INTERNET DATES FROM HELL (17 page)
Read INTERNET DATES FROM HELL Online
Authors: Trisha Ventker
April 2003
Nearing the one-year anniversary of 9/11, the most heinous attack ever made on American soil, I slowly emerged from the cocoon I had unconsciously spun. Most New Yorkers, at first, rallied around each other and became closer in the months following the attack. However, as the year progressed, I noticed more and more of my fellow New Yorkers detaching themselves from each other in the effort to insulate against the horrors they had suffered. I too became more and more distant as the months elapsed. After watching one of the most important financial buildings belonging not only to New York City but also to the world, destroyed in a matter of minutes, my sense of self-importance and need for companionship paled by comparison. Internet dating was the last thing that concerned me at that point in my life. However, after a year and a half of quiet solace, I decided that loneliness and self-denial would never bring back the thousands of lives lost or the buildings that were destroyed. Solitude solves nothing, I decided.
It was at that time I decided to reenter the electronic dating game. I received a very romantic response to my profile from an Italian man named Paulo from Rome. He wrote that he had enjoyed my profile the most because it was filled with richness of culture, passion, and adventure. He explained that the majority of American women seemed very cynical and lacked creativity. The image Paulo attached was as qualitative as any I have ever seen on the cover of GQ. Dark hair, piercing green eyes, five-o’clock shadow, just the right amount of chest hair, and toned biceps protruding from his designer white T-shirt completed the picture. Studying architecture at Cooper Union on a scholarship,
Paulo appeared much younger than his stated age of thirty years. Although most people would have given their right arm to excel in the family-owned olive oil business as Paulo claimed he did, he had decided that a second career was in order. As a child, he had proven his love for Venetian architecture to anyone who knew him. Paulo described his summers in Sicily and his winters in Palermo from the ages of six through twelve. From the articulated sand castles to the dioramas he constructed, Paulo’s love of architecture was noteworthy. It was time, at the age of thirty, to pursue his first love. He stated that there were very few students near his age. As a result, he considered online dating. After a few good experiences, he was looking for a great experience.
We spoke on the phone and our conversation lasted for over an hour. His Italian accent allowed me the opportunity to fantasize enjoying espresso at a corner café like the ones in the Piazza Navona. Perhaps riding a Vespa on the Isle of Capri or even sailing through the canals of Venice in a gondola might cure what had previously ailed me. Even just the beautiful change of scenery could lift my spirits and drag me out of the destructive doldrums that had plagued me over the past six months. Nevertheless, we agreed to meet at a beautiful, architecturally sound Catholic Church close by. Paulo had chosen this church because of its traditional Italian motif.
As I approached the church, I saw Paulo sitting on the third step, smoking a cigarette, Leonardo DiCaprio—like. He wore the same ensemble that he had worn in the photo he sent me. However, he forgot to mention that he was only 5’7”. Had I known, being five foot ten inches, I would have worn flats that day. Instead, in the heels I had chosen, I now loomed nearly six inches over him. Nonetheless, I enjoyed our conversation immensely. He asked me if I would be interested in seeing the inside of St. Francis of Padua’s chapel, to which I responded, “Certainly. Not only have I heard mass here before, but I’ve attended a christening here as well.”
“In that case would you be willing to give me a private tour?” Paulo asked warmly.
“By all means,” I responded.
After forty-five minutes of a bulging-eyed Paulo and countless “oohs” and “ahs,” we exited the church, this time through the rear door behind the altar.
“I don’t know what is more beautiful, you or the church,” Paulo exclaimed.
At that point his height was no longer an issue, for his words and sentiments were big enough to compensate. Enjoying ourselves greatly, we agreed to meet for dinner two nights later.
We planned to meet at a restaurant of his choice, a trendy hot spot. This time, I wore stylish flats and a pretty sundress. We sat down, and he ordered some wine without even asking if I wanted any, and started to flatter me, Italian-style. We shared appetizers, and he fed me breadsticks. Right before the main course arrived, he told me that I had very cute cheeks.
“Your cheeks are so cute, I would like to bite them,” Paulo proclaimed.
“Are you serious? I don’t think that’s a good idea, Paulo,” I retorted.
In the midst of questioning his motives, Paulo seized the opportunity, and actually bit my right cheek quite firmly! Shocked and a tad disorientated, I excused myself and made haste to the restroom.
As I stood in front of the mirror, I watched my cheek turn a deep purple as teeth marks from both his upper and lower jaw appeared. At this point, the pain became quite intense and sharp. I rummaged through my purse to find the strongest painkiller I had with me. There it was: Extra Strength Excedrin. After washing it down with some water, I headed back to the table to inform Paulo that I didn’t appreciate his love bite. I demanded both an explanation and an apology. He neither apologized nor explained his behavior. Normally a pacifist, I was so incensed that I wanted to haul off and hit him with my handbag. He thought it was no big deal and actually laughed about it. I told him this was outrageous, and I didn’t know what they did in Italy, but in America it is unacceptable to bite your date.
