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(05/07/14 8:24pm)
I hoped to close this dating column with a feel-good end, a second date. Instead, I have a more upstanding finish — complete rejection.
Darlene* and I got along swimmingly, as you may have gathered from my last installment. We had a marvelous evening at Black Sheep and, though we’re from vastly different worlds, connected fabulously in the ineffable spark of humanity that can only be called the “X-factor.”
Though this is the end of my time here at Middlebury, I couldn’t help but ask her out a second time. A part of me wondered what the point was, considering the temporal limitations of any romantic involvement between us. I’m sure she asked the same. However, I’ve always been liable to get ahead of myself. I reasoned, to hell with future uncertainty, I’ll take one step at a time.
The mechanics were pretty simple. I was reasonably confident that Darlene reciprocated my interest, so I came by at the end of her shift and asked her out again. We set a date for Saturday night at Flatbread.
We texted throughout the week, little about the impending dinner itself, mostly just boy-girl spring lilting. Friday, I saw her in-person and we confirmed. Saturday, I came back early from a weekend jaunt with friends. A close professor invited me to dinner that night, a rare opportunity; I was tempted to try rescheduling with Darlene, but declined. Late afternoon, we reconfirmed.
Early evening, Darlene suddenly began to send cryptic, hesitant texts. Nonetheless, I walked to her house, our agreed rendezvous, to take her to dinner. No one was there. I texted to inquire, no response. Maybe she’d gotten tied up on her way home or some emergency had seized her. I decided I’d wait a bit and see. I’d already committed my evening to this date so had nowhere else to be, and Flatbread doesn’t take reservations.
I sat on a short wall across the street. The heat slipped out with the light. I lit an unfiltered Camel, a murderous gift from an old friend. The waxing crescent hung low in the black locusts. I lit another cigarette, and watched it smoke itself to dust. I called, no answer but the phone rang through to voicemail. It was undeniable: I’d been stood up.
Facing the terrible truth, I sat a while longer letting my confusion and general upset fill the hollow night. I got up and walked home, stiff after two hours on the makeshift bench, as the rain came down around me. Darlene texted me the next day, “very sorry” but without explanation, so there’s still a part of me out there, sitting in the dark.
Well, this is how my adventures in casual dating for this column have ended. In some ways, I guess, this week has wrought every shade of fear we have in casual dating upon me at once: vulnerability, rejection and embarrassment. And yet, I remain undeterred. I’d invite my critics to laugh me all the way to the romantic morgue, but I stand in continued defense of casual dating.
I will not be dissuaded by one bleak evening, but will keep taking risks and keep knocking. Darlene must have had good reason to bail. I can only hope that someday she, metaphorically, might hear me outside and answer.
(04/24/14 3:00am)
Black Sheep was the place, Darlene my date. Another terrific night, made more interesting by my expanded interpretation of “dating at Middlebury”: Darlene is a townie.
I met Darlene at a business downtown, where she works. She’s the kind of girl who converts new customers into returning customers, the kind who’ll get you coming back to buy something as an excuse to chat at the register. (It sort of redefines the appeal of “shopping downtown”.)
Unlike with girls on campus, I couldn’t easily ask around about her. Without knowing her last name, I couldn’t look her up online. I didn’t have any mutual friends to gauge her interest in me through sly inquiry. So, I had to ask her out blindly.
To an extent, I felt like a rejection would be alright — theoretically, I could just not come back. Yet, part of me somehow felt there was so much more at stake. Perhaps our lives here at the college are so intertwined, so knotted, that the failures we endure with each other are forgiven as quickly as our successes are forgotten: “Oh, that’s just Ryan. He asks everyone out.”
With Darlene, however, my approach would be one of the few things she knew about me. I dreaded the idea of my failure ringing through her social circles, the thought of being the local laughingstock. Regardless, she agreed! The hardest part of walking away from an approach, no matter the outcome, is keeping my composure through the adrenaline. Walk slow; walk straight; don’t look back.
