MFA - Part Three

Wednesday rolls around. I have agreed to meet MFA at Canyon Cafe. An excellent place for a first date. Great food and reasonably priced. I make it through my entire work day calmly, I mean what is the worst that could happen?

When 5:00 rolls around the butterflies suddenly start and I am extremely nervous. I barely remember what this guy looks like. I get home get dressed, and head out the door. 

I arrive early so I decide to run to the restroom where I seriously contemplate ditching this date and going home to my two dogs. But being the person I am I couldn't.

I left the restroom only to come face to face with my date. We greeted each other and went upstairs to get a table. We sat down on their patio and enjoyed some fun conversation. He told me about how he was a writer and looking to move to Houston and how much he was enjoying the city. Occasionally the conversation would get a little exhausting with his grandiloquence (a lofty, extravagantly colorful, pompous, or bombastic style, manner, or quality especially in language). Now, I went to college and I have always thought of myself as having a pretty extensive vocabulary but this guy used words I had never even heard of! I attributed this to one of two things: 1.He was an extremely intelligent writer or 2. He was trying WAY to hard to sound educated.

We had finished our meals and he asked if I wanted to grab a coffee. The conversation had been pretty good so far so I agreed. Then the check came. MFA said to the waiter, "Can you get that split?" I hadn't even been able to offer to pay for my own meal yet! Now I am not suggesting that guys HAVE to pay for the meal every time, but this guy asked me to dinner. He asked me out on this date. I believe that means he should be picking up the tab. (Thanks ivillage.com for backing me up on this one: In Defense of Chivalry) 

I am pretty sure that if the check had come before he asked me to have coffee I would have politely declined and salvaged the rest of my evening with a good book at home. Unfortunately, it hadn't worked out that way. We met at Brasil, where I bought my own coffee, and continued having our conversation. Finally around 10:00pm I used the work excuse and we called it a night.

He walked me to my car, and we were half way there when he put his hand on my arm and stopped me. I stopped and looked at him. He raised his eyebrows and made this gesture with his hands as if to say "Well?".

I looked at him with what I can only assume was annoyance or derision and said "What?! Our cars are over there" and continued walking. We got to the corner and he stopped me again, with the same shoulder shrug eyebrow raise.

I put my hand out in front of me and patted his arm and said "Well it was really nice meeting you, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your visit in Houston."  Then something horrible happened. He leaned in, eyes closed and I suppose he kissed me. Only on my end it felt more like he licked my my face from chin to nose. I was mortified! I don't know what my face looked like but I immediately pulled away said, "OK...well...bye" and dashed for my car. 

You know that episode of Sex and The City where Charlotte dates the bad kisser, well yeah that is EXACTLY what it was like, only I didn't give him a second chance. 

For your entertainment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynsr1bQtYts 

MFA - Part Two

Sunday afternoon - 4:00pm. My phone rings, I am on my way to dance class/rehearsal, it is a number I don't recognize so I let it go to voice mail.

Later on I check the message:

"Hi Andrea, it's MFA from the bar last night. It was so nice to meet you last night. I am on my way to the Museum of Fine Arts and I was wondering if you would give me the pleasure of your company. I would love to hear more about your adventure in the work of PBS. If you can't make it I hope you have a great afternoon and it was great meeting you."

My first reaction to this message was, oh shit I told this guy where I worked! But then I relaxed a little, he seemed like a nice guy. So the next day I sent him a text message and this is how our conversation went:

Me: "Hi MFA, sorry I missed your call yesterday. How was the museum"
MFA: "Ancient Statues set the tone for greatness. Photographs of desolation framed mortality. It was an unexpectedly strong pathos cocktail. I am compelled to return"

Whoa. How do you respond to that? Well I replied with a little less intellect.

Me: "Wow. Quite the way to spend the Sunday afternoon. I have yet to make it to the MFA. You should checkout the Natural Science Museums butterfly center"
MFA: "It was really profound. I think I will go back on Thursday."
Me: "So what brings you to Houston?"
MFA: "I have family in the area. I want to get a feel for more places to live, and Houston is a big City with a god reputation. What brought you here"
Me: " I moved here for the job and a change of scenery."

Our conversation continues along this route for a while, he mentioned to me that no one in the coffee shop he went to was interested in having a conversation with him...

MFA: "Very enjoyable coffee, but it was all pairs, either a person or a machine. So, I wrote on my phone about the museum and had it read it back to me. It was a poignant and stimulating conversation. People kept loking over at me, envious of my good time. haha."

I should have known right then to turn and run! But no he asked me out...

MFA: "Do you want to do something on Wednesday?"
Me: "what do you have in mind?"
MFA: "Local culture, good food, and music."

