You don’t know me.

You may think you do, but you don’t. In particular, you think you know me as Peter Pan.

This is not important.

What is important is that this evening, at about 9.30pm, I asked She to marry me.

She said yes.

That is all.

So, having to go through all of that tantrum in the moments leading to my date, an hour of meditating relaxation isn’t much to ask for really.

And did I get to have it? A moment of peace and harmony?
Of course not. I got a freaking meeting with the IRS.
Seriously. This guy is working for them.
And I do pay my taxes!

I’m used to dating (no. really), and I’m used to being asked about my job, and this isn’t the usual kind of question that makes me nervous. But this guy, working in the IRS, was just fishing for mistakes….fish fish fish…Outcome! Income! Numbers! Details! My Gd, all that was missing was a neon spotlight directed at my face.
I felt like in an interrogation at the Mossad.

And I do pay my taxes!

At about 11.pm he said something about him being very strict about saying the Krias Shema on time. How important it is to never say it after Chatzos etc. I agreed. Important, yeah. I then noticed that it was nearly Chatzos. And he kept looking at his watch, which was annoying. so I thought he was planning to end this date now so he could get to yeshiva on time.
But no.

Before I had a chance to say a thing, he covered his eyes with his right hand and said Krias Shema so loudly that the waitress turned to us, thinking that he actually wanted to order something. He just let himself get totally carried away on waves of enthusiasm and real kavonah.

Now, this is a crowded place. I was like, sitting there, looking at him in total shock, while he ignored me completely, I mean, he was, after all, surfing the waves of spiritual enlightenment, and who was I to interrupt this special daily proceeding.

What was he thinking? That when he covers his eyes he disappears?

When he finished he looked at me said wow, I feel so good, so holy, so pure… don’t you get that after you say Krias Shema? I feel so…. REFRESHED.

Ahh. Refreshed. That’s exactly how I get.

Then he said Ahh again. Surely he was trying to emphasise a point of which I wasn’t aware. Ahh. The moaning of a man in bliss.

By that point of our date, I was certainly not in bliss.

He came back from his midnight surf all tanned and splashy, refreshed and filled with new energy to keep on interrogating me about money and taxes and all that. I couldn’t even understand half of what he was going on about.

I was quite exhausted at that point. It occurred to me that I’m actually paying this guy’s salary. And that now I have to go and sleep so I can get up in the morning fresh and new, and work, and pay his salary, keep him busy doing something. ANYTHING TO KEEP people of his sort ever walking out the office.

One other thing, I was seriously considering to make this site comment-free, due to the fact that there are too many comments which I feel, in my humble – but obviously always correct – opinion, are terribly inappropriate.
Keep it clean.
Please.

Plus, some have inquired as to whether this site will cease to be updated once I am married.
This I say to you: I don’t know.
Maybe not. Who knows.
Odds are, I will talk less about shidduchim and more about how charming I am. So that’ll be good.

Of course he also had his bizzare episodes, like getting very excited from one of my rings and asking me if he can try it on and spending a good amount of time admiring how it suits his little finger there.
There was also this one time that we sat there and sipped our drinks calmly when he suddenly turned to me and announced, completely context-free, that he really loves women. I admit that was weird.

It appears that we have a mutual friend. Well, maybe not as such, a friend of mine knows him, from the PAST. From before he became all holy and pure. I decided to ask this friend of mine about him, and when I did he looked at me secretly and only managed to say that he’s nice. Very nice, even.
Well, very nice is all I need folks.

The next day while I was getting ready to meet with him again, my mobile phone rang and there was my friend again, obligated by his loyalty to me and my healthy steady sanity, calling to say that now that he comes to think of it, he DOES have some info for me, but that I better sit down first. Of course I had to stand. No, no, really, you should sit.
Oh bloody hell, just tell me what it is and get this over with.
Okay, he used to be gay.
I sat down.

Now my bunnies, don’t ask me what does USED TO BE gay mean, as I don’t have the faintest. It’s either you are or you’re not, correcto?
Oh fun.

I made up my mind to confront him that same evening, who knows, maybe it’s an evil rumour, maybe someone hates him to bits and therefore spreads all those vicious tales about him being a cabaret singer, doing the odd bit of moonlighting as a flamenco dancer, the usual stuff we spread around about people who seriously offend us, like overtaking us on the highway, injuring that serious male pride.

Then I thought – well if that’s not the case, well then the reality is that I am dating a homosexual. Tonight, in fact. Now, I have nothing against homosexuals per se, in fact a couple of my good friends from school are a little more open-minded (shall we say), swinging both ways, starting to feel free to leap out of the closet, and I really am okay with the whole thing. In fact, I embrace it. In a very detached, thank-Gd-I-never-have-to-go-near-THAT way.
But I do have a problem with dating a gay guy. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but I do. I have a problem with both of us admiring the waiter. I have a problem with him being overly interested in my lipstick. I have a problem with always wondering if he wishes he was wearing MY clothes. I have problems with all these things. I want to be the GIRL in the relationship, dammit.
So, I thought – I’m doomed to stay single for eternity. More like it.

