Dear Jan--
Where do I begin?
Where do I begin?
The past 10 days or so have been truly eye-opening and wonderous in so many ways, really they have. I had no idea after talking to you for over 40 hours in the course of 8 nights would just be a prelude to the marathon weekend I was about to have with you. My head is spinning now. But not enough for me to take a moment and write this letter to you.
From the very first phone call, when you yelled "HA-LO SHEDDY!!!" into the phone, as if trying to get my attention across a crowded room, I thought your personality might be bigger than life. But after that, your voice was so much more reserved and quiet, except for your laugh, which boomed into my ear and forced me to hold the phone away from my head. I thought that was quaint in some ways, because exuberance can be stimulating.
From the very first phone call, when you yelled "HA-LO SHEDDY!!!" into the phone, as if trying to get my attention across a crowded room, I thought your personality might be bigger than life. But after that, your voice was so much more reserved and quiet, except for your laugh, which boomed into my ear and forced me to hold the phone away from my head. I thought that was quaint in some ways, because exuberance can be stimulating.
Indeed, the phone conversations were stimulating, and in no way predicted the course of this weekend's time with you. I wonder now if I can go back and see any signs, but I really can't think of any as yet. Let me explain.
When I first saw you on Friday night, I think I was stunned and taken in by your attractive features, which your photos did no justice in depicting at all. For the first time in the history of my blind dates, I was meeting a man who was far more attractive than he presented himself to be online.
As I sat and looked at you across the table, I saw that you had the intense eyes of Viggo Mortensen and the full lips, jawline, and nose of David Duchovny. Both of those names probably mean nothing to you, but I know that any women I mention that to would swoon at the thought. On top of that, you suavely kissed my hand when you greeted me (and then again at the end of the night), also making for the swoon factor to rise.
So what could go wrong, you wonder? Let me recount the ways...
The date as a whole seemed to go well, except that it went on for 11 hours. In the course of those first 11 hours together, you made for very entertaining company... with the exception of the occasional racist joke. When it first happened, I thought it merely an error judgment on your part and put it out of my mind. But by the fifth racist joke (and my continued lack of laughing at them) in the span of an hour, I was silently praying for you to not say another word, so you'd stop ruining the mood. Luckily, the fifth joke was the last... for that night, that is.
Unluckily, it wasn't the last of the racial remarks. I understand that you came here from another country and couldn't speak the language and now you have your own business, but to complain about Equal Opportunity Employment and educational quotas when you really aren't familiar with the history here doesn't go over well with me.
Yes, it's true that being forced to hire someone less qualified for the job just to fill a quota isn't fair to the employer and may make for a subpar product, but this is more of a case of "one bad apple spoiling the whole batch," and in that I mean what you couldn't understand. If some people were able to choose only white men to be hired for jobs and for education, then they did just that... it was those bad apples that I'm talking about, not the subpar product that has happened occasionally after the new laws.
One would think that you --as a man who wasn't Communist in a country run by Communists for so long, and who was kept from acquiring an advanced education and higher jobs due to his political beliefs-- should be even more acutely aware of that kind of discrimination. But in this country, you are of the political majority and seen only as a white male, and so you are not held back in ways that others have been held back here based on color or gender.
Unfortunately, your sketchy grasp of this language makes it impossible to express this to you accurately, though I do believe that you are intelligent enough to understand if perhaps I spoke yours.
I'm generally a forgiving sort, though, and figured that maybe because it was around 4AM when you were speaking those words (and because we were sitting in a booth across from two pimps, who were openly boasting about their "bitches"... again, bad apples only), that perhaps the lateness of the hour (and the negative example sitting across from us) was causing poor judgment in the conversation on both of our parts. Perhaps I was judging your words too harshly, just as you were judging those with brown or black skin too harshly, too.
We had started our date at 8PM and were finishing it at 7AM, after watching the sun come up. I felt that it was not so terrible that I wouldn't want another date with you, and so I accepted your offer.
You called me at 4PM and were raring to meet immediately for another marathon dating session. I, however, had only managed to get 4 hours of sleep and needed time to regroup and get ready still. I met you at 6PM and again you took me away in your car. That might have been my first mistake of the night, but how do you tell a man so set in his ways that women are perfectly capable of driving too?
You began this second date by driving me past your old house where you'd lived with your ex-wife, and proceeded to get more and more aggrivated as you recounted the time you were last there with her... almost frothing at the mouth as you stated your desire to see "the house burn down with her in it." Here's a tip: this is NEVER a good way to start any date.
When I first saw you on Friday night, I think I was stunned and taken in by your attractive features, which your photos did no justice in depicting at all. For the first time in the history of my blind dates, I was meeting a man who was far more attractive than he presented himself to be online.
As I sat and looked at you across the table, I saw that you had the intense eyes of Viggo Mortensen and the full lips, jawline, and nose of David Duchovny. Both of those names probably mean nothing to you, but I know that any women I mention that to would swoon at the thought. On top of that, you suavely kissed my hand when you greeted me (and then again at the end of the night), also making for the swoon factor to rise.
