Super Fancy Good

Don’t Ever Change, Berkeley

Andronico’s, the bastion of yuppie groceries in the Bay Area, has a display case of locally-baked bagels right inside its front door. It’s hard to miss. You bend over to grab your bachelor basket (because you’ll never eat the food put in a adult-sized cart before it goes bad) and can’t help but stare at Asiago goodness on the way back up.

This is how I decide what to eat for Sunday breakfast. 

The tottering old lady huffs that I’m clearly in her way, so I strafe over and grab a plastic bag, unblocking her view … and then watch as she stares at the plethora of untoasted potential before her. She is utterly transfixed, eyes wide like a spooked deer or, well, an uppity woman who’s late for her NYT Sunday issue and soy chai, honestly.

I can’t help but wonder which way she’ll go. Plain? No way. That’s the shit they feed the proletariat. Whole wheat is certainly a healthy choice, but too passe. How about that entire row of bagels with giant oats pasted on top, likely milled at a local farm where the chickens all have best friends? No way will she go Everything Bagel like I would: she is a woman of decisions, and Everything is for those who can’t be bothered to pick a favorite.

I’m mentally mapping her options when it dawns on me that she’s not looking at the bagels at all. She’s trying to figure out how to open the display case.

One second. Five seconds. 15, then 30 seconds. She’s stumped.

A better person would have stepped in to help before her frantically-splayed hands find the light switch, flicking it on and off multiple times to verify that it doesn’t also control the doors. I am not that person. I’m a child in constant search of amusement.

Finally I can’t stand it. As her head turns to the left, in search of a hinge she can unscrew with her piercing gaze, I quickly reach to the middle of the case and open one of the doors with the clearly marked knob. 

And somehow, she doesn’t see me do this. When she turns back, her face is twisted in a display of triumph, as if she somehow discovered the secret combination to unlock the display of baked goods. I’m not even there.

The woman snatches a blueberry bagel so fast I half expect her to shove the whole thing in her manically grinning mouth, then teeters off toward the soy milk and sparkling water.

The coffee shop is exceptionally busy for a summer day. Even a summer day in San Francisco.

I order an iced Americano and pay the tattooed barista at the counter, surprised to find I have actual cash in my wallet. She gives the customary barista pleasantries I grew so accustomed to back home, offering just the briefest amount of politeness before letting her eyes roll and turning to the next paying customer. This casual dismissal by the current queen of the bean makes me briefly homesick.

They say you can’t go home again, but I don’t think they had this in mind.

I somehow find a small table in the back, ducking and weaving through a sea of Macbooks and steaming beverages. I was 10 minutes late. She’s later. I fiddle with my phone out of sheer nervousness and then let my mind wander.

Dating is hard. Sometimes I think it should be. The reason for going through the entire courting dance is to find a potential partner, after all, and those without proper dancing shoes should beware. But it wouldn’t hurt if it were just a little easier, either.

Maybe that’s the promise of online dating – millions of men and women at your fingertips – but let’s not kid ourselves. The douchebags and vapid tarts of all the bars I’ve tried to avoid have learned how to use Internet Explorer. Nothing is sacred.

Some of them even blog about their experiences, humiliating dates because of geeky interests, all in the name of page views. No, Gizmodo, I’m not linking to you. Go ahead and fuck right off.

At first, I struggled with the standard problems: ignored messages, vague profiles, struggling to think of the first line to which someone will react. Never mind the fact that my gender is simply not well represented on services like OKCupid. (Gentlemen? If I can have a moment of your time, just real fast. Don’t tell a woman something in an online message you wouldn’t say to her face, while she’s holding a Taser to your scrotum. Knock it off.)

At some point, I just started treating it like a game, hunting for clues in what someone had written about themselves and seeing if I could somehow relate. It’d get old after a while, but I made due.

Because it was exciting. Meeting different people, finding out the little things they would reveal over the course of a drink or dinner. Finding new spots for wine or Mexican food. The glee with which a coworker would ask me about an encounter the next morning. Not every date was great – a few of them weren’t even approaching good – but compared to the past three years of feeling trapped, every new meeting made me feel a little more free.

All thoughts pause as my phone chimes, telling me [insert name here] is now viewing my profile. Even three weeks ago, I’d jump every time my phone would ding. The prospect of meeting someone new, a chance to start something fresh and new.

At some point, however, the carousel has to stop turning and everyone’s gotta get off their ponies.

Truth is, I’m terrible at dating. Selling me is hard, not because I’m lame, but because I can’t show someone I’m great in one sitting without suddenly missing that mark. Feelings change, dates progress farther down the spiral and feelings get hurt. I’m no saint, but the last thing I want is to hurt people, even in such a casual space.

In fact, I think to myself, I shouldn’t even sit here and wait for this woman to arrive. I’ve taken this whole thing too far anyway, made molehills look like mountains while searching for a little bit of peace of mind in the hearts and minds of others. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that loneliness is simply a side effect of a carefully constructed life. That can be okay.

Footsteps echo though the noise of self-doubt. It’s as if the entire coffee shop orchestrated a moment of silence for this one event, a flash mob of conversational pauses just for me. I leap to my feet and she takes me into an embrace. “Hi there!” she beams. Her eyes are shining.

***

When I board the train hours later, bleary eyed and bemused, and the cars lurch forward against every hope in my heart, I’m better for the risk taken. Lucky, even.

Because life is not merely the planning and preparation, but the bits of unplanned excitement that binds them together. Because there’s too much excitement in the promise of an evening to be content with letting it slip away. Because it took a brunette with bright eyes and an easy smile, which cuts through sarcasm like a blowtorch, to show me the benefits of reaching out and connecting.

Oh, and because I think she wants to see me again.