A Social Experiment

So I ran this experiment on OK Cupid. I created two profiles: one real, with my pic and information that most accurately represents me. It was thoughtful, articulate and balanced. I don't consider myself to be very handsome, but nor am I an eyesore. 

I created the other profile with someone else's photo and a lazy description of this guy with at least 2 not so subtle hints that he's not looking for anything serious or long-term. As for the questions, I gave similar responses on both profiles. Now this fake profile contained pics of some random guy in Israel who had Middle-Eastern looks, so he's likely a mizrahi. I thought he was good-looking, but not necessarily a hottie, in a blue-collared way (yes, I'm a snob, I suppose). He didn't look terribly educated, sophisticated or smart. And I decided to make him a lawyer. I also decided to make him a few years younger: around 38 years. And the results...

1. The fake profile got an average of 140 visitors a week without my having to visit any woman's profile first, the real one got 20 a week, and even that only after visiting tons of profiles and writing to many of them.

2. Over two dozen women initiated conversation with the fake profile in a span of 2 weeks. (And most of them were short emails like 'Hi!' or 'How are you?'. This brings me to one of my pet peeves that women expect men to write thoughtful emails to them, but when they initiate conversation, they're no better than the men they're supposedly annoyed with.) As for my real profile, in a span of 2-3 months maybe 1 woman initiated conversation with me.

3. I didn't respond to most women who contacted me on the fake profile. What was the point of engaging them in a conversation since I wasn't going to meet them? But when I did reply, these women flirted in a way no woman has ever flirted with me on my real profile. Some were very willing to talk about sex and share their fantasies, something that happens very rarely with my real profile.

4. Over 60 women rated the fake profile highly in a span of a couple of weeks, compared to less than 6 in a span of 2-3 months on the real profile. Given the number of women who rated the fake profile highly, I received an email from OKC stating that I was one of the hottest guys around, and hence the site would allow me to view more attractive profiles of women. So OKC acknowledges that only good-looking people get to see profiles of other good-looking people. I don't find this annoying; just interesting.

I'll leave it to you to come to your own conclusions. This is not meant to bash women. On the contrary, I like women. But this experiment simply confirms for me the many hypocrisies and myths women perpetuate when it comes to dating. Which is why, the women I usually get along with best are ones who keep it real, ones who expect to be treated as respectable people, not as princesses. 

This is also not to state that men don't have issues. They have many, and I've referred to some of them in my other blog entries, but that's another topic, one that women have written ad nauseum about.

Why Women Cheat

Okay, so I really have no insight into why women (or men) cheat. That's because the reasons are many and complex.

The proportion of cheating men has apparently remained the same for a while, whereas the number of women cheating has gone up in recent decades. In this article several people have shared their thoughts on why more women are cheating these days. One reason that's repeated a few times in the article and elsewhere is that women are now less dependent on their husband's paychecks, and hence more willing to take risks and cheat. I'm sure this is a legitimate factor that influences this behavior in a lot of women. But what I find disturbing is that, if true, it represents a certain hypocrisy. Women have traditionally taken on the mantle of being more virtuous. But this reason tells me that they've made a virtue out of a necessity, and their morality rings hollow. Deep down, I've always felt that women are just as fallible as men in all situations. If they've been less destructive so far it's only because they've had fewer opportunities. Give them the same opportunities as men and give them some time, and their behavior is not likely to be much different. The increasing incidence of cheating wives simply confirms that.

My female counterpart

I met her at a Starbucks. She was 47, in the process of getting divorced and had 3 children. She was cute. She'd never been to college. She'd never moved out of the town she was born in. The highlight of her life was a short trip she'd taken to New York City to meet one of her brothers. She'd worked at Home Depot for years. And worked an extra job on weekends at Sears. But she was cheerful. She felt she had it good.

She'd been married for 22 years and had asked her husband to leave about a year ago. Since then she's been 'finding' herself and experimenting. She'd had a very constrained life. At the time of her separation, she'd only been with 2 men in her life. After the separation, she had a feeling of liberation, and said she wanted live for herself, especially now that her children were grown up. She'd been with 5 men since her separation, and they'd introduced her to all kinds of physical pleasures she hadn't known before. She started smoking pot, and admitted to having done so before our date that morning. She was clearly reliving her teenage years too.

