Dinner 2

This dinner almost didn't happen
My top craigslist pick bailed on me. My secondary craigslist pick couldn't make it. The night before the dinner, I still had no one. I even walked down to the bar where my current crush works, ready to put myself on the line and ask him to dinner. He wasn't there.

But sometimes things work out. Last week, out of the blue after six months, a guy I briefly, sort-of dated, g-chatted me. After barely even saying "hi," he asked me to hook up. I was working, sick, and totally thrown off, so was cold to him. Later, since I had no one else for dinner, I thought we could work out an exchange: he would be part of this experiment and I would help him out. He agreed, but before we get to dinner...

The story of how we met:
One night last spring, I was crossing an intersection downtown and a guy on a bike pulled up to the red light. As I crossed, we checked each other out. After I passed him we caught each other doing a triple take. Even though it was dark and he was wearing a helmet, his eyes were a super-intense blue. I kept thinking about the encounter, so I decided to miss-connections him on craigslist. After a couple days he e-mailed me (I didn't think that ever happened on missed connections) and we started to hang out. Things were fine for a bit until (at least in my mind this seemed to be the turning point, I'm sure there were other factors) one night, we were making out and we bumped mouths together, and I chipped his tooth with mine (so embarrassing)! Things fizzled out after that and he only talked to me if he wanted to hook up. Then we stopped talking altogether.

The Dinner:
He showed up with desert and his hair looked better than I remembered it. We started with French onion soup that took me four hours to make. He loved it and told me that he'd discovered that the longer you cook onions, the better they taste. He'd been cooking goulash, in which there's a similar process of cooking the onions for many hours. Even though I like raw onions too, I guess it's true. The soup was the best dish of the night, with a well-rounded, rich flavor.

You can find the very-involved recipe here.

We obviously had a lot of catching up to do.

The short version of his life during the past six months:
He had been working as an engineer, but he hated his job. The company had just laid off a bunch of people and he was pissed that he wasn't one of them. He quit anyway without the severance package. He still wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he had a few ideas: go back to school for film, start his own business, or get another boring job. He said that he's a lazy and indecisive person so he did some other things instead. He joined a gay basketball team and played in a tournament in Boston. They didn't do very well, but he's helping to organize another tournament in San Francisco in the next few weeks.

While he was on the East coast (he'd never been before), he decided to visit New York City. He went alone and explored the city by walking as far as he could until he was exhausted and then took the subway somewhere else. He tried to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge twice, but the first time, by the time he walked there, there was a downpour; the second time he walked there from his hotel, but was so tired he just sat on a bench. He wants to live there at some point and his ideal situation is if someone would give him a job and an apartment in SF and NYC. Good luck with that one.

The Questions
We got to the entree and I discovered that the pork had dried up when I left it in the oven to stay warm. Yuck. We had to force it down and my guest did so very politely (but slowly). I decided to ask him the questions that I asked on my CL post. When he was a kid he hated tomatoes and only sort of likes them now. The texture reminds him of a baby fetus or cold intestines. On the other hand, he loves carrots and went on a tangent about the fact that there are purple carrots (but he was surprised by my purple potatoes).

Well, Ta-dah, it's true!

Then I asked him, if he were a fruit, what would he be? He said a pomegranate, not only because he likes them, but because he too, compartmentalized his life. He kept his gay friends separate from his straight friends and those separate from his work friends, and that separate from his family life. It's partly because he hasn't always been that comfortable with his sexuality and also that he is an anal-retentive, awkward person. And part of it is that he is a recovering alcoholic (he was wasted from the time he 17 until he was 23) and it stunted his maturity and ability to put his life together. Only now has he started to catch up to being an adult and being more relaxed with who he is.

As far as favorite restaurants in San Francisco, we both agreed: El Farolito.

By the time, I asked him if he wanted seconds, I had definitely decided that he had changed in a really good way. It's hard to know your flaws and try to deal with them. I know that I don't. He turned down seconds, but not just because of the pork.

Why he turned down seconds:

He said he couldn't eat a whole lot anymore. When I asked why, he said that he had done a nine day Master Cleanse. This involved only drinking water and a concoction of lemon, maple syrup and cayenne. Oh, and a salt water flush: he chugged a liter of salt water everyday, all at once, which totally flushed him out. He wanted to do it to get rid of all the lingering toxins from his pothead, drinking days. For the first three days he felt terrible, but afterwards it started to feel normal and (euphoric? I asked jokingly) yes, euphoric. He even tried playing basketball once and almost passed out, but it made him feel euphoric, too. The worst part was that he was cold all the time (totally freezing) and had to sleep with socks and shoes, flannel, top layers and his hoodie up. That sounded so sad, but anyway, he liked it and now he never felt like overeating or eating junk food.

"Desert"

So then there was "desert." It was nice to make out (it had been a while for me) and even though he's really hot, afterwards I felt myself getting cold towards him. I just realized that I don't want physical stuff if it doesn't come with any sort of security. And he definitely has nothing to offer in terms of that: he's totally unreliable and has made it clear, he's not interested in anything else. He's great in a lot of ways and has grown since I last saw him, but he still treats the physical as something he can take and then just leave. I realize a lot of people can separate sex and their feelings, but I can't.

On Fire

After the break, we had the real desert. He had brought a cranberry pear tart from Bi-Rite. He almost started a fire when he put it in the toaster-oven to heat up because he left it on the cardboard. It was good, though and we topped it with homemade whipped cream.

We started to make our awkward goodbyes, and he was really sincere and sweet. He was glad to have caught up. But I had a hard time returning the sentiment. That coldness was still there, and I couldn't quite see the point of the whole thing. I grumbled some poker-faced responses and showed him the door. At the last minute, I awkwardly kissed him. Maybe just in case I don't see him for another six months.