How to Not to Get a Second Date

i recently had a slew of dates, which would usually be something to cheer about, except work has been giving me a slight aneurysm lately with all the stress so i wasn't really in the right mindset to go on a date. being charming and witty was just too much work at this point. so moving in the direction of the title for this post, here are a few how-to pointers about what not to do on a date.

1. Do Not Make Your Date Black Out
yes, you would think this is a no-brainer. and this one wasn't entirely my fault.

i met my date at a local bar close to my apartment since he was working near the Brooklyn Museum and wouldn't be able to meet until after 9:00 p.m. this gave me ample time to get home and change (well, 30 mins anyway), which i liked. but of course, as soon as i got home i got into "home" mode where i didn't want to go out at all. you know what i'm talking about. even if the "out" i was going to was only 3 blocks away.

regardless, i pulled myself together and made it to O'Keefe's for drinks. i ordered my usual, Jameson on the rocks, and my date followed suit. we had some good conversation, seemed to get along well, and proceeded to order another round. at this point, i had decided i liked my date enough to take him to my real local, Brazen Head (plus it was closer to my apartment which meant easier walk home later). 


so off we went to the Brazen, where we proceeded to order another round of drinks, this time Four Roses on the rocks. by the last round, i was more than tipsy, having not eaten dinner after work. my date seemed fine, although getting a little handsy, but not in an impolite way, just a flirty way. we didn't even finish our last drink before i made the command decision that i had to get my drunk ass home. 


like a gentleman, my date walked me home and i sent him on his way to the subway.

CUT TO THE NEXT MORNING: i get a text message from my date who is clearly suffering a serious hangover. i think to myself, "ok, that's fine. we did have a few drinks."

and then my date informs me that he blacked out and doesn't remember anything. wha?!?!

which is pretty ironic since i had a whole conversation with my date, who's a psychiatrist, about the medical rationale behind blacking out and its effect on the brain. and it seems he blacked out immediately after that conversation.

so......no second date for me.

2. Do Not Fall Off Your Chair During Your Date
This one RARELY happens to me. i have fallen only twice (including this time) while imbibing alcohol in the since December 2011. hmm, i guess that's not that impressive. 

i had made plans to meet my date at Vintry Wine and Whiskey  on Stone Street. it was actually a very considerate plan on his part since he knew i worked in FiDi and that i enjoyed drinking scotch/whiskey. and the place isn't a bad date option, with dark mood lighting and a relaxed yet classy atmosphere. overall a great place.

except for their high stools and tables. and dark recessed lighting. 

at some point during the date, my jacket, which i had placed on the stool next to me, had fallen on the floor. in an attempt to pick it up, i leaned down and... SPLAT.  it was the kind of loss-of-balance/falling where halfway down you realized it's pointless to fight the gravity so you just lean into the fall. and that's how i ended up on the floor laying on my right side.

my date had enough tact to not mention anything when i got back up to my seat. although i did hear a distinct "oooooohhhhhhhhh" from above the table when i landed on the ground. 

so....no surprise that i didn't get a second date from this one.

3. Do Not Be a Douchebag
This is not based on my behavior (although you may argue that above conduct qualifies me on the road to douchebaggery). i recently met up with ArrangedMarriage (you remember him right? if not, please refer to any of these posts to refresh your recollection). i knew i shouldn't but did so mainly because of the family friend connection.


but ArrangedMarriage really can't help but to fuck it up for himself all the time. i mean, when you think about it, it's sort of impressive how much of a douche he can be. let's start from the very top:


due to work, i arrived 15 mins late. of course, feeling bad, i sent him a text message as soon as i got off the subway to let him know i was on my way. except when i got to the restaurant, AM was nowhere to be seen. so i sent him another text to let him know i was sitting at the bar.


AM showed up 35 mins late. with no explanation. he just walked in, no apology, no excuse, no NOTHING. and then proceeded to wander into the restaurant while i closed out my bar tab. awesome start.

conversation as always was a stall-out for the most part. AM never asks anything about me aside from the cursory, "so how's work?" whereas i learned through dinner that AM is thinking about making a career change, may have to move back to NJ to do so, and is generally fed up with his current job. you might say to yourself, "well, [you meaning me], it sounds like all you did was talk about work with him too Ms. Hypocrite." but that wouldn't be EXACTLY true...

i tried to ask AM about what else is going on with him. since he has no friends there was nothing to tell there (although we haven't hung out in almost 7 months! is that even possible?!). but the conversation took an interesting turn when we discussed dating or significant others.


AM kept not wanting to discuss it because, in his own words, "you might think lesser of me." almost impossible really, but of course i didn't say that to him-instead i blast it out here on the internet.  i just sort of rolled my eyes and left it alone.


as always, the 1 saving grace with meeting up with AM is that i always get to pick the restaurant. so i got to cross Macondo off my list. i'm actually glad i got to go this place with AM instead of my other more food-focused friends since i think they would've been as "meh" about this place as i was. 


when i first arrived, i sat at the corner of the bar adjacent to the street. Macondo also has 4 stools out on the sidewalk, i guess to give it that summer-tropic feel. which would have been fine except there was a serious ant infestation going on in the cracks of the outdoor bar table. it was seriously freaking me out sitting so close to it. and i kept feeling real/imaginary itching and crawling on my legs because of it. ::shiver::

the wine list is very moderately and affordably priced so we split a bottle of rioja ($30). since neither of us were very hungry we opted to order only 3 dishes. but honestly, i wasn't that enticed to order much of anything else for the most part. we ordered the A La Lolita (mushroom croquettes, figs, almonds, truffle trumpet aioli) ($9).  this was the best food item of the night. it's super creamy like a croquette should be and the mushrooms, figs, and almonds give it a sweet and savory flavor. plus it was perfectly crisped on the outside and warm on the inside. it came 3 to an order and i selfishly at 2 of them. 