So off we went, on a cold March evening, to Black Sheep Bistro in Vergennes. Black Sheep is owned by the same gastronomic mogul who owns Park Squeeze, Bobcat, The Bearded Frog and The Lobby. All these restaurants offer excellent experiences, and I trust that you’re familiar with many other great options in the area. To me, Black Sheep is the best around.
Prices are fixed at $7 for appetizers and $20 for entrees, so you know what you’re in for. I’ve been a few times, and the food is outstanding. Darlene and I found no exception, from the duck rolls with apricot sauce, to the broiled haddock in coconut cream. The atmosphere is mood-lit and cozy, resembling the feeling of snuggling by a fire while a snowstorm fills the windows.
More than a few places in town offer easy distractions from your company, from big windows by the sidewalk to TV’s shining overhead. Black Sheep is the place to go when you want nothing but to hear your date tell you about the gearheads she grew up with, how she loves greenhouses and the summer, how obnoxious college students who cross College Street without looking are, about her friend “hippie Phil”, why spring’s the time to go muddin’ and that on principle she rides her horse without a helmet and never wears a seatbelt.
At Middlebury, it’s easy to get caught up in my own life and problems. Darlene reminded me with her grace and electric humor, how casual dating isn’t just romantically exciting, but also a great relief from the day-to-day. I wish “date with Darlene @ Black Sheep” was penciled into every week of the year, instead of just a one-time column affair. She’s bright and beautiful like the sun on a summer lake, and Black Sheep’s the best. What more could I possibly want to be happy? After dinner, when the car was still parked against the empty curb, I leaned over the armrest and kissed her.
(04/09/14 4:55pm)
Middlebury students are connected by no more than two degrees of separation: you either know someone or know someone who knows that person. Though there are many great things about this smallness, I always thought it presented a romantic disadvantage.
The main reason: the gossip-mongering that roars into life at Sunday brunch. I didn’t mind hearing about others’ travails, conquests and failures. I just dreaded being the topic of conversation. So I did what I think most of us do: I built an emotional bunker, sheltered from the embarrassments of casual romance.
I never hoped to squat in this self-imposed “shelter” alone. I preferred the security of solitude to the risks active pursuit, searching for someone whom I might never find, whom I might find only to be ruthlessly rejected by. This school is too small; any rejection would effectively be public. Beyond the indignity of seemingly everyone knowing about my failure, I would be consigned to awkward run-ins until one of us finally goes abroad or graduates.
My limited, slanted consideration of only the potential downsides left me preferring passivity. I reasoned, something will happen if it’s meant to. After all, it never rains on the man who stays indoors.
But the sun never shines on the man who stays indoors. I changed my mind: sitting in my bunker waiting for a perfect relationship to bust through the boarded window is insane. The truth is that if I want to date, I’ve got to be proactive. Even if my fears of the small-school rumor mill are legitimate, I stand to lose most if I let those fears inhibit me.
There will always be convenient excuses to blame our dateless evenings. At a certain point, we each individually bear the responsibility of overcoming these minor adversities. In the case of this particular excuse, that “Middlebury is too small”, we have the chance to reframe the matter. This school isn’t too small, it’s fortuitously “not too big”.
The truth is, we don’t actually know everyone on campus. Certainly, I know a lot of names but I don’t actually know much about the individuals themselves. What’s more, the reality is that the people you’re most likely to date are neither close friends nor complete strangers, but loose associations. Our lives here are blessed with a preponderance of date-potential acquaintances.
My friends at bigger schools have resorted to matchmaking apps like Tinder. Even here, nearly a quarter of Middkids have registered profiles on Friendsy (although many may be curiosity-serving, but functionally defunct like mine). The difference, though, is that we don’t have to rely on services like Friendsy to find people of interest. We have the chance to use Middlebury’s smallness to our romantic advantage.
