生活記事

“HE doesn’t respect my work,” B.K. says to me about a man whose name she can’t actually remember. Referred by a friend, he called B.K. to ask her out on a speed dating. She was not available all weekend, she told him, because she had a project due on Monday and needed to work.

 ”And he was like, ‘Oh, you have to eat sometime,’” B.K. reports. “And, ‘You sure you don’t want to take a break for dinner?’”

 I’m jutting my chin forward waiting for the part where he doesn’t respect her work. It turns out that the story is already over.”Can you believe that?” she says. “Why would I go out with someone who does not respect my work?”

“Sit down, sister,” I say. “He doesn’t know what the heck your job even is!” I say. “This has nothing to do with your work. He wanted to take you out to dinner. He wanted to meet you. What is your problem?! You’re blaming some stranger for your inability to say yes to a date,” I say.

 ”You don’t have to yell at me,” she says.

When was the last time B.K. went out on a speed dating? I can’t even remember. Why is she hiding? I put these questions to her, but she keeps going back to Mister-Name-She-Can’t-Remember.

“I’m not sure I liked his phone manner,” she says. “And I never have luck with Jewish men. And it just rubbed me the wrong way that he didn’t respect my work.”

Oh, brother. I put my fingers in my ears and shout, “La! La! La!” until she shuts up. “There is something else going on,” I say. She surrenders, nods. She says she doesn’t understand why she feels so scared. “So go out with the guy and find out,” I suggest. Five days later, I get a phone call from B.K. “OK, I went out with him last night,” she says bluntly. “His name is David.” “Oh, my God!” I say. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

“It wasn’t like that,” she says.

 ”OK, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you like him?”

“I’m gonna say 5,” she says. “But that’s not the point. This was a much, much bigger deal than either you or I anticipated.”

 I ask her to please walk me through the evening. 3She tells me she ordered pork. “I wanted him to know right off the bat what kind of Jew I am,”4 she says. He ordered the sea bass. He started filling her in on his background, his kids, his two divorces. Then, he asked if she wanted to say anything about her own romantic history.

She wondered what to tell him and found herself beginning a sentence this way: “For the past two years, I’ve been kind of busy with …” She caught herself. She nearly choked. She was about to attempt a leap across an abyss that had not been named or even identified. Should she finish the sentence?

“And I thought what the hell,” 5she tells me. “And I said, ‘For the past two years, I’ve been busy battling breast cancer.’”