Date #48--The Editor

I'm sure there's no need to refresh your memory on this, but I'll just throw it out there in case you're coming in late on this, but my ideal guy on paper would be a Hapa (slang terminology for half Asian/half Caucasian). Actually, my true dream guy would be a Hapa with a British accent with black hair and blue eyes. Okay, I know I'm getting into way too specific territory. I'm sure if I moved to London and searched high and low, I might actually find a guy kind of like this, but then again this hasn't even taken into consideration the personality at all. There's a huge chance we might not click at all, and then I would simply be left with, I'm assuming, a very good looking guy with a fantastic accent. I'm beginning to think here in NYC, it'll have to be a trade-off, and I'll have to have some sparks with either an American hapa or a British white guy. But getting back to the all time fantasy of my hapa soulmate, in a nutshell, the guy would be an exact racial replica of me which if I were in Hawaii, I'm sure would be no great challenge, but here in NYC it has proven to be abundantly more scarce than I would have ever imagined. I did manage to find a couple of previous guys who were in fact exact matches of me, those being the Hapa and the Dancer. Now I've managed to find one last hapa in all of NYC or at least in the world of match.com. Let's face it. Most hapa guys are hapalicious and probably have no need to even be on a dating website. In any event, the third hapa that I have managed to find is half Korean by way of his mom who is from Korea and half white by way of his dad who is from Jersey. You know, it was the typical story of military guy lonely overseas who brings home Asian bride. Basically it's the same story my parents had.

I'm a bit intrigued by the Editor. So basically he only has one picture on his profile, and in the picture his eyes appear to be half closed. I'm not really sure if he was trying to be funny with this, or if this is the way he really looks. I'm totally not trying to be mean, but in the picture he kind of looks like he might be blind because why else would you put this as your normal photo unless you were, of course, extremely eccentric. Well, either way, neither would completely be a deal breaker for me so when he suggests Sunday brunch at Snack Taverna in the West Village, I am looking forward to meeting him. I take the 1 train to Houston, and I start walking towards the restaurant. I get a text from him that he is sitting by the window. Okay, I think this is surely a sign that he's not blind since we're texting each other. I remember that in his email he had written that he'd just come back from a trip to Nepal so he actually has a beard now as opposed to the picture where he is clean shaven and close eyed. Thus, I know I am looking for a dude with a beard. As I approach the restaurant, I can see the table that is right by the window, and I can see the Editor from the back. It's definitely him.

I walk in the restaurant, and he immediately sees me. He gets up to greet me. We hug each other. I say, "Hi, the Editor (insert real name)." He says, "Hi, it's nice to meet you." We sit down and get situated. I ask him if he's looked at the menu. He says, "No, not yet." We both start looking. Ok, just to cue you in. He's not blind. I actually don't think there is anything wrong with his eyes. I'm a bit relieved to see that everything seems to be working properly. He actually has really nice eyes now that I can see them. They are kind of a greenish color, and he has jet black hair. He's actually much MUCH better looking than the one picture he has on his profile. I want to tell him to change that thing immediately. Anyways, the menu looks scrumptious. It's a Greek restaurant. They have many good breakfast selections. I ask the Editor if anything is calling out to him, and he's thinking of an omelette. They do look tempting, but I decide to go with the poached eggs over a lamb stew. Whenever I see lamb on a menu, I feel a pressing urge to order it.

Once the ordering is taken care of, the Editor and I engage in a little getting to know you type chatter. I say, "I like the beard." He says, "Thanks. I actually grew this when I was in Nepal, and I just haven't gotten around to shaving it since I got back." I say, "I think it makes you look very distinguished." He laughs and says, "But for some reason I can't seem to stop stroking it when I'm thinking," and he does the stroking motion. I laugh and say, "It's totally like you're a professor or something. I think the beard makes you look intelligent." He says, "You think so?" I say, "Yeah, you should totally milk that for all it's worth." He's amused. I ask him about Nepal. He has two older brothers, and the middle brother is actually living there right now so he went to visit him, and they went trekking together. I ask him how long he was gone for. He tells me 6 weeks. I gasp, and I say, "That's amazing. You could take off from work for that long?" He says, "Well, I'm a video editor so I work freelance so I'm able to take off, but the only drawback is that you're not making any money while you're doing it." It turns out he edits all sorts of stuff like commercials, music videos, stuff for TV. I ask him if he's edited any movies, and he says no but that's definitely his end goal in all of this.