Consider the notion that our community’s insularity might be a blessing in disguise. You don’t meet wonderful women only to have them dissolve back into the labyrinth of New York City; you get plenty of chances to see them again. Ask a friend for an introduction. We can only win if when we take on a little risk.
(03/12/14 5:20pm)
Ethel* and I met last year at a friend’s birthday party. Life strikes when you least expect. We only shared a few words, but she left enough of an impression that I’d intermittently make small extra efforts to say hi in the dining hall. Beyond that, I let it be. Spring faded.
December came around, and I used this column — as I said I would— as an excuse to ask her out. I picked her up on a snowy evening in a friend’s scruffy Toyota pick-up truck, a grimy ride to a fancy place: Tourterelle.
If you haven’t been, go! Christine and Bill Snell, the owner-chefs, run a fabulous establishment. They serve authentic French cuisine made with local Vermont ingredients. But half of the whole experience is the suave, cozy atmosphere they’ve created in an old country farmhouse. The restaurant isn’t cheap, but the service is flawless and the food is something to write to home about.
I should note, though, that whereas Otter Creek Bakery is a quick and casual spot for a first date, Tourterelle is a bit more of a serious undertaking. Factor in 12 minutes driving each way plus three courses and maybe a digestive coffee, and you’re facing two hours of expository conversation.
Fear not, Ethel and I did it all, and did it smoothly. She told wonderfully entertaining stories; good because her own story is so convoluted. I felt bad laughing at her recent misfortune with frostbite (and I subsequently got frostbitten the next week) but she’d recounted the incident with a very enlightened and comical resignation.
There’s something about being with an elegant woman at a nice place that will get any chump like me sitting up straight and smiling.
On my side of the table, many of the nerves I had to navigate on my previous date with Belinda had dissipated. More comfortable with the inevitable first-date uncertainties, I felt less entangled by the need to react perfectly in each conversational exchange and freer to consider the broader direction of our interaction. In earlier dates, I would only respond to the last thing said. With Ethel, I could remember to ask questions after longish periods of being inevitably side-tracked.
I also felt less concerned about getting everything just right. I tried a self-deprecating joke, the surest way to get an easy laugh, describing my little brother as a natural charmer: “At least someone in our family is good with girls.” Ethel loved that one, maybe a little too much. It was a funny to sit wondering if she was thinking, “It’s funny because it’s true!”
To my experience thus far, the adage that ‘practice makes perfect’ is incompatible with casual first dates. First dates at their finest are a little rough around the edges. Repetition just makes it a little easier to ride out the bumps. So does taking out a girl like Ethel to a place like Tourterelle.
*name changed
Artwork by TAMIR WILLIAMS
(02/13/14 12:17am)
There are two types of people at Middlebury: those who are in committed relationships and those who wish they were. If you’re not in a “Midd Marriage”, you’re romantic life is limited to either alcohol-fueled hookups or banishment to the desolate land of loneliness. We’re pinned between meaningless sex and sexless solitude. Certainly Middlebury would be a better place if we all just dated a little more.
We have a collective interest in asking others out, getting asked out, going on dates, sampling for soul mates. Yet at the individual level, we’re often unwilling to step into this dangerous territory; the fear of embarrassment is very real. I’m not sure if it’s the chicken or the egg, but our reluctance to take romantic chances is definitely connected to the “get-smashed-go-cray” atmosphere that dominates Middlebury weekends.
Admit it, you’re afraid to ask her out. With this column, I venture that I’ve got the best excuse of anyone to ask girls out, and yet I’m nervous with every approach. If I’m not nervous, it means I don’t care enough and shouldn’t be asking in the first place. However, what’s worse than the unnerving approach is when I let feigned apathy mask my fear of rejection, and use it as an excuse to do nothing. It’s easy to get cold feet and say, “Oh, I don’t really care that much.”
