Original Short Story: The First Date
This was a short story I wrote a few years ago for the Unfolded Podcast that was never recorded. I thought I would publish it here.
Male
5’10”
155 lbs.
Age: 35
Education: B.S., History, Mercy College; M.S. Ancient History & Language, Indiana University; PhD. Ancient Near East & Egyption Studies, New York University
Current Job: History Professor, Columbia University
Likes: History, Pro Wrestling, computers, The Golden Girls, Hemp Bracelets and Thai Food
“Hmm, a little on the skinny side, and he likes pro wrestling and the Golden Girls? Kinda strange for a grown man, but I can overlook it I think.”
Lisa said this out loud to no one.
The glow of her macbook illuminated her face as she sat alone in her one bedroom, fourth floor apartment. It was mid-October now, which meant that the sun was setting a bit earlier each day, and Lisa still had not gotten used to this. She disliked how the Fall evenings crept up on her, catching her off-guard; days had a way of slipping away like whispers in the wind during the Fall. Strangely, she would increasingly find herself sitting in a dark room with the blinds open, the windows no longer welcoming the friendly, golden, setting sun into her home or inviting her to pleasantly gaze out of them; they were a liability now: they made it far too easy for the dark shadows to voyeuristically gaze in at her.
Lisa got up from her desk, turning on a few lights as she made her way around the apartment pulling down her roller blinds. As she headed back to her bedroom-office area, she couldn’t help but feel butterflies in her stomach, that sensation most people experience when something thrilling is waiting for them just around the bend. She had created her profile on e-harmony only two days ago, and now it seems like she may have just received a message from Mr. Perfect.
“James Randall. That’s a nice name,” Lisa thought out loud, her fingers beginning to briskly glide across the keyboard as she typed a reply to Mr. Perfect’s message. “He can’t be any worse than the last one” she said sarcastically under her breath while continuing to type.
Lisa was at her wits end. She knew in her head that the nature of marriage had been changing across the country and that it was not uncommon these days for people to remain single well into adulthood. In fact, she had just read an article that confirmed this, it pointed out that marriage was at an all-time record low in America. On top of that, she was a strong, independent, liberated woman–of course she didn’t need a man to take care of her or make her feel whole. Still, she was a single person of a certain age and there was indeed a part of her that imagined married folks scrutinizing her and pretentiously thinking, ‘eww, why doesn’t anyone love you?’ This is why, after reflecting on the discombobulated befuddlement that was her personal life, she found herself turning to her last resort: online dating.
Now, to be fair, online dating does not carry the stigma today that it once did. Lisa knew this. She also knew that dating sites likes like e-harmony have, in a very real way, legitimated online dating claiming in an almost scientific way to be able to match someone perfectly to your specific compatibility criteria. And despite the thousands upon thousands of people who have found happiness with the help of this amoristic, digital dream service, Lisa was still not 100% sold on the whole thing. She understood quite clearly how the internet easily allowed people to build and present a facade to the world, an image of who they wished they were rather than who they really were which, in effect, basically exacerbated an already Westernized cosmetic culture. But to hide behind phantom identities was something we all did to some extent, she thought.
Lisa excitedly clicked “send” on the message she was typing to James Randall, confirming their plans for the following evening. First they would meet at Sweet Leaf Coffee, a nice public place where Lisa could gauge whether or not James was a weirdo. If he passed the creeper test, they could then proceed to get dinner–perhaps Thai food, since James seemed to like it so much, she thought–and then maybe, if things were going well, top the night off with some live music and drinks.
Lisa hoped things would go well. She knew the perfect guy had to be out there somewhere looking for her. However, hundreds of dates and 3 or 4 committed relationships under her belt, it seemed like her desire to find love was becoming an almost unhealthy obsession. Maybe it was her age or biology kicking in, maybe it was the constant barrage of questions from her mother and friends, or maybe it was all of the above. But no matter how hard she tried, so many times she felt like the guys she met were like eminems, possessing perfect candy coated outsides, with melted chocolate centers. As soon as she discovered that there was a drippy gooey mess hiding on the inside, Lisa had a tendency to run the other way.