He says the unfortunate part is that all the movie stuff is mainly based out in LA, and he doesn't know if he wants to move out there to pursue it. I tell him I loved LA, but it's really different from NY. For one thing you have to drive everywhere. He says, "Oh, I am not a fan of driving." I say, "Well, you would probably hate it then." We get back on the topic of Nepal, and I ask him if it was really raw and if he went without showering and stuff. He says, "The whole time I was there, I probably only showered a handful of times." I'm amazed by this. Yes, I know I'm not a typical girl. Most girls get enamored by the promises made in the "Stars and the Moon" song where the guy promises, "And we'll be married in Spain on my yacht today, and we'll honeymoon in Beijing. And you'll meet stars at the parties I throw at my villas in Nice and Paris in June." Sure that's a grandiose way to live, but something about the bare bones experience really excites me. I'm sure I'll always be this way at least until I have kids, and then I could see myself calming down a little bit and traveling more like a normal person, but if you're able to and healthy enough why not get a little dirty every now and again.

The food comes, and I'm excited. I held out from eating anything all morning because I knew this was going to be uberlicious. And indeedy it is. The eggs just spill out when I cut into them, and the lamb stew is fantastic. So the Editor is highly likeable so far. There's something very non-American about him, and it all makes sense when he explains that he actually didn't grow up in America. He grew up in Taiwan and Korea because of his dad's job, but once he reached middle school he ended up going to boarding school in Virginia and then high school in New Hampshire. It seems such an interesting fusion of cultures and probably explains why he seems a bit atypical. I ask him if it was hard to move to America for middle school because that's a tough age to begin with, but the fact that he hadn't grown up in America and didn't know all the cultural references or social cues must have been really challenging. He concurs and tells me that he hated middle school. He says high school was a bit better because it was a school that was filled with kids like him who had lived abroad so they had more commonalities. I think this is why the Editor and I are getting along so well. He's a bit kooky and weird but not in a bad way. Let me explain something. I was a complete NERD in high school. I didn't really fit in with that very mainstream way of being that is so prevalent in small high schools throughout America and even more noticeably so in the South so I think I was kind of over the idea of fitting a mold or a prototype fairly early on. I don't remember what age it was at, but I determined pretty early that it was more important to just be myself and live the life I want to live than to try to achieve some cookie cutter dream that somebody created that was accepted as the norm to follow. Thus, I set off on my path, and since then I've never looked back on a single time period in my life with regret. And confusing as this journey is, I don't think I'll look back on my dating adventures with regret either.

After the brunch is cleared away, the Editor asks me if I'm a dessert person. I say yes, and I ask him if he is. He smiles and says, "I can be." Based on that, we have a look at the dessert menu and decide to get the rice pudding. We eat to the center of the bowl with our spoons, and it is so satisfying. For whatever reason the weather has turned cold again, and I had to pull out my fuscia coat for today, but this warm pudding is exactly what I was craving. The plan for afterwards is to go to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. I'm kind of excited about going to this one. I think it will be fun. I'm not a huge comic book collector or anything, but I know enough about the culture to think we will have a lot of visual stimulation. That being said, it probably is a good thing that the Editor is not blind. We leave the restaurant and start walking to the museum which is located in SoHo.

We start talking about animals. I ask the Editor if he likes dogs. Like most guys, he does. I ask him if he likes cats. Like most guys, he does not. He says, "I'm allergic." I bust out laughing. I say, "You will not believe how many guys have told me they are allergic to cats." This is no joke. I'm an animal lover in general, both cats and dogs, and whenever I ask a guy about cats, I would say a good fifty percent of them claim the allergy card. How is it possible that this many men can be allergic to this type of animal, and further why are there way less women who are apparently not allergic to cats? Interesting especially since cats are typically thought of as a woman's pet, particularly an old maid with like 20 cats, ie the Cat Lady. The Editor says, "Well, when I was little I was actually allergic to dogs as well." I respond, "Until when? When you suddenly realized you liked them?" He laughs. I continue, "And somehow that allergy just kind of cleared up. Hmm...interesting." The Editor tells me that actually he never had cats or dogs growing up, but instead the family pet was always a rabbit. They had 3 different ones, but they all kept dying in freak accidents. One jumped off a patio wall and accidentally broke its neck. One accidentally strangled itself in the cage, and one was found decapitated in the yard, probably attacked by a dog.