After all, I regret what never happened vastly more than I regret whatever has. The sting of a rejection fades a lot quicker than the lingering pangs of wondering, “What if?” There are times when I’m rooted to my seat, sickened by my pathetic inaction. I know I should do something, but instead settle for a sleepless night, frustrated at my chicken-hearted swooning.
And as far as leaps of faith go, romantic ones are the best ones to take. You can’t be more vulnerable with someone than by sharing your feelings; people have emotionless sex all the time. Forget what the doctors say, the heart is far softer and more delicate than the penis. (Don’t think about it too much.) But truly, you win the most when you risk the most. It’s beautiful to be vulnerable.
What it comes down to is this: a healthy dating scene is like the legendary stone soup. We’ve all got our singleton vegetables that we’re afraid lose by putting out on the table, but maybe if we throw it all into the pot and mix around a little bit, we can make something delicious for everyone to share. You can’t drag your feet to a party then blame everyone else for not being fun. If we want dating to be a part of our culture, we each have to make an effort to date.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day; it’s also the full moon, which makes it an exceptional day. You don’t have to be in love with someone to bring her a flower or take her out for a coffee. The whole point of casual dating is to trial run romance before anything gets too serious. Go for a country drive through Ripton; split a few chocolate truffles made by my good man Erlé (farmhousetruffles.com). Tomorrow night I want to see everyone out on the moonlit snow, floating in pairs to the Organic Garden. C’mon now, take a chance!
I’m no authority on dating, just another kid who wished he dated more. In any case, defining the “right” way to date is like choosing the bluest shade of blues; it’s subjective and circumstantial. This column represents nothing more than my opinions about the predicament of not-dating at Middlebury and my effort to inspire a romantic rebellion. Let me know how your perspective coincides or differs at rkim@middlebury.edu.
(01/15/14 4:38pm)
For my next date, I went to lunch at Otter Creek Bakery with Agnes*. My best friend, Edgar*, who plays on a varsity team with Agnes, had introduced us a couple times before. However, our interactions were always fairly brief and insubstantial, so we became acquaintances of awkward proximity — we knew each others’ names, but little else.
Despite being two years older, I was a little intimidated by Agnes; she’s pretty sexy. It’s easy to deflect my own ineptitude with girls by blaming them as standoffish, when in reality I just need a chance to dig deeper. It’s also easy to be unnerved by a fetching lady, having never had a solid conversation with her to humanize the physical attraction.
Agnes and I ended up in a science class together last semester, which put a personality behind the pretty face. Turns out, Agnes is as cool as the beets in the salad bar, and cool as the beats in a Drake bar. I admired as she nonchalantly shrugged off the professor’s teasing. Agnes also sat sweetly in the Goldilocks Zone, neither friend nor stranger. For all these reasons, I asked her out.
Last month, we went to Otter Creek Bakery (OCB) for lunch on my birthday. I love the place and, over my Middlebury career, have become friends with the staff and many of the regulars. Tim*, who worked that day, even shares my birthday and bought me my first legal drink last year. However, there’s only indoor seating during the winter, so I worried it’d get a bit too intimate when the lunch rush subsided, with my friends behind the counter listening in on my date — almost like taking Agnes to meet the cousins.
I was wrong. I didn’t feel cramped by the familiarity at all. OCB is a bright, bustling atmosphere at lunchtime, filled with gleaming pastry cases, the waft of hot coffee and happy people. No one begrudgingly comes to the Bakery for a latte. Tim cordially brought us a couple delicious sandwiches — the gentleman — but otherwise left us alone. Ultimately, the venue, well-lit and lively at midday, gave our date a terrifically casual and noncommittal air.
Conversationally, I really enjoyed Agnes’ confident nonchalance. Instead of cautious introductions, we skipped a lot of the decorous nonsense and spoke like real people who actually have a lot in common. We talked about Edgar, teasing him because it was fun to. My friend was her First-year Counselor (FYC) last year, so we teased him too. Her aunt teaches at the Putney School, my alma mater, and we discovered a lot of mutual friends. We swapped embarrassing stories of our youths as schoolyard bullies and walked the long way home, through Marble Works.