So what could go wrong, you wonder? Let me recount the ways...
The date as a whole seemed to go well, except that it went on for 11 hours. In the course of those first 11 hours together, you made for very entertaining company... with the exception of the occasional racist joke. When it first happened, I thought it merely an error judgment on your part and put it out of my mind. But by the fifth racist joke (and my continued lack of laughing at them) in the span of an hour, I was silently praying for you to not say another word, so you'd stop ruining the mood. Luckily, the fifth joke was the last... for that night, that is.
Unluckily, it wasn't the last of the racial remarks. I understand that you came here from another country and couldn't speak the language and now you have your own business, but to complain about Equal Opportunity Employment and educational quotas when you really aren't familiar with the history here doesn't go over well with me.
Yes, it's true that being forced to hire someone less qualified for the job just to fill a quota isn't fair to the employer and may make for a subpar product, but this is more of a case of "one bad apple spoiling the whole batch," and in that I mean what you couldn't understand. If some people were able to choose only white men to be hired for jobs and for education, then they did just that... it was those bad apples that I'm talking about, not the subpar product that has happened occasionally after the new laws.
One would think that you --as a man who wasn't Communist in a country run by Communists for so long, and who was kept from acquiring an advanced education and higher jobs due to his political beliefs-- should be even more acutely aware of that kind of discrimination. But in this country, you are of the political majority and seen only as a white male, and so you are not held back in ways that others have been held back here based on color or gender.
Unfortunately, your sketchy grasp of this language makes it impossible to express this to you accurately, though I do believe that you are intelligent enough to understand if perhaps I spoke yours.
I'm generally a forgiving sort, though, and figured that maybe because it was around 4AM when you were speaking those words (and because we were sitting in a booth across from two pimps, who were openly boasting about their "bitches"... again, bad apples only), that perhaps the lateness of the hour (and the negative example sitting across from us) was causing poor judgment in the conversation on both of our parts. Perhaps I was judging your words too harshly, just as you were judging those with brown or black skin too harshly, too.
We had started our date at 8PM and were finishing it at 7AM, after watching the sun come up. I felt that it was not so terrible that I wouldn't want another date with you, and so I accepted your offer.
You called me at 4PM and were raring to meet immediately for another marathon dating session. I, however, had only managed to get 4 hours of sleep and needed time to regroup and get ready still. I met you at 6PM and again you took me away in your car. That might have been my first mistake of the night, but how do you tell a man so set in his ways that women are perfectly capable of driving too?
You began this second date by driving me past your old house where you'd lived with your ex-wife, and proceeded to get more and more aggrivated as you recounted the time you were last there with her... almost frothing at the mouth as you stated your desire to see "the house burn down with her in it." Here's a tip: this is NEVER a good way to start any date.
Then as we drove downtown, you got on the phone with your Czech buddy and began speaking... nay... shouting so loudly in Czech to him that I thought the windows of the car might shatter. (I know my eardrums nearly did.) At that moment, I recalled your very first "HA-LO SHEDDY!!!" phone greeting to me, and that's when I realized that maybe that really was your regular volume, rather than a nervous exuberance at that moment. Every time the phone rang and you answered in that booming voice again, I shrunk smaller and smaller into a ball, it seemed. Before we even made it to dinner, I had shut down and stopped talking entirely.
Oh, yes... your driving. That's another issue.
You drive like an 80 year old drunken tourist with cataracts. And that's you completely sober. I can't imagine how bad it would be if you'd had a drink or two under your belt. As we puttered along in the far left lane of the interstate at exactly 55 miles per hour --cars flying around us like we were standing still and drivers beeping and cursing like they wanted us dead-- I gripped the armrest handle for dear life, thinking that you were surely going to cause an accident, while I pleaded with you to go faster or at least move one lane to the right (please). You refused and laughed at all of the other "jerk" drivers. I am truly surprised you didn't get pulled over for driving under the limit half of the time while you crossed first the left lines, then the right lines like you were hoping to be tested for a DUI.
At least on the interstate I wasn't in fear of my life that an angry motorist would get out at the next light and beat you and I to death for your city driving, which is far worse. It was "not unbelievable," as you like to mis-state, which is somewhat cute (unlike your driving). Slowing down a half-mile before you come to a red light is not a good idea. Neither is driving in the left lane all the time when you're going 20 miles an hour in a 45 mile per hour district. I am not going to assume that all Eastern Europeans drive like this, because I have only one sample. I just hope if they do, they at least don't die as often in accidents, because they're all going well under the speed limit.
At least on the interstate I wasn't in fear of my life that an angry motorist would get out at the next light and beat you and I to death for your city driving, which is far worse. It was "not unbelievable," as you like to mis-state, which is somewhat cute (unlike your driving). Slowing down a half-mile before you come to a red light is not a good idea. Neither is driving in the left lane all the time when you're going 20 miles an hour in a 45 mile per hour district. I am not going to assume that all Eastern Europeans drive like this, because I have only one sample. I just hope if they do, they at least don't die as often in accidents, because they're all going well under the speed limit.
