Eeeewwwwww

As I mentioned in my last post, I was privy to some overly artsy, dramatic photos after the Hipster librarian added me as a friend on Facebook (even though I didn't accept; they're public). Many of the photographs have his ex girlfriend in them: black and white shots of her looking pensive and American Apparel-y, arm-length photos of the two of them cuddling, shots of old buildings in Eastern Europe with the side of her face or a few wisps of her hair in them, etc. Last night, at my friend M's house, someone asked about our breakup, and I ended up showing the photos while reading the captions in a sonorous, melodramatic voice. Examples: "Into the new empty," "We lived here very much," "Pale saint," "Schwester with other people's kinder," "Gabriel with the solace of jasmine."

"She looks reaaaaallly young," everyone commented.

Indeed she did. When I got home, the photos were still open on my computer, and I clicked on her name to see if I could find out anything else about her. And I did find something: She's graduating from COLLEGE in 2013. Meaning that, when the photos were taken in 2009, she was still in high school or had maybe just graduated. It was hard to believe at first, so I Googled around a little bit and confirmed the facts. The Hipster Librarian, by the way, is 40.

Well. Now it makes sense that he contacted me, given that I wrote in my OkCupid profile that I'm often mistaken for a 16-year-old. Time to edit my profile, methinks.

And speaking of editing, perhaps I should change HL's blog name to "Humbert Humbert"?!

Bad dates

When people ask about my bad dating experiences, I often wish I had better stories. I never went out with a sweaty, burpy guy, like my sister, or with a man who casually mentioned that he was planning to dabble in prostitution later that afternoon, like my friend M. My worst date was years ago, when I went out with a guy I met at a party in Williamsburg. He was from Maine, and an old friend of someone I met once or twice who seems like a decent person and is a bit of a celebrity in the progressive political world, plus I had beer goggles, so I thought he seemed great.

When we met a week later, though, I quickly realized my mistake. By the time we were ready to head out of my apartment for a walk, I was so horrified by the thought of spending an evening with him that I briefly contemplated putting his jacket in the hallway and locking my apartment door when he went to the bathroom (the bathroom was off a common hallway, tenement-style). As we walked next to the Gowanus Canal, he told me that he liked to hang out by the East River on Staten Island and throw tennis balls into the water. For fun.

He had just enough money in his bank account, he told me, to pay for movie tickets for both of us. But then he got hungry, so we had to stop at a store so he could buy chips. Then he only had enough money for one movie ticket, so I got my own. It was a long, painful evening.

I had a similar experience last week during my third and final date with the Hipster Librarian. He suggested a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a fine suggestion that showed sensitivity to my interests. However, once there a side to his personality came out that I had glimpsed once or twice before: He is an insufferable know-it-all, and he takes himself way too seriously. For instance, in front of a Sargent sketch: "Isn't it fascinating how the style is so different from his other works! I would hardly know it as a Sargent. It's positively Chavannes-esque." When we arrived at Rembrandt's self-portrait: "Ah, Rembrandt. Only 23 years old. At that age, he still may have had delusions of himself as a good-looking man, but not for much longer." I kid you not. Again, I had the urge to race out of the museum without looking back.

The next day, he added me as a friend on Facebook, and I looked through his photos and saw lots of artsy shots of himself looking pensive. And I knew I had to move on. So I sent him the Breakup Email and bid him adieu.

I think he'd appreciate the fact that I bid him adieu rather than just saying bye.

The Ghetto

"Oh really," said my Thursday-night date after I mentioned what neighborhood I live in, "It seems like some parts of Roxbury are nice, and some parts are really ghetto."

I've been thinking a lot about his offhand comment ever since. I've told it to a few friends, and gotten mixed reactions: "I've heard a lot worse on first dates," "I'd say that's a dealbreaker for sure," "He wasn't thinking," and "He just meant it's a bit rundown in parts."

I know he wasn't really thinking about what he was saying, but I do think it's a dealbreaker for me (one of a number of dealbreakers: the fact that conversation didn't flow, I wasn't attracted to him, etc). I want to date someone who is thoughtful about the way they use language, and who is aware that in discussions of city neighborhoods many factors of race and economic status come into play. Someone who knows that the word "ghetto" comes from the separation of a group of people (Jews) in Venice, and that its use could be taken as an implication that it is a place where poor black people live, with the understanding that it would not be desirable to live in such a place.

Over the years, I have had to think a lot about the way I talk about the places I've lived and taught, because so many people have thoughtless reactions like my date's. I have emphasized how much I loved my students in Bed-Stuy, even while admitting how difficult it was to teach them. That I hated the cookie-cutter uniformity of the families in the wealthy suburb of Boston I taught in last year, while loving them each individually. How I admired the strong neighborhood community in the Brooklyn neighborhood I lived in with La Moustache, but felt uncomfortable with the fact that they prayed at community garden meetings. And, finally, how great it is to live where I do now, surrounded by all kinds of people: old, young, rich, poor, families, singles, black, white, straight, gay. All of them overwhelmingly kind and neighborly.

I was startled when a form of the same word came up on Friday during my date with an adorable Hipster Librarian. "It became ghettoized," he said, referring perhaps to the Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born or to some part of Germany he's been interested in exploring, I forget which. In any case, he knew exactly what it meant and he was using it precisely, with a full and complete understanding of the word and its history.

That, and the fact that when he went to the bathroom he left me reading material -- a treatise by an 18th century Irish philosopher -- left me utterly charmed. (And I have to admit, also the fact that I haven't dated someone so cute in years.) Go Hipster Librarian!