I mention to him that there's actually a book called "Suicidal Bunnies" that's hilarious. It's basically drawings of bunnies attempting to kill themselves in very creative ways. The Editor cracks up. He totally knows exactly what I'm referencing. I say, "So according to your stories there must be some truth to the idea that rabbits are really suicidal." He says, "Oh yeah, they're on a death mission." Once we get on Broadway, we start looking for the museum, and we realize it's inside a regular looking office building. The security guard directs us to one of the higher floors. This is strange. I've never gone to a museum that was in a high rise building. The elevator door opens, and we walk into this gallery space that is just filled top to bottom with random comic and cartoon art. It's really awesome actually. I could imagine people who are really into comic books being giddy right now. I say to the Editor, "My oldest brother is a huge nerd. He used to have a comic book collection with hundreds of comic books." The Editor is laughing and getting a kick out of it. I continue on, "And he's a total trekkie. He's seen like every episode of every Star Trek series ever made. He used to collect the figures as well." The Editor is laughing even more. I say, "My brother would be so embarrassed if he knew I was telling you this right now." I pause for a moment, and then I say, "Actually no, he wouldn't be. He loves it. It's totally who he is."

There are also plenty of funny pages to take in. There is Peanuts which I absolutely love. I ask the Editor if he's a fan of that, and he doesn't really have an opinion on it. I see Family Circus near the bottom, and I bust out laughing. I ask, "So what about Family Circus? Do you like that?" He says, "I don't really follow it. Why? Is that one funny?" I say, "No, but there's a joke that there's one constant that you can always count on in life--that Family Circus will be round and in the corner and waiting to suck." We look at the Family Circus on display kind of in the corner and sucking, and we laugh. All the classics are here like Blondie, Popeye, Alley Oop, etc. This is actually a cute little museum and quite entertaining. Finally we see an adults only section. This has to be the graphic comics with sex and nudity. We go in, and basically it's just a tiny section the size of a dressing room stall. I tell the Editor about how my hometown is super conservative. In the downtown area, there's this place called Saks that is designed to look like a lingerie store on the outside, but you go inside and in the back it's totally a sex shop. There are all these dildos and sex toys. It's so scandalous for my town. Whenever my friends from LA would come to visit, I would always include it on the walking tour of Texarkana just because it's so racy. There was another time some people tried to open a strip club called Babydolls in my hometown. That thing got shut down so fast. The way the town was able to close it was by citing that it was located within a certain number of feet from a church. That's my hometown.

It doesn't take long to go through the museum, and afterwards the Editor asks me if I want to take a walk through Chinatown. I say sure. I tell him how much I love it there. It is the very best place for cheap eats in the city. The Editor actually lived for 3 years post college in Beijing where he was working so he is fluent in Mandarin. I ask him if this reminds him of China, and he says not really. He says the one in Queens is moreso. At this point in the date, I have to say that I like the Editor. He's really easy to be around. I like that he laughs ALOT. He definitely laughs at my stupid jokes, and he seems really engaged when I'm telling a story. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a guy cuts me off when I'm talking, or it seems like he's just waiting for his turn to talk. This drives me nuts, and I'm not the kind of person who will get in there and be like "Shut up." Instead I'll just decide that we're not compatible. The Editor is definitely not like that, and it's refreshing.

He takes me to one of the marketplaces in Chinatown that is super crowded and filled with people buying their groceries for the week. After that he says he knows of a good bubble tea place called Ten Ren's. I find bubble tea to be very refreshing so I get excited. Once we get there, the sign says that it's from Taiwan. We both order a regular tea with the tapioca balls. There's a cup on the counter holding the chubby straws that are used to sip the bubbles up. There's only one blue one left in the bunch. I grab it and give it to the Editor. I say, "Here, I know you want the blue one. It's the only one left." I grab a hot pink one for myself. The place is packed so we decide to take our bubble tea and walk. We happen upon a park that totally looks like it's straight out of China. There are old guys playing mahjong around all of the tables and groups of people crowded around and watching on this chilly Sunday afternoon. I love it.