So we met.
Suddenly everything made sense. The ringy thingy, the Desire For Women Declaration, the niceness, I mean, he UNDERSTOOD me. The millions of little feminine things that used to be sweet and sensitive, and now just SCREAMED out, Hey, look at me, I’m GAY!!

So, on our coffee table were two little candles, how sweet, one was white and was called Lavender, the other one was light purple and was called Violet. I asked the waitress for a light and I lit them both. Quite the right atmosphere, isn’t it. I decided to ask him then; to tell him that I’ve heard that he used to have relationships with men (my other gay friend told me how to define it, said it was very politically correct of me); that I’d like to know if it’s true, basically.

It’s very embarrassing, really. I mean, I don’t even know this guy that well, and now I have to ask him about the most personal intimate things.
It was quiet. I looked at the two little candles and I said to myself, in a very radio-talk-show-broadcaster-kind of tone: Okay, Lavender or Violet, who would you rather be?
“Lavender”, he said immediately.
(Don’t say Lavender, don’t say Lavender, PLEASE don’t say Lavender, it is the GAYEST word ever. The gayest scent ever. A manly guy, even if he WANTED to say Lavender, or even BE Lavender, at this point, would restrain himself.)
“Excuse me?” I said. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Lavender”, he said again, “Of course”.
Why of course. Lavender. Gosh.

At that moment I knew that I’m not up for The Homosexual Confrontation. I ordered me some whisky instead. Ahh, don’t you just adore my coping with life techniques?
Feeling a little fuzzy from the drink and supremely confident in getting myself out of this mess, I asked him if he thinks that we suit each other, at all.
He said that it’s interesting that I bring it up, because he was just thinking the same thing. And immediately added “Though I really love women, you know”.
Oh yes, I know.

We fumbled around a bit, trying to extricate ourselves. I just wanted to get exceptionally drunk and go home. He thought we weren’t so right for each other also, apparently. Thank Gd. None of his reasons had anything to do with MY being gay, so huh. I felt superior, in a small way. Trying to salvage me some dignity. But I guess he could feel superior to me in other ways. I mean, he’s thinner than me.

His wife, spreading all those revolting “I’ve-been-married-for-two-days-and-the-world-loves-me-to-bits” smiles all over the kitchen, went to get the wedding album and pulled out this guy’s picture.
Ahem.
Okay, this guy was, seriously, state of the art. Perfect. The hell with breathing space, I say. It can wait.
A designer once told me that beautiful things come in beautiful packages. Fascinating outlook. I didn’t even bother to ask about him, rock worlds and do the little research thingy, it was like I’ve regressed to my early elementary school years, and my eyes were gleaming with the hope of things to come. (Heh, I’m making an “Oh-you-used-to-be-so-naive-and-idiot” face while writing this. I’m still an idiot though, can’t really say I’m above it.)

We set a date and agreed that he’ll come and pick me up from where I live.
I live with tons of girls, might I add.
Now, does anyone remember the scene from Notting Hill, where they leave his friend’s house and hear all the communal mad screams of shock and excitement from inside the house? It was just like that. He came to pick me up and there were girls EVERYWHERE and when I finally left and closed the door behind me, the only sound both of us could hear was those girls screaming like groupies in a rock concert. Yes. Girls can basically ruin your life. Or make you go deaf.

I was so embarrassed. Trying to do some damage-control, I used the same line from the movie to get myself out of it, “They always do that when I leave the house”. He smiled.
I smiled.

We sat down to have coffee at some hotel lobby, ordered our drinks and started chatting casually.
He wasn’t talkative, was quite apathetic actually, he had no opinions, was very quiet, sat there with a silly expression on his face, looked very disoriented and indifferent even to his disorientation. But that’s okay. He was still handsome so it took me quite a while to lose my patience with him. Um, 5 minutes actually, until he started picking his nose.
I ignored that and continued talking, hoping to salvage something out of this date.

I just got back from a long vacation out of the country, and I was telling him how on my night flight I had my face attached to the window and how I saw at least five or six shooting stars and how wonderful and magical it was, while he sat and looked at me with this handsome, expressionless face and a finger up his flawless, straight nose.
A beautifully manicured finger, fair play to him.

He still had that dumb look on his face, only now it got worse. This guy was practically radiating question marks left right and centre.
I couldn’t see what was wrong, but then he just went ahead and said, Wait, I dont get it, A shooting… – star? Shooting? Star? Shoot?

(doh)

He didn’t know what a shooting star was. Never seen one. Never heard of the expression. How romantic.
It’s alright, I suppose. It’s only the MOST COMMON PIECE OF KNOWLEDGE KNOWN TO ANY BLOODY SOUL IN THE GALAXY.
I mean, you would think this guy was brought up by wolves or something.

There I launched onto a long and tiring astronomic explanation, not that I really know how it works, but I remember the basics from some book I once read. I properly felt like a rocket scientist next to this guy. Not a usual feeling, I am usually the explainee, to be honest, not the explainer.

I’m not sure he got all that I was saying, as he just sat there and shrugged stupidly while picking his nose and fixing his hair at the mirror wall behind me.

He was gorgeous, but I think that was when I had to face the agonising fact that we wouldn’t be together forever.
Actually, we wouldn’t be together at all. Ever.

He called a couple of times, said practically nothing, and was as indifferent as a newt when I said I can’t date him.