced exhaustion was having its way with me) and needed to pee. SO BAD. But I didn’t want to leave because then I would have to leave that pretty face. But I suppose wetting your pants on a first date isn’t good form either, so I tore myself away. He’s hysterically funny, as in holy crap, I think I might choke and die on my food if he keeps talking. At some point, the fact that I was in band camp somehow came up. I was trying to quickly gloss over the band camp part and get to the relevant part of the story, but of course he was all, “HOLD ON. Did you just say BAND CAMP? What did you play?” J (miserably): “Clarinet.” Him: “Why didn’t you start with that? That’s so…SEXY.” I was so horrified I couldn’t figure out if he was mocking me or not. He was a graduate student at MIT (mechanical engineering! So smart but so normal!) He’s working at a company developing special hydrogen-powered fuel cells and is all earth save-y and amazing. Am I gushing too much? Sometimes he whips out his guitar (AGAIN: OF COURSE) and plays on a street corner. And people mistake him for a homeless person. And try to give him food. The man is a freaking genius and manages dozens of other geniuses all day and people are all, “Do you want our doggie bag?” His company used to collaborate with a car company in France and he was talking about all his travels to Paris and I was literally drooling with envy and then he said something about us going to Paris together. Which…did that just happen? Did a guy just ask me to go to Paris with him on a first date? Swooning the second.
But oh my god, I was still having trouble getting over the genuineness as I was getting pretty used to doing without it. He CONGRATULATED me on getting a Ph.D. Which, in retrospect, shouldn’t be that strange, but it just wasn’t anything I had gotten so far. And I was all, oh yeah! Good job me! And then he asked me what it was like, coming from Wisconsin and California to Boston. The most obvious answer that sprang to mind was (at least California to Boston) a very different receiving of my multi-ethnicity. Maybe it’s unfair since the Bay Area is like a mini Asia, but I got pretty used to telling people there that my mom is from Thailand (or them being able to tell without me saying anything about it) and then I would get a pretty standard list of follow up questions: Do you speak Thai, do you have family there, do you travel there a lot, etc. Out here, it’s more like nothing. I’ve never been asked any sort of follow up question to that whatsoever. And I don’t think it’s any type of racism, but maybe just…vague uncomfortableness? Inability to synthesize and process information they’ve never gotten before? I don’t know, I’m a dime a dozen out there, but here I seem to be a bit strange. But I thought it would be a bit unfair to say that to Wisconsin Guy since the topic hadn’t come up yet and it would be like accusing him of not doing something that he hadn’t even had a chance to do. However, my fingers weren’t exactly crossed after all my experiences. So I said something else about my transition experience, and the conversation wandered elsewhere, and then it came to my family.
And then: “So, can you speak Thai?” “Do you have family there?” “Do you travel there a lot?” etc.
I almost hurled myself over the table to make out with him then and there. Instead I settled for swooning the third.
He gave me a ride home and we hugged and I got out and was walking away when he was all, “Oh, you forgot your leftovers!” (which is something I have consistently done on every single date that I’ve taken leftovers home from. Or maybe I thought he was a hungry homeless man, hee!) and he opened the door to hand them to me. And then got out of the car to hug me again. And I went upstairs to grin myself to sleep.
THEN, I had to struggle through a stressful set of days wondering whether he was going to call. We had discussed plans for candle pin bowling (I know, such dorks) but I was suddenly having creeping doubts that he didn’t mean it. It’s a very small sample size, but I’d literally been batting a thousand in terms of having the guy contact me in some form or another the day after for all my dates. And just when I thought I’d have to suck it up and call him my damn self, he called. I had just gotten out of the shower and he called and I didn’t even think, I just answered. And then proceeded to sweat actual buckets through the eternity of the phone call while we made plans for bowling and chatted about our weekends. I thought I might have to get in the shower again after that perfusion of nervous sweat during that endless phone call. The call that almost drained my battery because it was so long. The call that was so long the weekend was over and there was no longer any point in discussing my plans for the weekend because I had just spent them on the phone with him… Okay, so I just checked my phone. It was 8 minutes. Whatever.
Swoon the fourth.