I ask the Editor, "So what is with your profile?" He immediately starts cracking up. I'm relieved because I thought I was going to have to ease into it, but apparently he knows exactly what I'm talking about. He says, "Oh, yeah, I just kind of threw my profile together. That was the one photo I had laying around." I say, "Your eyes are kind of halfway closed in the picture. I was almost thinking you might be blind when I first saw it." He laughs and says, "No, I think I was just kind of wasted in the picture. Honestly I signed up, and then I went to Nepal and just kind of forgot about it. I should really do something about that." I say, "Yeah, you're an editor. I'm sure you can do something. You should put a picture of yourself with the beard." He agrees that he will go back and adjust it. All the while he is laughing. He's such a jovial soul. I like his spirit. I would be friends with this guy. I like that he's a bit strange and kind of an everywhere man. I don't know if I'm terribly attracted to him. I do think he's cute, and I think we have good personality chemistry. I've been saying that a lot lately--that I'd like to be friends with some of these guys. I remember in the beginning I was very quick to cut the chord. If I didn't feel a spark, I didn't really try to draw it out at all. Maybe me being more receptive to continuing contact with some of these dudes even on just a purely platonic level is me trying to hold onto my blog in some sense. I don't know. I guess time will help me to figure it out. Timing is so key. I think at whatever stage each of these guys met me at has definitely played a role in my overall perception of the date and them as a person. Or maybe I have gotten somewhat more selective, and I am going out on dates with people I would actually want to be friends with as opposed to some of the early guys who there was just nothing about them I wanted to be associated with.

In any case, I have had a fun day with the Editor. He says he's actually attending the birthday party of a friend at around 6 pm so he needs to be heading off. We walk back to the subway, and we say our goodbye. I tell the Editor to kick butt at Rock Band. Apparently it's a Rock Band party. He says, "Will do," and that's that. I hop on the train and head back to my neighborhood. Once I get home it's only about 6 pm, and it's still daylight out. I am loving these long days, and I don't really feel like going home just yet so I take a walk down to the South Street Seaport. I totally have a spot now. It's official. I must be starting to consider NYC my home for right now. It's the third level at Pier 17 with the foldout chairs overlooking the water. It is such an amazing view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn across the way and the boats passing by sporadically. You'll recall I came here back in January after my disastrous date with Mr. Quickie. I also came here on the last Sunday in February. I was originally supposed to go out with the Brit that weekend, but I had postponed because I had to study, and I remember taking a break and sitting in one of the foldout chairs eating sushi and thinking. I remember one time asking Dawn if she had a spot in NYC yet. She thought for a moment and she said, "You mean a place I go to be lonely?" I remember thinking I had never really heard it put that way or even really thought of it in those terms.

Maybe it's a place to go to be lonely. I guess it could be depending on your mood, but I would say it's more a place to go to be alone which is definitely different. I know the Brit's place is Coney Island. When I lived in Japan, my place was the top of this mountain in my town. It was a bit of a climb, but once you got up there, it was always so empty, and you were so high up. It seemed the perfect place to have a conversation with God or with myself, usually both. And anyway, I guess this little section on the third level of Pier 17 is my alone spot in NYC at least for now. I'm sure it'll be a lot more crowded once the weather finally turns warm for good, but I've actually preferred it all these months when it's been cold, and the tourist count has been low, and I have been able to sit in any random chair and be completely alone. I went there on the last possible day I realized it wouldn't work out with the Cuban, and I went there the exact moment before I met the Brit, and I realized I was doing okay on my own, and now I sit here today, and I do think about the Brit, and I think maybe one day I'll come here with him, and we can sit in the alone spot together and not be lonely at all.

Snack Taverna: http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/snack-taverna/
Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art: http://www.moccany.com/
Ten Ren Tea: http://www.tenren.com/newyork.html