For some reason, I’ve always thought of the first date as a more serious event, and the second date as a more relaxed occasion, something chill like mini-golfing. My date with Agnes was proof that casual first dates are really fun and do a lot to diminish the grave intensity that dating typically has. I had a wonderful time with Agnes but don’t feel committed at all and would feel great about going on a second date and totally fine about not.
*name changed
(12/05/13 12:12am)
My first “first date” last week was delightful. After a long hiatus from dating on campus, I felt like a lucky boy to be out on the town with an adorable and charming lady.
Finding her was a little tricky. In the absence of any casual leads, I wasn’t sure how to seek a potential date without seeming indiscriminate. I didn’t want to be too picky, but I did want the date to be genuinely romantic. Complicating the matter, asking a girl I didn’t know at all seemed strange, but asking a girl I knew too well risked trespassing a friend zone.
A female friend of mine asked if I was only going to ask out cute girls, a great and fair question. Yes, but more specifically, I’m only going to ask out girls that I find attractive. Isn’t the point of dating to find someone you spark with? I hope a girl would only acquiesce because she finds me attractive as well. There’s nothing like a pity-date to make for sour memories.
On a tight schedule for the Campus deadline, I enlisted a miscellany of friends to help me identify prospects in Ross on Friday night. I pitched to a girl finishing dinner with a friend. She explained, “I’m not single, so I don’t think I should.” In a fit of idiocy, overtaken by nerves, I asked her friend if she was a student here, then limped away to regroup with my spotting team.
Then, she sat down a couple tables away with her friends. Knowing they’d listen in anyway, I addressed all five of them with my pitch but stood next to her. “And I’m wondering if you would be my date,” I finished, with a light tap on her shoulder. There was an explosion of hilarity from all sides of the table. She looked shocked, stuttered, then agreed. “Only thing is, I have to go tomorrow night.” “She’s free,” a friend assured on her behalf.
I wanted to be discreet about Belinda’s* identity, but the cloak of anonymity is a slippery fish. Two of my scouts knew who she was. Though neither knew her personally, they’d only heard good things. A close friend, Emilia*, heard who my date was and was thrilled; she’s known Belinda for years. I declined to let Emilia tell me anything about Belinda, and also decided not Facebook stalk her.
Then Saturday I saw her at lunch in Proctor and again at the squash courts. Both times, I was with someone who knew her or knew of her, but I made no inquiries about her. I’m unsure what information, if any, is fair to glean in advance of a date and by what sources. I figured I preferred to know her to the extent that she chose to share.
We headed to 51 Main, which is owned by the College and only has dinner service. They don’t take reservations, so I was glad to find the place filled but not full when we arrived at 6:45. We sat at a high table next to a space heater, which I worried would be dangerously hot, but it was actually quite nice.
However, my legs were too short to comfortably rest on the lower crossbar of the tall chair, so I propped them on the higher one, forcing me to lean over my bent knees to keep from slouching backwards. Self-consciously, I worried my posture seemed too aggressively engaged, when I was really just trying to stay balanced. No doubt, there was some undue worrying on my side of the table.
The food was delicious and our conversation energetic. Belinda, a sophomore, told me she was paid $20 after volunteering to sing impromptu onstage at a country festival in Utah and about how her triplet siblings have rhyming nicknames. We made a show of civility by using our silverware to split the Mezze Platter appetizer, a finger dish under any other circumstance.
For entrées, she wisely chose the salmon, which can be eaten in graceful bites between rounds of conversation. I bent to whim over good sense, and got the grilled chicken sandwich, a poor choice for a first date with a whip-smart conversationalist. Like any sandwich, it required substantial chewing, and I admit to feeling a bit underprepared to ask questions that inspired sufficiently long answers.