we also ordered the Camaron (shrimp, roasted pineapple, ginger, aji amirillo, onion, cilantro) ($10). this was a ceviche dish that was good, but nothing special. the shrimp were average sized and the flavor was well balanced, but nothing that really stood out. the Bruselas (crispy brussel sprouts with chipotle aioli) ($6) were ordered mainly to add some greenery to my meal-i've been on a balanced diet kick recently. these were good and crispy, served in a hot skillet. however, they were slightly over-salted, but nothing i would die from (hopefully).


the service at Macondo was very attentive. to the point of being a little overly so. they kept coming over to refill our wine and water, to the point where our bottle of wine was done before all our food had arrived.


after Macondo, i asked what AM had planned for the rest of the night, seriously hoping and wishing he would say he had to go home. after all, it was a Monday night. except of course that didn't happen. without even asking, AM just declared "let's get another drink." since we were on the LES, i suggested Pianos, which i haven't been to in a couple of years. to my surprise (or really, should i have been surprised?), AM had never been to Pianos before, which i consider an NYC institution for young yuppies who want to drink and dance. so off we went.


and this is where i hit my final straw: so in order to make some conversation, i again brought up the topic of AM's recent romantic situation and again AM deferred, saying that i would "think less" of him. so i re-assured him that it wouldn't be the case and then shared a story of my own recent entanglement and the hijinxes i've been involved in (i did NOT share the 2 above stories). AM continued to defer, so i jokingly declared i would try to guess the "horrible" activity he was involved in. the only facts i had to go on were that it involved a co-worker of his.


i began by saying, "let's at least rule out some impossible situations, right?" and thinking of the most heinous thing that could happen and clearly that AM would never engage in such conduct, i suggested rape. and this was AM's response:


"i refuse to admit or deny that that happened."

WHA?!?!?!?!?! REALLY?!?!?!?!?! so you want me to think that you might have raped your co-worker? 

and....date done. never to be repeated. EVER.

Get Me Some Gingko Biloba STAT!

i'm not usually a birthday party kind of person. i get really stressed out trying to plan bday parties, regardless if it's for a friend or for myself. the biggest stress to me is picking out a venue that fits everyone's tastes. the venue is the first step. and if you start out badly on the first step, you know it's only downhill from there.

i wasn't planning on having a bday party, but then Gecko asked me what i was doing because she would come to NYC for that weekend. concurrently when i learned of that information, i also got an invite to ChubbyBunny's birthday party. ChubbyBunny's bday is 2 weeks after mine but she decided to have it on the 23rd jointly with a friend. CB's bday invite, for the afternoon at Boat Basin Cafe, in conjunction with Gecko coming into town, spurred me to spontaneously decide to have a bday party.

before i could back out, i created a Facebook event and started researching venues. when making my FB event, i remembered another stressor of throwing a party: who to invite. FB makes inviting people super easy and convenient since almost everyone and their mothers are on FB now. however, 1st you have to deliberate whether you want to make the event public or private. public allows your guests to invite other people, which is great in case you forgot to invite someone, so i made it public. but since it's public, anyone you don't invite will be able to see it, should it come up in their news feed or if they happen to glance it while on an invited guest's profile, which can be super awkward (even if they never confront you about it). this was my 2nd deliberation. as i haphazardly checked off friends to invite, the biggest dilemma was those individuals who i'd met before, hung out with, but never really talk to if it wasn't for "Y" (the person who introduced us and whom I'm actually friends with). as i checked the box to invite "Y" i'd have to decide whether to invite that acquaintance whom I knew on FB but didn't really know. would they care if they weren't invited? would they want to come because "Y" was coming but didn't know if it would be ok because I hadn't invited them? i felt like my brain was going to explode.

once that was done, i returned to the difficult task of choosing a venue. when i thought back on my past bar/club experiences, i realized how limited my memory actually is. it was like as soon as i tried to actually access my Manhattan venue database, i completely drew a blank. instead, all i could remember were places that i clearly couldn't have a party e.g. Kenka.  then there were places that would be great venues if i and my friends were willing to throw down $300-$450 per bottle to reserve a table and deal with line hassles e.g. Cabana, Hiro, 230 Fifth, Gansevoort, etc. (plus i find Meatpacking slightly annoying to get to via subway). every venue i could think of had its drawbacks: the Park (can't reserve a table upstairs in the atrium), Circle (too Asian), PS450 (west side + midtown), Pianos (cover after 11 and super crowded), etc.

i also can't believe how many places i can't remember the name or location of. i would vaguely remember the "feel" of a place, or the people i was with, but most of the time i couldn't remember "why" I was there or "where" it was. there was 1 particular night when Gecko and i went out and attended W's bday party. Gecko remembered the venue for W's bday party and i couldn't except for some vague, hazy recollections. initially, neither of us could remember where we'd been earlier that night, although i'd remembered having a really good time. so i decided to dive into the archives of this blog and see if i'd written about it somewhere. of course, i didn't. go figure. but it was really funny to read about all the hijinxes we used to get into back in the day. there was 1 month where i kept arriving home at 8 a.m. from nights out! and i found an entry where Oppa got into a fight!

while i remembered most of the events coinciding with the entries, i have to admit that certain details/aspects of the story i'd completely forgotten had ever happened. clearly, it did happen since i wrote about it, but why can't i remember? i'm seriously concerned about this failing memory. i'm not sure if it's a sign of old age, brain damage, or impending stupidity...