To make matters worse, you started talking about your racial "issues" again and tossing the N-word around like it was no big deal. I should have asked you to take me home at that point, but I kept hoping I could diplomatically point out why that was the wrong way to think and sway your opinions. Nothing I said worked, though, and I continued to grow quieter and quieter.
Maybe you were just talking to fill up space, because you're uncomfortable with silence. As we sat in your car, we could have quietly looked up at the stars or something, but you insisted on going on about your past divorces, even pulling out the voice-activated tape recorder you used to gain evidence against those women... WITH one of the tapes still inside(!)... the one of you and your last ex discussing why you two stopped having sex (again, NOT a good thing to do on any date EVER). Thank god the batteries were dead when you tried to play it.
To get you to shut up about that, I almost grabbed you and kissed you, but then stopped myself as I remembered what happened the last time I did that with someone, I ended up having sex with a wannabe dramaturge who didn't step out character of his "virgin fantasy" the whole time. Even when using sex as a distraction, I cannot end the idle chatter. So thankfully nothing physical happened between us at all.
To get you to shut up about that, I almost grabbed you and kissed you, but then stopped myself as I remembered what happened the last time I did that with someone, I ended up having sex with a wannabe dramaturge who didn't step out character of his "virgin fantasy" the whole time. Even when using sex as a distraction, I cannot end the idle chatter. So thankfully nothing physical happened between us at all.
However, in case you didn't catch it at the time, trying to crack-wise with me about the girl at the coffee house with the bright red hair was another moment where you not only put your foot in your mouth and refused to remove it, you actually shoved it in deeper.
When I told you the first time that my hair was that exact same color until last December, you should have stopped there and shut up about it. But no. Instead you tried for a total of 4 times to ask me, "Why does someone do that to herself? Get all ugly like that?" I assured you that the ruby barrette that I was wearing perfectly matched my hair just a few months earlier (same as hers) and tried to tell you that self-expression is everyone's right... perhaps she's an artist, perhaps she likes to subvert the dominant paradigm somehow. Your final assessment of, "At least you got over that now," didn't help your case. Perhaps that was just passive-aggressive payback for my previous comment about your music.
Yes, I did ask you rather snarkily if you could tell the difference between those songs, but you saying "Maybe you can't hear it good," and turning the volume up louder to convince me of the subtle beat differences --like where one song goes "doot-deet-doot" and the other goes "deet-deet-doot"-- didn't help me enjoy them more... especially not after being peppered with them for 2 nights straight. Regardless, I do apologize for the tone. It was a weak moment and I was beginning to crack.
I felt hijacked for the 9-hour marathon that was our second date. On our first date, I'd jokingly teased that maybe you were really a vampire and that accent was actually Transylvanian just pretending to be Czech... but by the end of the second one, I think I may have been onto something there. You had sucked all the energy out of me and were ready for more and more, while all I wanted to do was go home and retreat from the experience.
By the time morning came around again at the end of our second date, I was physically and mentally exhausted, and all I had to show for it was that I'd wasted 20 of the last 30 hours of my life with a obnoxiously loud, horribly racist, terrible driver.
By the time morning came around again at the end of our second date, I was physically and mentally exhausted, and all I had to show for it was that I'd wasted 20 of the last 30 hours of my life with a obnoxiously loud, horribly racist, terrible driver.
You wanted to take me to dinner again today, but simply I couldn't stomach it. Somehow now I have to break the news to you that there will not be another date in our futures. On a slightly more petty note, I am relieved that I won't have to listen to more Euro disco beats any time soon.
As a final insult to an injuriously long weekend, I just finished eating one of the Czech candy bars you gave me called Tatranky. I can't understand what the ingredients are, but for some reason my whole body has just swelled up into a giant, splotchy, puffy mass of hives. Awesome.
Do I recall myself saying "Those Czechs love the absurd," a few weeks back? I think I did, yes. Guess I should have known better.
I still believe I have more in common with Europeans than I do with most Americans, but perhaps not so much in common with Eastern Europeans... though I'm not willing to judge a whole area of the world based on this one experience. There are ignorant people in every nation and, apparently, the possibility of me dating one of those people is much higher than anyone could imagine. Call it my gift... my curse.
Do I recall myself saying "Those Czechs love the absurd," a few weeks back? I think I did, yes. Guess I should have known better.
I still believe I have more in common with Europeans than I do with most Americans, but perhaps not so much in common with Eastern Europeans... though I'm not willing to judge a whole area of the world based on this one experience. There are ignorant people in every nation and, apparently, the possibility of me dating one of those people is much higher than anyone could imagine. Call it my gift... my curse.
So I will take my leave of dates for a little while, I think. It's a shame, too, because I have a total of 3 whole weekends free from kids here at the house and I could have a fantastically fabulous romp with the right person... but I haven't met him yet.
--She...
--She...
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