We each got a dessert and sampled the other. The Vermont Cookie Love Sundae was rich as a pharaoh; the Flourless Banana-Almond Cake was subtle like petals in the wind. Both were excellent. We bundled up and headed out as the jazz band got started. 51 Main brings great live performers, but the pressed-tin ceiling and brick walls can make for tough acoustics.
We walked back to Gifford, after just over two hours together. Cautious to give an appropriate farewell, I hugged her and said goodbye. It felt right, though I sure as hell would’ve liked to have given her a kiss. Break was coming and the falling snow looked like Dippin’ Dots. She was wearing a knit cap over her hair to keep her freckled ears warm.
Admittedly, my memory of the evening has been inflated by my continual reflection. At times I would cringe, realizing how dumb I sounded. I wish I’d been a little looser, maybe come prepared with an awesome joke. Next time I’ll try to snag a table on the floor. But I accept all the crinkles as foibles of being human. In retrospect, I actually think the date was a resounding success.
*name changed
(11/21/13 5:23am)
As a first-year I was elected into the leadership of the Student Investment Committee. As a sophomore I ran a handsome campaign for SGA President, and escaped the burden of winning by losing handily. As a junior I met the Dalai Lama and won the TEDx spot to talk about traveling. As a senior I’ve published a centerfold piece with the Middlebury Magazine and installed an art exhibit at the Burlington Airport.
I’ve been to 47 states and will finish all 50 by graduation. Ron Liebowitz helped me secure a summer internship. I ride horses; I ride a black bicycle; I’m pretty good at spelling. I’m a dynamo. Yeah, some people might even call me ‘kickass.’
But none of this really matters because, romantically, I’m a total washout. I’m blessed with great friends, talented and praiseworthy each in their own right, but I’ve been single since 14. And even my last relationship was just a teenage “romance” with a middle school girlfriend I managed to fall irreparably in love with, despite never having even held her hand.
After that preposterous heartbreak, I was indifferent to any romance less than true love. “Once you’ve had steak, it’s hard to go back to McDonald’s,” I reasoned to my friends. Boarding school gradually eroded this absurd idealism. Drunk first-year nights in social house basements also played their part.
I modified my romantic philosophy: “Enjoy steak when you’ve got it, but eat McDonald’s while you wait.” I’ll admit I’ve had my share of both clowns and golden arches — and maybe the occasional Big Mac. My feelings toward the matter might be described as a mild regret.
But a 5’6” Asian boy who wears earplugs to parties (because he has tinnitus, a legacy of the middle school rock band) has a little more hill to climb with the girls at an Atwater madhouse than do the shapely, athletic white men. I do fine when I can converse in a lit room with shoulder space. The reality is that being short and looking foreign doesn’t cut too fine a suit at a campus dance party.
More than that, meaningless hook ups are almost as dissatisfying as holding out for Sleeping Beauty. But there’s a middle ground: casual dating. I’ve slowly become a believer in this nebulous territory. As a single man, there’s too much to gain to not take little risks.
So, I ask girls on dates … and make tons of mistakes. I’ve tried leaping out of the friend zone a couple times: goodbye, friendships. After one date, a girl invited me to a party where she made out with someone else when I stepped away to the punch bowl. Another girl was alarmingly sick, oddly refused to let me buy her coffee, then waited until I followed up a few days later to tell me she was already seeing someone. I’ve had some terrific dates too. I went to a museum in Manhattan on one; after we split, I headed to Brooklyn and got my first tattoo — totally unrelated though memorable nonetheless.
This biweekly column is a solution to three of my goals: dating, eating free food and writing publicly. Every two weeks, I’m going to take a different date to a different restaurant downtown that I’ll persuade, in advance, to give us a free meal. I get a date, the girl gets a story, we both get fed, the restaurant gets publicity and hopefully we all get a good laugh.
This all just might work out, and I hope by now you’re rooting for me. Encourage all your female friends to say yes if I come a-askin’. After all, it’s just a date! And who knows, maybe my first date will be smashing and I’ll have to abruptly end this column for true romance.