Eve and Bob: Date #XXX
By Eve Sturges
(Author’s note: Let’s get real. I am a single mom! I date, but I don’t date THAT much. I have begun to interview friends, and collect some incredible stories, which I’ll have to use once in a while. This is one of them. So, written by me, still, but experienced by someone else. It only seemed fair to disclaim the awesome experience below. Capiche? )
PART 1.
Bob hikes really fast, really good. I mean, he is here for some serious fitness, and I am realizing this is the WORST idea for a date ever. I start to wonder if he knows CPR. I start to worry that I smell, and then I know I smell, and I start to worry if he knows. I am sweating everywhere, and the tips of my hair are starting to curl against all the product I’ve put in to keep it strait.
(Author’s note: sorry to interrupt! But I just wanted to say that anyone who knows me now is positive that this date is NOT mine; I don’t’ hike. Ever. I don’t even own a pair of sneakers.)
Bob is hiking with long manly strides, and is polite enough to try and have a conversation, but it is soon clear that I cannot hike and chat at the same time. So this is awesome. We are autonomously climbing a mountain, I am panting and miserable.
Finally, we reach the top. The view is spectacular…in a smoggy cityscape kind of way. We can see all the way to the ocean. We are higher than birds—
“I’m sorry, what did you say?“
“Would you om with me for a moment? Let’s just take a moment to really absorb the beauty around us. Can you take a big breath and ‘om’ with me?”
My Om is more of a “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh” I am out of breath, and my hair is frizzy, and sweat is dripping in the most private of places. And while Bob absorbs the majestic beauty that Runyun Canyon has to offer, I absorb the firmness of his butt and the nice way that sweat beads are slipping down his back…
And then I say the craziest thing. “Do you want to get dinner tonight?”
PART 2.
At dinner I am much more in my element. I have showered and reapplied hair product. My shin splints aren’t anything a glass of wine can’t take care of. Bob still looks pretty cute, and his butt still looks firm.
Except he isn’t looking at me. He’s talking to me, about himself, but he keeps looking over my shoulder, to my left. I am trying to listen to the details of his acting career (looking over my shoulder), his relationship with his agent (glances back at me), how he was almost in that HBO (over my shoulder again) special (back to me)…
“I’m sorry. That painting behind you; it’s exquisite. I need to manifest for a moment. Excuse me.”
I say nothing while he closes his eyes, reaches his arm across the table in the direction of this and takes three deep slow breaths.
PART 3.
A bottle of wine later, we stumble into his apartment. It’s normal enough, with furniture and the requisite IKEA picture frames, photos and to-do lists taped to the fridge. I’m so confused. Why is he so weird sometimes? Why doesn’t he look weird? I don’t see incense or shrines or yoga mats anywhere.
Then I don’t care anymore because he’s kissing me, and there’s nothing weird about his kissing. I have had wine. I have been hiking today. I put EFFORT into this day, and I am going to put EFFORT into this night. Things get hot and heavy and we’re kind of crashing all over the place because of the wine, and I’m a klutz and the lights are off, so…yeah. We get to his bedroom, and in a moment of passion, he rips off my shirt.
“My GOD. You’re SO sexy! You’re like a PORN STAR. With really SMALL TITS.”
PART 4.
Bob doesn’t understand why I am leaving. I tell him to meditate on it.