INTERNET DATES FROM HELL (9 page)

No sooner were we served then I realized his attractiveness superseded his photograph. If nothing else, he was a fine piece of eye candy. Even the way he dressed was impeccable. His designer shirt brilliantly matched his pants and leather loafers. He must have been an athlete because of his muscular physique. I couldn’t help but daydream.

Sometimes when something bothers me, I have little control over how it manifests itself. Since this was one of those times, I point-blank asked the question again.

“Where did you say you were born?”

“The island of Kona. I thought we discussed this over the phone.”

I inappropriately laughed, to which he reacted: “What’s so funny?”

“I’ll beg your pardon again, Rob, but I’ve been to Hawaii several times. Kona is a city on the island of Hawaii.”

At that point, Rob’s sharp eyes grew dull. He said he had a confession to make. He looked embarrassed. He confessed that he was actually Filipino. Before he could say anything else, I asked him if there were any more confessions. He said, “As a matter of fact, there are. I am not an investment banker; I am a teller-in-training. I am taking a couple of undergrad finance courses at NYU. They happen to be both on Friday nights.” He looked at my face for my response and I gave it to him, more in words than in countenance. I said to him, “I don’t like to be fibbed to, lied to, or betrayed in any way. It is late. I must be going, good night.”

Although I myself never played much baseball, my two older brothers sacrificed a set of knees each to that sport. The principle they always talked about was three strikes and you’re out. I knew there were more strikes in Rob’s repertoire, but I wasn’t going to give him more than three.

10
 

If Your Date Obsesses over a Body Part, Chances Are He Has a Fetish
 

June 1999

After the last incident I decided to take another hiatus from Internet dating. For what amounted to only three and a half weeks, my respite was well deserved. As any elementary school teacher knows, the last month of the school year can drag on unmercifully. Between final assessments (academic and deportment) and every imaginable fund-raiser and year-end party with my colleagues, the last three weeks can feel like months. What seems to compound matters most is the heat. Long Island summers come fast and furious, once the calendar reads June. Those cool, wet May afternoons quickly acquiesce to unbearable humid June mornings where kids seem to melt as fast as jumbo crayons errantly left on a windowsill.

Nothing is more satisfying than handing the final report card to the last kindergartener and subsequently watching her hand the report card to her all-embracing, patient mother. Marked by the little departure tears from most of my students (unlike the separation-anxiety tears for their parents that they displayed in the beginning of the year), June 25 is a noteworthy day for all elementary school teachers. It is on that day that we, like the kids, have mixed emotions. Part of us craves the idea of a ten-week summer vacation, but the other part spells “emptiness,” as we pack the last box of chalk away in our closets. The last thing I needed were mixed emotions regarding my social life, too.

Normally the drive to Manhattan from the middle of Long Island during off-peak hours takes approximately sixty minutes, but before I knew it, I was in the elevator to my apartment. How did that happen? I have heard drunks talk about automatic pilot, and I’ve also read about road hypnosis while driving, but this was something entirely different. My mixed emotions practically erased the entire drive home. Maybe this phenomenon prompted me to revisit my old habit of Internet dating. Let’s face it: watching those young mothers near or about my age jubilantly jumping in the schoolyard alongside their children threw my maternal instincts into an emotional tailspin. The older I was getting, the more intense this feeling was growing. I really felt it was time that I had a little jumping bean of my own.

Like the phantom ride home, I soon mysteriously found myself fingering the computer keyboard, activating my personal ad once again. Within thirty minutes, Francisco, a self-proclaimed Mexican-bred classical pianist answered my ad. Phew! That was fast! I think that was the quickest reply I’d ever received after posting an ad. Maybe I was being overly dramatic, since it had been over four weeks since my profile had last been viewable. Before long I found myself responding. My normal practice is to not give my phone number, but to receive the man’s phone number and call him. No sooner did he give me his number, than I phoned him. I learned quickly that not only had he recently recorded his own CD of original music, but he was also working on a second CD of legendary standard tunes. His voice complemented the photo that was attached to his email. But, as most Internet daters know, photographs can be deceiving.

With a soft-spoken, sexy Hispanic accent, he asked if I was available that same evening, since he lived in the same neighborhood, he could be over shortly to meet me. I told him that even though I wasn’t busy, it had been my last day of school and I needed to decompress; a container of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, or possibly Cookies and Cream, some cool jazz, and the latest tabloid would do the trick. I told him that perhaps we could meet up the next night. We agreed to meet for a light bite and early show at a jazz club in Tribeca.

Fashionably late is not the order of business in a jazz club, especially for the early show. He had said 9:00 PM, and it was precisely 8:50 PM when I walked through the doorway. Thank God that I didn’t wear heels because these clubs could be so dark that I could foresee falling down the first flight from the street and never being noticed. Little did I know that the sandals I wore would save me some serious time.

