I Lack Sufficient Data

"...Julie told me a Barcelona story of getting locked in the Parque Guell with her boyfriend after visiting hours. Here it comes, I thought. The first ex-boyfriend had been summoned. Soon the rest would follow. They would file around the table, presenting their deficiencies, telling of their addictions, their cheating hearts. After that, I would be called on to present my own ragged gallery. And here is where my first dates generally go wrong. I lack sufficient data. I don't have it in quite the bulk of a man my years should have. Women sense this and a strange, questioning look comes into their eyes. And already I am retreating from them, before dessert has been served..."
-Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

I just finished reading this book and I thought it something to note how much I was able to identify with the hermaphrodite narrator. As an adult male, instead of a female child that is. Obviously not in terms of his struggle with gender, but with his lack of experience. And though the reason for his lack of experience is extremely different than mine, and comes with a whole different set of psychological issues, the awkwardness of that reality is very real to me.

I lack sufficient data.

There is pretty much no better way to say it.

I had the graceless pleasure of being hit on recently. I say pleasure because it's been a while and it was nice to be noticed, and graceless because as per usual too much attention makes me uncomfortable and I was mildly irritated at being disturbed. I was by myself reading a book when a guy stopped in front of me. He apologized for bothering me and asked if I knew of any good restaurants in the area, then moved on to places where good music was played, and before long was sitting on my bench. I knew as soon as he began talking about what kind of music he liked that he was not interested in finding an actual restaurant in which to eat, but I humored him. Mostly because I had no idea how to delicately remove myself from the spotlight when I clearly had no where else to be.

He talked a lot about himself and his likes and asked me a lot of questions, most of which I attempted to answer vaguely but as I cannot lie, honestly. (It would have been an interesting experiment to see what would have happened if I had lied, as you will soon see.) I never totally engaged him: I never closed my book and did not hold eye contact for very long (though I'm pretty bad at that anyway), but he was not deterred. I give him a lot of credit for being able to even attempt to pick up a complete stranger, sober and in broad daylight, but his routine though not familiar to me was transparent almost immediately. He picked the wrong girl on whom to try out his lines.

And here is how it started. He said, "I'm also into reading people's palms. You can really tell a lot about a person by just looking at their hands. It's fascinating." What my dear reader will not expect, is that I own a book of palmistry and am actually interested in reading about those kinds of things, whether they be real or not. Though my figurative eyes went a'rolling, my real ones maintained their cool. It must also be said that he did not come off cheesy or creepy in his delivery of this whole palmistry pick up. He possessed a natural ease which I think allowed me to continue the conversation without immediately running away.

By now we had already discussed two subjects that he was lucky enough to have picked to get me talking at all: music, which if he had stopped there he might have had a chance despite his attempts to impress me with the name dropping of indie and local bands I'd never heard of, and travel, though the conversation he had with a Japanese man which he repeated to me first in Japanese and then in English was enough to make me want to walk away. When he got to palmistry I had to hear what my "lines" revealed about me.

He was good. He was very good. Had I let myself, I could have almost forgotten the connection between before and after. That is to say, that just about everything he read in my palms was based on my answers to all his previous questions. If I had lied I'm pretty sure my lines would have made them truths. What tripped him up were the things he had to guess. He tried to flatter me, and bear with me because here is where my virginity and the previous literary quote come into play, and due to his own assumptions fell flat instead.

According to his reading, the fleshy part between my thumb and forefinger says that I am "a girl who is a generous lover." (He kept calling me a girl who and it was all I could do to stop from saying honey, I'm a lot older than you think I am.) He went into how he had an ex-girlfriend who would kiss a certain place on his neck because she knew it felt really good.

"What about you?"

Oh the request for way too personal information. Seriously I just met you ten seconds ago, so not long enough to tell you where my g-spot is. Hells if I know it myself, but I digress. Instead I tried to be mysterious while most likely revealing my absolute truth, "let's just say I haven't met the right guy who's found the right spot yet." Why couldn't I have just said I was a lesbian and ended the whole charade then and there?

At some point he also mentioned that I liked to take risks and perhaps was a little naughty when it came to sex. I could barely contain the bubble of laughter in the back of my throat, a) because he was so, so wrong and b) because did he honestly think that was going to work? I suppose it probably has for him in the past otherwise why would he try it again, but really. Hello? Even if I did like it upside down on a swing it's no business of yours. I believe if I had indulged him he would have gone into details. Instead and off what I can only assume was my badly masked embarrassed reaction he said, "I can explain if you'd like or we can skip it." I said, "yeeah. Let's move on."

Then he asked if I was a "nun or something."

Oh the strikes just keep coming!

When I was finally able to, I asked him the time and said that I had to leave. I stood up and he said, "ok, ok, but let me ask you one more question." I waited. "Would you like to maybe go over to a cafe for a drink and maybe chat some more?"

I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm sorry, I really do have to go."

"Really? Now?"

"Yes. It was really nice to meet you Pick Up Artist (though I did use his name) but I really do have plans." I held out my hand to shake his, and he let out a noise that sounded like surprised irritation. The only thought that crossed my mind at that moment was that's right player, you just wasted half an hour on the wrong girl. Had he let my hand linger there a second longer I would have dropped it and walked away, but he finally took it. And then I walked away. But as I did I gave him props. You're good. You're really good. You just picked the wrong cynic with too many issues to play your game.