Glass Half Full

Seeing a silhouette of someone is vastly different than seeing them in the light of day. He sat, framed by the setting sun coming through the windows, backlit by the glare. The dust in the air caught the beams and drifted around his neck, long and trim.

His profile was elegant.

Online dating is not, hence my surprise when we ended up at a wine bar on a Friday night in February. His name was Jared, and he was in sales. Had the classic friends photo, slightly blurry and misleading as to which human was the one I was agreeing to meet. He promised, “Dating me is like drinking water and realizing it’s Sprite”. Whatever that meant. Hopefully sweet and slightly surprising-- not the feeling when you pass carbonation through your sinuses and drown in acid and bubbles.

I wasn’t overly thrilled with the volley of messages we had had. Don’t most people want to know something about the person they are meeting? Apparently, it wasn’t a prerequisite for Jared. The conversation had ranged from “Ya me too” to his longest message, “6:30 would be good. I’ll have time to let my dog out after work.”

I added that to The List: The things that are confirmed about the guy I’m about to meet.

These include:

Name and face: Sometimes I get confused. When there are an anthology of different jawlines and ball caps promenading through my brain, there is no reason to ruin a perfectly good dinner by calling some bloke by the wrong moniker.

Vibe: Is he chill? Do I think he has a brain? What is the ratio of grammar to spell check? Is he hot, and that’s it? Or is he hot and knows it? Or is he attractive but in a geeky way, like passionate about tree frogs or varieties of cinnamon? Or does he have no depth but is only looking to measure mine?

Eventually, the vibe is Casper.

Facts: What have we talked about? Does he like animals? Does he have siblings? Has he read a book in his life? Does he like sports? Random skills—basket weaving, taco finding, gym selfies.

Physical characteristics: Einstein proposed that space and time are relative. Online dating has added height to that category. The actual stature of men who claim to be 5’10” is incredibly variant.

For Jared, The List was sparce.

I took stock. Well, at least I know he has a dog. I like dogs. I mean, I’m allergic, but let’s be honest, I have to make some concessions—Prince Charming doesn’t exist. I’d take Duke Passable. Proletariat Literate even.

He seems to be interested in wine.

And he wanted to meet me.

He found me at the bar, and I caught notes of pine and herbs and earth, swirling around him as he hugged me. His velvety voice intoned “I’m a Merlot guy” and thus began the best date of my life.

Sitting with the bottle of Trefethen Merlot 2017, I felt understood. My glass would be barely sipped upon and he would refill it, while launching into passionate exposes on myriad of topics.

He was well rounded, able to converse about books, movies, books adapted into movies, psychology, social justice. You remember my list? When I asked about his dog, the exchange that followed was brilliant. He astounded me with a lengthy response to my query about the name and breed of this all-important canine, speaking with joy and passion about how he had rescued this sweet pup from the pound and had nursed him back to health. He left me breathless with laughter as he told me about a trip to France where he stayed at a vineyard for months: growing, tending, pressing and otherwise making wine, to be stopped at customs for traveling with an overallotment of bottles. His impressions of the French customs officers he bribed were hysterically accurate, and his sorrow at having to part with the family of bottles he identified as his own was palpable.

Yet it was the silences that were just as enjoyable. It wasn’t uncomfortable, as it often is, to simply sit and breathe for a moment, allowing the eddy of conversation to settle, and then reignite with vivacious fervor.

“You are nothing like what expected.”

He smiled at me, brushing my flushed cheeks with his cool fingers. “And you are a lightweight.”

Our bottle was almost empty, and although he claimed a larger portion of it than me, I had enjoyed my fair share. And he was right. I was a lightweight.

“Shall we go?” I asked, ready for the slightly tipsy walk to the car, ready to hold on to his arm all the way back to wherever we would go next.

He stared back at me, an empty look, lip slightly stained with the remnants of Merlot.

I stood up, woozy. Jared had already done his share of standing up for the evening, and so my companion stayed at the bar, waiting to be cleared by the busboy.

I could feel the stares of the bartender as I walked out, knowing full well she could see the two glasses I left—one clean, shiny and unused, long-stemmed and full of promise, and the other, whose contents had filled my mind with the glorious fantasy of a man who didn’t exist, left glistening with crushed fruit.