Rather than join the huddling mass at the bar for their last drink before the show began, I decided to take a table close to the stage, but not too close for comfort. I can count on two hands the number of jazz clubs I’ve visited. I was concerned that he wouldn’t find me, but that concern vanished when I saw him talking on stage to the bass player as he tuned his final string. Within seconds, he eyed my table. Within a nanosecond, he was seated next to me.

“I had another table in mind, but this is just as good,” he initially offered.

“We can move,” I suggested, “I’m not married to this spot.”

“No, no, this is actually better. We have a better view of the piano player,” he said in an unmistakably articulate accent.

He looked much more attractive than the photograph attached to his e-mail. I couldn’t determine the color of his eyes, but they appeared, in the darkness of the club, to be as dark as his hair. His clothes, too, were black: a black open-necked shirt, black jeans, and a black sport coat. I’d like to be able to say that he also wore black shoes, but I thought it would be inappropriate to stare at his shoes. Even if I had, I probably couldn’t determine it, because of the lack of light. This didn’t stop Francisco, though, because before a note was played on stage, he was trying to note my feet (staring no less!).

“Did you drop something on the floor?” I asked.

“Excuse me, what did you say?” he exhorted.

I repeated, “Did you drop something? You seem to be preoccupied with the floor.”

“Oh no,” he laughed, “although it’s a bit dark, I was admiring your feet.”

“My feet or my shoes?” I urged.

“Your feet,” he quickly offered.

Like most women, I’m sensitive about various parts of my body. However, I can’t ever remember my feet embarrassing me. “Feet don’t fail me now,” I laughed to myself. I pursued this issue without haste.

“Do you have a foot fetish?” I innocently blurted.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he smiled. At that moment I was positive he was joking. I started to laugh out loud.

“What are you laughing at?” Francisco inquired.

“I thought you were pulling my leg—no pun intended!”

“No, I actually have a thing for feet,” Francisco retorted.

Great, he was another eccentric.

At that point I nervously laughed out loud again because I realized I hadn’t had a pedicure in over a month.

“What’s so funny now?” he demanded.

When I told him of my nail neglect, he challenged, “Every foot is different. Some look great with pedicures, some look great without.”

“What do you mean?’ I said.

“Here, I’ll show you.”

In one hand he held the table’s candle, and in the other hand he held a digital camera and scrolled through dozens of photos of women’s feet, which he claimed to have taken that day alone!! You might have heard of “saved by the bell.” I was saved by a set—an extraordinarily long set of instrumental jazz music that fascinated “Francisco the Foot Man.” Before the set was over, I politely excused myself to go the ladies’ room, which is apparently taboo, yet Francisco’s fixation on the piano player was undisturbed by my leaving. Before I knew it, my open-toed shoes and I were at the Duane Street platform, eagerly waiting for the train to arrive. Once aboard the train I found myself curiously staring at women’s feet. What is it with these fetishes? While concentrating on feet, I realized that I actually found most women’s feet quite disturbing to look at. With a size ten shoe and flat feet to boot, I never had the problem most women suffer from, which is insisting upon squashing their feet into shoes way too small in a vain effort to prove that their feet are actually smaller than they appear. Let’s face it, there’s not much you can do with a size ten. I would rather be comfortable than vain in that department. I choose other areas in which to be self-conscious.

Feeling a well-deserved sense of emotional soundness, I climbed the subway stairs to 34th Street. For the first time in a long time, I felt rather good about myself. If I remember correctly, Francisco did say he admired my feet and was not repulsed by them, didn’t he? Therefore, I thought at that point that I’d take his bizarre compliment positively. Don’t we all enjoy a compliment once in a while, even if it is backhanded (there’s no such word as back-footed, is there?)?

Once again, like in a dream, I appeared in my building’s vestibule. It was like that the whole week. Fragments of time seemed to escape me while I safely persevered.

“You look a tad frazzled, Trish,” my good-natured doorman, Ralph, said.

“No, just a little spacey the last few days,” I replied.

As I said this, I thought I saw Ralph’s face twitch as if he suffered some strange pang of discomfort or even downright pain. “Are you all right, Ralph?” I inquired.

“Oh, I guess, it’s obvious.”

“What is?” I urged.

“Oh, these damn new shoes my wife insisted I wear are killing my feet.”

At that moment I broke into uncontrollable laughter.

“I guess you don’t like them either, do you?”

I never answered him. I walked to the elevator with my arm above my head waving back to him, giggling like a child. I honestly could not have another conversation about feet that night, for all the shoes in Imelda Marcos’s closet. I apologized the next day for my rude departure, and even went as far as explaining myself to good old Ralph, and I called in an appointment to Natalie’s Nail Salon for both a manicure and especially a pedicure as well.