…
The next day 5 o’clock quickly approached and Lisa found herself sitting at a nice quiet corner table, anxiously staring at the front door of the busy little cafe, Sweet Leaf Coffee. The aroma of strong Ethiopian and Guatemalan coffee wafted in the air, and the low din of casual conversation around her made Lisa feel at ease. She was dressed conservatively, in a teal blue cardigan sweater over a knee length grey dress. Lisa was very attractive, about 5’7” with an athletic build and a beautiful porcelain complexion, reminiscent of european royalty. The blue sweater activated her grayish blue eyes and her dark brown hair was cut short, not requiring much attention, and always looked good she was told.
Each person that walked in got scanned and cross checked against the e-harmony profile pic stored in Lisa’s memory. No sign of James yet, but she did observe an Indian couple stroll in and get in line for coffee, along with a single, white, hipster looking guy with a messenger bag, an asian businessman carrying a briefcase and two women holding hands–probably also on a date, she thought. At one point she swore she saw the door open and close four times without anyone walking in. Finally, right on time, James arrived. He stepped in the door and scanned the room, seeming to intuitively know where to look for Lisa even though she hadn’t told him where she’d be sitting. When their eyes met he beamed and strolled over to her.
“Hi, I’m James,” he said in a deep voice, holding up his hand and dropping it quickly in almost a salute type motion. Lisa didn’t notice that James was carrying a small satchel.
James was tall, probably over 6’2” with deep blue eyes and dirty blond hair that matched his scruffy beard. He wore a corduroy blazer with elbow patches and jeans with brown loafers. He could not have looked more like a college professor out on a date.
“Hi, I’m Lisa. You look different than your profile pic,” she said.
“Yeah, the beard’s new. I’m in disguise,” he said, winking, trying to make her laugh.
“As long as you’re not hiding from the FBI,” Lisa said half joking, trying to play along. But for all she knew this guy could be on the run. Lisa could not get past the gut feeling in her stomach that told her this guy, no matter how perfect he seemed on the internet, had to be hiding something.
The new friends sat together for a while and got to know each other. By anyone’s measure, the two new acquaintances were hitting it off. The conversation hovered on the usual small-talk for a while. Lisa explained that she was from North Eastern Pennsylvania and moved to New York City with the intention of cashing in on federal student loan forgiveness by agreeing to teach inner city students. James gave a short account of his early life, moving around a lot as a kid due to his father’s military service. Then he shared how his love for history led him to pursue teaching at the collegiate level.
“So, you work all day with other people’s kids huh? Must be rough.” James said, as he nonchalantly organized the coffee sweeteners by the color of their packaging.
Lisa breathed in and sighed, “It certainly has it’s trying times.”
“Well, when they get crazy you should remind them that they’re lucky to be living in our time. In the ancient world kids were not so lucky. There were no categories like toddlers, preschoolers or grade schoolers. At age seven kids were considered to be adults because language was usually mastered by that age. It wasn’t until the 17th century that childhood took on the romantic form it has today.” James replied, almost slipping into professor mode. “I’m sorry, I just get obsessive about history,” he said, slightly embarrassed.
He finished organizing the coffee sweeteners and, discreetly as he could manage, unzipped his satchel and removed a small bottle of hand sanitizer from a ziplock bag, opening and closing the lid four times before and after sanitizing his hands.
“No, no. That’s extremely interesting,” Lisa said, inviting James to continue. She thought James was very attractive, and his intellect was turning out to be as equally impressive.
“Yeah it is actually. Infants, or little children, were in fact considered a blessing to ancient people, but not in the same way that we consider them a blessing. They were a blessing in the way that a paycheck is a blessing,” James said. “Children, more or less, represented the ability to carry on the family lineage and the ability to work the land. They were protected not so much out of love, but because they were, essentially, property. Kids could be traded and sold and even sacrificed! I mean, can you believe that?” James asked rhetorically.
“Really?” Lisa asked, looking horrified.
“Yup. A famous Jewish thinker named Philo said once that those who sacrifice their children out of deference to custom, performed, in his opinion, no great exploit.’ That kinda sums it up,” James said.
“So ancient people didn’t love their children?” Lisa asked.
