On Fire, Upper West Side Area

I never had a ton of game.



Sure, I dated. Occasional awkward hook-ups at wine-cooler soaked theater department parties, that sort of thing. Two or three serious girlfriends, but nothing that lasted more than a year and change. Mostly dry spells.



Long dry spells.



I say this so as not to create a Plinky Pity Party, but to merely provide you, gentle reader, a little background. I basically ran with a group of guys who were a whole lot better at the guy-girl thing than I could ever hope to be. Better looking. Better adjusted socially. Better game.



I never had a ton of game.



I have a very utilitarian personality. I think that's the right way to put it. I relate to everyone I know, or come to know, the exact same way. The way I talk to my mom is the same way I talk to my agent, which is the same way I talk to my waiter, which is the same way I talk to my drinking buddies.



If you were sitting next to me right now, I would be talking to you the way I am writing this right now. Like Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap, it's All-One. And yes, I would have made the Dr. Bronner's allusion.



Not a ton of mystery. Not a ton of subtext. Not a ton of game.



And if you're going to charm your designated charm recipient, these are tools you need. You need mystery. You need subtext. You need to not talk about Mystery Science Theater, 1950's mental hygiene films, or why The Monkees were more California country rock than Merseybeat for a half-hour straight at a bar or a party. You need to be...Cool.



I was not, and am not, cool. I'm funny. I'm smart, in a seven-years-at-theater-school kind of way. I like beer, and I enjoy yelling. In the movie of my life from 1990-98, I'm the lead's best friend. The funny big guy at the bar yelling about beer while the lead goes home with the chick.



While I was finishing up my last year of grad school, a buddy of mine told me he had a gal that would be right up my alley. I told him, essentially, that there was no such thing. I was still recovering from a particularly agonizing breakup from a woman with whom I hadn't a thing in common. I had dated her specifically because of that.



I thought in order to have a grown-up relationship, I just had to be with someone who was my polar opposite. Because trying to find someone like me, who shared my interests, was fruitless. Basically, in order to be in love, I had to not be myself.



Yeah, it didn't take. And it hurt. It hurt because not being yourself hurts. It hurt me, and it hurt her. It was a bad scene all around, and one that I wish I hadn't have put either of us through.



So I was pretty much ready to wash my hands of the whole dating thing.



Near the end of my last year of Rutgers, my friend would occasionally bring his friend around. She attended a show in which he was performing, and, no dummy he, he made sure she sat next to me.



Naturally, my polar opposite ex was at the show as well, coloring my mood jet black.



This is the first conversation I had with the woman who is now my wife.



ME: So. Where do you live?

HER: Manhattan.

ME: Oh. Is it you and a bunch of cats? You one of those cat people?



See, my ex was one of those cat people. Nothing wrong with being a cat person. It's just not for me. In retrospect, there were probably other ways I could have floated this question past my friend's friend. But I was a bitter jerk at the time, so the way I talked to her was the way I talked to everyone.



Game. Never had a ton.



Suffice it to say, sparks did not fly that afternoon at the Little Theater in New Brunswick. I graduated, moved to New York, and really put my back into drinking, writing, seeing friends' bands, and drinking. I maybe went on a date a year.



My buddy was in a sketch comedy show I was co-writing and producing, and so, his friend kind of started popping up at shows. Because I was stapling programs, or futzing with the sound, or giving notes, or, you know, drinking and shouting, we probably didn't exchange more than 10 words at a time.



But she kept showing up. And she kept trying to talk to me. And I kept not getting it. Also, I was generally aware that she was nearing the end of her own godforsaken polar-opposite relationship, so even if I did have a spare second to talk to her, it just wouldn't matter. Who'd want to get out of a lousy relationship to date me?



Finally, she left a message at my work, asking me out for coffee. I must have listened to it a million times, waiting to hear the "just kidding." She knew I was a jackass, right? She'd seen me just in the act of being myself, and she knew that there was nothing else to me BUT that, right? No mystery, no subtext. Just, you know, this guy. The lead's best friend.



So I left a message for her. And I left the message I would leave for anyone I knew at the time. I rambled. I think I sang a little song. I might have quoted MST3K. Knowing the whole time that this wasn't going to go anywhere, because I was 50% of the equation.



And then we went out to coffee. I walked into the cafe, and saw her sitting there.



She was really pretty. Still is.



At the table next to hers, a guy was reading the paper, with an enormous dog at his feet. I said to the lovely woman who invited me to coffee, "Could I get a coffee with a side of giant dog? Oh, good. It's already here."



And, she, uh...She laughed.



I wasn't used to this from pretty girls. Rolled eyes, sure. Blank stares, all the time. But for a pretty, heck, beautiful woman to enjoy me in the act of being myself...Being the same guy I was the other 23 hours a day...This was new.



So, I proceeded to be myself at coffee. And I continued to be myself on the after-coffee stroll. And she was herself, and continued to be herself as well. There was no mystery, no subtext. She was this awesome person, and she would have been equally awesome had I been there or not been there.



Luckily, I was there. Like, really there. Like I was me, and she was her, and we were both...Really there.



After the walk, we went to Xando Cafe on the Upper West Side. They sold a mini-s'mores setup. Little Sterno cannister, a few marshmallows, some chocolate, some sticks.



I toasted her marshmallow for her. And she smiled in a way that let me know that no one had toasted a marshmallow for her before. And that smile, lit by the blue glow of the little Sterno canister...



That's the most on fire I've ever been.



And that's why she's wonderful.



Game over.