Riding home in a cab I wondered what I would tell my colleagues and students tomorrow. I also pondered if I still had any leftover penicillin from last winter when I had had a sinus infection. If I did, the first order of business would be to swallow two pills and then ice my face to bring down the swelling. How dare he! Who the hell did he think he was? Considering that his height was only five foot seven inches, I wondered if I should have told him about my three brothers who range in height from six foot two inches to six foot four inches, with weights of over 250 pounds!! Who knows, maybe Paulo might have bitten one of them on the kneecap, to make matters worse than they already were.
November 2003
Realizing that I had bitten off more than I could chew, I turned my attention to the beginnings of another school year. As I mentioned earlier, the beginning of most school years has more work than any other time in the term. As most teachers will tell you, they need a good two months to get comfortable with the new class, parents, and recently hired staff members comprising the school environment. Normally, this comfort zone arrived much sooner than the Thanksgiving break. However, this year was different because I was teaching the first grade! And this was no ordinary first-grade class; I was to teach children with developmental delays. Since my degree qualified me to teach in this area, the district invited me to take the challenge. Not only would I have to learn a new curriculum, but I also would have to relocate to another classroom in another wing of the building. To make matters more complicated, some of these students had not attended kindergarten the year before. This was the best time to focus on my career and a better time to leave Internet dating alone.
Slowly but surely the winds of November blew the leaves off the trees. “My God,” I said to myself, “where did the last three months go?” Before long, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s would arrive. Great! It would be another holiday season without the festivities. I couldn’t remember when I had last enjoyed a truly Merry Christmas or a really Happy New Year’s Eve, and now I was facing another lonely holiday season. During my first six years of living in Chelsea, there had always been lonely-looking little old women living next to me. These old gals had survived their husbands by at least a dozen years, but I often wondered how they survived the holidays. Occasionally I would witness the token appearance of one of these ladies’ daughters or granddaughters or some other relative, giving me the standard, “Happy Holidays.” Come to think of it, I had noticed many other mature ladies frequenting the elevator and lobby of my building, to the point that I asked Ralph, the doorman (a New York historian in his own right) about this phenomenon. As he laughed, he told me that I needed to research the few blocks I walked each day.
“Why should I, Ralph?” I inquired.
“Don’t you know this is Spinster Heaven, Trish?” Ralph answered. “I hope you won’t be a member of the chosen few club,” Ralph added as he opened the door and smiled at an old woman with packages in tow.
I watched this transaction in sheer horror! I saw myself coming through a similar door (if not the same door) in the distant future, with an ancient Ralph assisting me with my little Yorkshire Terrier and shopping bags full of unnecessary gaudy clothing. “That’s it,” I said to myself. “I am going back upstairs to my Internet dating habit. Spinsterhood is not for me!”
After posting my profile once again, I researched the community now called Chelsea. I learned that back in the forties and fifties, before Chelsea’s alternative/ bohemian lifestyle of the seventies, eighties, and nineties, this was an enclave of professionals “on their way to the top.” In the forties and fifties, dentists, doctors and CPAs in the midst of their careers gravitated to Chelsea. Most of the buildings in the area were zoned professional and residential, including my apartment building. My apartment in particular had been a dentist’s office in the late fifties. I only learned this after tearing up the grotesque lime green rug and noticing on the hardwood floors the markings of what were once partitioned walls separating the examining room from the waiting room. After asking my landlady, who had owned my co-op, she confirmed my suspicion by telling me that her father was the dentist who practiced there. She also added that her mother worked as his receptionist and nurse. She spoke fondly of the apartment and reminisced about the many times she had sat on the floor of what became my galley kitchen. She rambled on incessantly about the innocent days where she would wait patiently for her parents to finish their workday, playing with her dolls and coloring for hours. What struck me while she spoke was the fact that people back then needed much less to get by. I came to the conclusion that I would never complain again to anyone about how small my apartment was.
Ironically, the next day, as I boarded the elevator from the lobby, I encountered an odd-looking man smiling awkwardly. Introducing himself as Michael, and enlarging an awkward smile, he spoke of his newness to the building and expressed a yearning to meet people. He was either high on life or laughing gas, and his smile made me uncomfortable. I immediately categorized him as an out-of-towner, maybe from somewhere out west or even Canada. In New York people don’t smile at all, especially at strangers for no apparent reason. I politely said hello to him and attempted to end the greeting there. When he pressed the sixteenth floor button, I just knew that he was my new neighbor. I got off the elevator and proceeded to unlock my apartment door. To my surprise, he was standing next to me, still with an increasingly disturbing grin as he said, “I’m right next door, isn’t that funny?” Funny was the last thing I was thinking. It was scary maybe, but certainly not funny.