Even before we met it was clear that she liked me. I was exotic. The only non-white man she'd been with was a much younger Mexican colleague of hers. Theirs was a purely sexual relationship and neither had any other expectations of each other. She was excited to meet me, but also nervous, which was probably why she'd smoked weed. She sent me a photo of her bust (fully clothed, though) that morning. She was attractive.

Within a few minutes of meeting her, I knew that it was only a matter of time before we started messing around. And that happened within a few minutes. With our drinks we walked over to my car. I put my hand out to hold her hand. She leaned forward, wanting a kiss. I obliged. She said I was a good kisser. I kissed her neck and she loved it. 'No hickies, please,' she said, but did nothing to prevent me from giving her one.

We drove around a bit and then came back to the parking lot within a few minutes since you can't make out while you're driving. I parked in a dark spot in an underground structure and we made out unabashedly.

She was clearly insecure and loved it every time I even gave her a small compliment. She said she loved my accent. She loved my skin. She loved the way I kissed her. She said she wanted to please me.  We were far away from my place, and a couple of her children were at her place, otherwise we'd have gone to bed with each other. She was willing and eager. In the event we stayed in the car, and she touched me all over before bending over and sucking my penis. It was very pleasurable. I sucked her thick, pink nipples and she moaned in delight.

Even as we made out, I felt wretched. I had nothing in common with her. She wasn't particularly knowledgeable or smart. She had no idea of what happened in the world. She acknowledged that she found NPR to be beyond her comprehension. She listened to a music radio station that I would never have tuned into my lifetime. She had no idea what it meant to cross cultures and boundaries. She wasn't articulate. We had nothing to talk about other than sex. And for most of the time we spent with each other, that was precisely the topic of conversation.

And, yet, I continued to engage her in carnal pleasures. It was my dick thinking for me, not my brain. She was good at what she did. She wanted to please and said so. As I ejaculated in my underwear (since I don't like to do so in a woman's mouth), I felt miserable. I don't think she realized that I'd ejaculated. Just as well, as it provided me with a fig-leaf of respectability to end our date on. She asked when we'd meet next. She was willing to come over to my place. We made plans to meet in a week, but I knew it was a lie. I'd have to find a way of getting out of it, because I didn't want to encourage this any further. Sure, she was expecting nothing more than sex from me, but I couldn't do that. At least if I thought I could offer a hand in friendship I'd have no problem in exchanging that for sex. But I knew we didn't have any of the ingredients even for a tenuous friendship.

On my drive back I wondered why I had allowed myself to get physical with her even as my mind told me not to do so. It then occurred to me that both of us were seeking the same thing: validation for ourselves in the arms of strangers, validation that we could lead exciting lives by becoming thoughtless teenagers all over again in our middle age. And, yet, it's hard to desist. You're addicted to the pleasure and the high it provides. Even though the high is only temporary, as it was in this case.

When I reached home there were already three photos of hers waiting for me in my inbox. They were all various poses of her large breasts. But I turned my eyes away.

The rest of day I continued to feel miserable and lay in bed, aimlessly wandering from one random thought to another, accomplishing nothing all day. At numerous times I promised myself that I'd never get into these empty sexual encounters again. But I know that I will. It was only a matter of time before I feel the urge again, to seek out the thrill of seducing another woman. For it's like a narcotic, and as a friend says, I'm addicted to it.

The power of friendship with potential benefits

In conventional use, the term "Friends With Benefits" has a bad rap. It is often used to emphasize benefits more than friendship. I know a lot of people who are in so-called FWB relationships solely for the sex and know very little about their partners. I suspect this label also provides a veneer of respectability to those who're only looking for sex or, worse, one-night stands. It is no wonder that lots of women explicitly state that they're not looking for FWBs in their online ads.

I have a slightly contrarian view of this term. I think it can result in wonderful relationships and opens up possibilities that would otherwise not be available in more narrowly-defined conventional relationships -- aka LTR.

The reality is that there a lot of single people in America. I've read somewhere that 50% of adults are single, although I suspect it includes people in some sort of non-married relationships. In New York City, singles outnumber those in relationships. Washington DC is not far behind.