So I will spare you the rest of the conversation and just say we agreed on a time and place for dinner the follwing Wednesday. YIKES!

MFA - Part One

Last weekend I went out to celebrate a friends birthday and we ended up at one of our usual stops towards the end of the evening. While we were sitting at the bar enjoying the people watching and the birthday shots for our friend a guy, we will call him MFA, approached us with a casual, "so what's there to do around here" conversation opener. We all chatted for a while had a round of shots and he sat on the stool next to me.

"So here's the deal," MFA said "I am painfully shy, but you seem like such a nice girl and easy to talk to. Would you like to check out the Museum of Fine Arts with me tomorrow?" This comment caught me off guard because earlier in the day when my friend and I were out shopping and I mentioned that I had never been to the Museum of Fine Arts and would love to check it out.

So in my inebriated state I took this as a sign that I should give MFA a chance and I gave him my phone number.

I really assumed that there are only a few outcomes here:
     1. He was lying about not being from here and it was just a line
     2. He could be a great guy who really is from out of town and thinking of moving to Houston
     3. This potential date could be awkward but it won't matter because I never have to see him again

Vegas, Baby

My first adventure into the local bar scene:

A good girlfriend of mine had been asking me to go out with her for a few weeks and I had been putting it off. It was my first time visiting a bar as a free agent. So finally I set the date with her for a Friday night. I went home, did a little workout, soaked in the tub, watched some 30 Rock then it was finally late enough to start getting ready to go  out.

I spent an ridiculous amount of time trying to decide what to wear, tamed the hair so I could wear it down, added make-up and I was ready for the night. I swung by to pick my friend up and we were off to a bar in the new hip place to be in our city.

The place was packed, but great! We finally wedged ourselves into two seats at the bar and were plied with a few drinks from our friend the bar tender. The occasional wandering guy would stop chat, buy us a drink and move along. But there was this one group of guys who kept coming back. Their drink of choice that evening; Irish Car Bombs.

Two of them were at one point asking us to judge there drinking race and we happily obliged....the winner of the contest wandered off to something else shiny that caught his eye but his buddy, we'll call him Vegas, stayed behind. Now Vegas stayed with us for pretty much the remainder of the evening effectively shooing away creepy barflies and being charming.

We snapped some photos together and he handed me his business card, it truned out he worked for hotel in Vegas and was in town for the weekend visiting his buddies. The brighter side to this picture (I thought at the time) was that he was from here and implied that he came home often. He asked me to email him the photo and then walked us to our car to protect us from a particularly creepy barfly who had been kicked out of the bar earlier and had been loitering outside for a while.

A few days later I dug his business card out of the wallet and emailed him the photo and thanked him for walking is out. After I hit send I spent a few blissful moments in my own fantasy world quitting my day job and picking out curtains.

His response to the email? It never came, I stopped watching for it and filed for an imaginary divorce.

Shirley Temple

Back in February I attended my first drum jam with my fellow dancers and of course (as the name of the event suggests) drummers. After a fabulous evening of dancing around and drinking wine. We had the grand idea to move our party to another venue that served both food and alcohol.

The winning pub was fairly crowded with an entertaining cover band playing songs you more than likely could sing along to, which in my book makes a great cover band! So there I am at the bar, when one of the guys (We'll call him Mr. Helpful) comes over to me and asks if I was single. Yes, I am. So he asked if it would be OK if his "friend" came to talk to me. Sure, I told him.

So there I was with a few other girls when this gangly dude come up and offers the 4 of us a round of, wait for it, waters....which granted is considerate as we had just been dancing for a few hours and could probably use the hydration but we were much more interested in a more exciting beverage. Anyways, he brings us our waters and he is holding a very pink cocktail in his hand for himself.

"What are you drinking" I asked....his answer, "A Shirley Temple."

Following this stunning conversation starter he proceeded to ask me where I take my dance lessons, and how much they are...I can only presume he wanted to know this because he was interested in taking classes with us???? Yikes.

Later on Mr. Helpful appeared and apologized for the creeper who was not "exactly" his friend more like an acquaintance he'd seen at drum jam before...

Maybe I am being too hard on the guy but, a few guidelines to take from this:

• Please don't try to impress a girl by getting her a water at the bar.
• If you are insistent on consuming a kiddie drink, you probably shouldn't admit to it.
• Don't try to attend my dance classes, not cute.
• And guy friends, if you don't really know the guy think twice about who your are sending over to your single female friends!

Not to be confused with Gelato Therapy

gelototherapy;

The use of humor as a form of therapy in the treatment of illness by getting the patient to laugh.