“Well I’m sure many folks did, but the reality was that they really couldn’t afford to get too emotionally attached. To be fair, the mortality rate for children was exceedingly high back then. In the end, many people despised children for their neediness and weakness. They were heavily devalued” James said sorrowfully.
The couple were beginning to wrap up their initial ‘get-to-know-you’ coffee time when Lisa suggested that they move on to dinner. A look of dire concern flashed across James’ face. Lisa thought she saw him silently mouth the words “good-luck” four times before responding to her proposition.
“Lisa, I have to tell you something and I’m not sure how you’re going to react.” James said in an uneasy tone.
Lisa’s eyes widened as she held her breath. ‘Here it comes,’ she thought, ‘this guy is about to drive me into crazy town.’ By Lisa’s measure, the creepiness usually didn’t come out until the third or fourth date. She knew this date was going too well, perhaps this was her punishment for letting her guard down and actually believing that she may have met a normal guy.
James continued, “I can’t eat at public restaurants, in fact I barely made it here to meet with you tonight. I have an extreme obsessive-compulsive anxiety disorder”, he said. “ I actually had to leave my house an hour early to meet you tonight, and I only live 10 minutes away.”
James explained that his form of OCD was nearly incapacitating, and that uncontrollable thoughts, images, or impulses frequently occurred over and over again in his mind. These obsessions fueled James’ ritualistic compulsions, those of which consisted of doing things in multiples of four; for example: simple acts of opening and closing doors, windows, bottles or turning on light switches became torturous activities for James if they were not done in the proper manner. He would also do things like count steps before ascending or descending to be sure that they were in multiples of four, otherwise he simply could not use that particular staircase. To make matters worse, James also obsessed about cleanliness. James was deathly afraid of contamination and had very specific washing and cleansing rituals. For him to leave the house for work in the morning took hours of preparation.
Lisa was terrified at this news, it was worse than she thought, and it must have shown on her face because James’ mood went from embarrassed and uneasy to discouraged and deflated.
“Uhm…can you excuse me for a moment James?” Lisa said getting up and heading for the restroom, not waiting for James to reply.
When Lisa got into the restroom she was almost hyperventilating. She felt horribly victimized. Why is this happening to her? The person who is perfect for her in every way, has turned out to be an obsessive compulsive freak! Lisa was terribly distraught.
After a few deep breaths Lisa walked into the stall and grabbed some tissue to dry the tears that welled in her eyes. She made her way to the sink area of the restroom to fix her makeup, where there were three sinks and three mirrors situated. Lisa lifted her head and jumped at the reflections that peered back at her; It was not her face in the three mirrors, but three different faces. In the first mirror was an old woman who very much could have been an elderly version of Lisa. She was alone and sad, and she was weeping. In the second mirror, the old woman was there again. This time she was surrounded by people pointing at her, laughing and whispering. In the third mirror was Lisa’s face, but it was hideously distorted, stretched and monstrous as if this restroom mirror had been replaced with a fun house looking glass.
Lisa blinked her eyes and shook her head, trying to dislodge the frightening visions from her mind. When she looked in three mirrors again the images were gone and her true reflection had returned.
The startling visions in the mirrors had Lisa’s heart racing. Without wasting any time, Lisa quickly exited the restroom only to find that she was no longer in the coffee shop. To her complete and utter amazement, Lisa, it appeared, was back in her apartment. Had she never left? Where was James? Surely the date couldn’t have been a hallucination. But sure enough the October evening had once again crept up on her, and she stood alone in the middle of her dark living room.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she trepidatiously made her way to the closest light switch. Lisa flicked on the switch, allowing golden light to gush into the room, and then she sat down at her desk to catch her breath. She stared uneasily out of her bedroom window into the night and allowed her mind to drift. She noticed how the windows from the neighboring buildings gazed upon the dimly lit street below like drowsy eyes. The October night was cold and foggy, and Lisa was tense, her heart still beating like a frantic bird in a cage. A soft chime sounded in the background, indicating that Lisa had received a text message. The electronic alert snapped Lisa out of her ruminations and she breathed in a deep breath, taking in the familiar floral scent of her apartment. Then she stood up in front of her window, took one last look into the darkness, and pulled down her roller blind.
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