Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [43]
“Well,” I backpedal, “I meant restaurants with tablecloths.”
I have been on a spree of answering personal ads lately, and Raoul is the tenth date I’ve had this month. I believe in the concept of personal ads because you get to meet the interior of a person first. As opposed to meeting somebody while standing in line at a movie, falling for them because their looks make you swoon and only discovering much later, after hundreds of dating dollars, that you find their insides as appealing as Alpo. At least theoretically. In practice though, I’m not sure there’s much of a difference. After all, I answered Raoul’s personal entirely on the basis of his picture, which was incredible. I only skimmed the content of the ad, skipping over words I didn’t like (“spiritual,” “motivated,” and especially “experiential”). Instead I downloaded his photo, enlarged it in Photoshop to scrutinize it, and then replied with a brief, witty note and a picture of me standing in a field, shirtless.
“The soup is really good,” I say.
“It’s a little salty,” he answers.
I immediately agree. “It’s good in a salty way. My body must crave salt for some reason. Maybe I didn’t drink enough at the gym and I’m dehydrated.” Why am I doing this? Why am I shapeshifting in front of this man? And the answer is, of course, because he is handsome and perfect, and I feel I am neither.
Raoul takes a large sip of water. “So tell me about you,” he says, smiling.
“Well, I’m in advertising. Like Darren Stevens on Bewitched.” I have used this line hundreds of times, and sometimes people smile.
He doesn’t smile.
I nod and go on. “So that’s what I do for work. For fun, I really like going to movies. I see pretty much everything.”
Aces align in his eyes, like a winning slot machine. “I love movies,” he says. Finally. Something in common.
“Yeah? What’s your favorite?”
“American Beauty,” he says, not having to think. “I saw it ten times. It’s the most incredible movie about Buddhism I’ve ever seen.”
I can’t stand spiritual gay men. They annoy me more than flavored coffees. A spiritual gay man simply means he has a yin/yang tattoo on his ass, which you can be sure has had electrolysis. “So you’re a Buddhist?” I ask, pleasantly.
“Put it this way,” he says, clasping his fingers together under his chin, “I’m very interested to know as much as I can and experience as much of the moment as possible.” The candle between us flickers when I cough. “What about you? What movie did you really like recently?”
Suddenly my mind goes white, and I cannot remember seeing any movie, ever. This happens to me. Somebody asks me a simple question, and my petulant child of a mind turns away and faces the wall. “I liked Deliverance. The pig scene was great.”
After dinner Raoul shocks me by asking me out again. “We could take a walk in the woods up in Inwood. It’s really beautiful, more untouched than Central Park. And it would be really nice to be together in Nature.”
Because I am so surprised by his invitation, as I’d assumed that Raoul didn’t like me either, I say, “Okay.” Even though I am wary of Nature. After all, where do most manhunts for escaped serial killers begin? Exactly. In the woods. After I agree, I ask myself why. And all I can think is that I’m doing what my friend John once told me to do: dismiss the first date, write it off. You have to give somebody two or three dates before you can really know.
I tell myself how good this is that I am making an effort, giving Raoul a fair shot, not being so judgmental.
The following Sunday I meet Raoul at Inwood Hill Park, at the northern tip of Manhattan. I have never been above Seventy-Third Street, so this is something of an adventure, and I am carrying two hundred dollars in cash in case of an emergency. When I see Raoul sitting on a bench, I smile automatically. He is wearing shorts and a loose T-shirt and appears very casual and sexy, yet at the same time very wholesome and down-to-earth. I suddenly feel crazy and judgmental, not to mention shallow.
“It’s great to see you, Augusten,