And as we grow older, it becomes harder and harder to meet someone we want to marry. Partly because of the baggage we've accumulated over the years, partly because of previous bad experiences being married, partly because we're set in our ways and a person whom we may have married when we were 25 wouldn't be acceptable now.

This results in a lot of people being lonely. I admit, there are times when I feel lonely too. Loneliness is not the state of being alone, but not having someone to share your thoughts with. The problem is that in the conventional sense we expect one person -- i.e., spouse or significant other -- to share most aspects of our lives with. The reality is that it isn't always possible, either because we don't have that person, or because the need to share everything with the other person and the expectation that the other person will always be available puts a lot of pressure on that relationship. Add to that, a majority of our friends our age are either married or are otherwise in an LTR. I've met a lot of people -- particularly women past a certain age -- who are frustrated that they are not in a long-term relationship, that they haven't found 'the one'. They end up putting a lot of pressure on themselves to find 'the one' and on the people they date. This rarely results in anything healthy.

Those of us who haven't found 'the one' needn't wallow in self-pity and frustration. But that requires us to view relationships in a more mature fashion. This is where friends (potentially with benefits) come into the picture. Why don't more people open their minds to the possibility of finding new friends who might potentially be no more than just friends, with whom, if the circumstances and chemistry are right, you can derive mutual 'benefits'? Is it as bad or immoral as people make it out to be?

I'd gladly take the opportunity to meet someone I know I will never have a conventional romantic relationship with, than be lonely and frustrated. Who knows? She might turn out to be a good friend. Or you a kind, sympathetic sounding board to her when she needs someone. Whether this friendship results in sex or not is secondary.

Consider it for a moment. Such a relationship has a number of potential trajectories. It can remain purely platonic, which in itself isn't such a bad thing. It can lead to a mutually beneficial physical connection. Or it could lead to romance and a LTR in the future. It's a relationship where you start with modest expectations, and hence you reduce the frustration you experience when things don't work out. You don't expect that person to be there by your side all the time. This gives both you and the other person the personal space you need to live your lives. There is no expectation of emotional monogamy, so you could have more than one such friend you can call upon during your moments of need, thus reducing the pressure on any one person to always be there by your side (this, I believe, is the number one reason why long-term relationships fail, since it's simply impossible for us to always be emotionally and physically available).

Of course, critics would say that this is a cop out, it absolves you of responsibility. True. But responsibility isn't something that should be forced on you; it's something you voluntarily accept when it's not expected. If you treat your friends responsibly and with courtesy, you'll accumulate friends over time. Do the converse, and you lose them.

I've gathered a few friends along the way in the process of dating. These are women with whom I have either shared some moments of romance or none at all. But there's a fundamental human connection between us and we've remained in touch. A lot of people have trouble remaining 'friends' with someone they know are not potential LTR partners. I find that very unfortunate. They're closing the door on possibilities.

But I've also been fortunate to have met a few women who, after meeting me and realizing that we're not 'the one' for each other, have either offered or accepted my offer of friendship. These are women I chat with online often, meet whenever possible, share my experiences and thoughts, ask for dating advice. Sex is always secondary, and often not even in the equation. But I also know that I can count on them for a hug, a cuddle, and occasionally more if we both feel like it. That's because our relationship is not defined by sex. It's defined by our mutual respect for each other. And, equally importantly, it's not governed by conventional morals around sex. So when the physical or the sensual does happen (whether penetrative sex or not), there's absolutely no guilt associated with it.

I also realize that healthy FWB relationships are hard. It's because a lot of men are pigs (and I can be one of them), and a lot of women have bought into this asinine conventional notion of romance that's perpetuated and marketed by the romance industry, thus precluding both sides from having a healthy, mutually-beneficial friendship. The Cindarella fairytale has done as much harm to adult relationships as has porn.

So why not be the grown-ups we're supposed to be and open our eyes and minds to possibilities?

Blonde and Beautiful

I met her over a year ago in San Francisco at Warming Hut, a quaint little bookshop and cafe right by the Golden Gate Bridge  She was my height, pale-skinned, blonde, blue-eyed, not too thin. What I noticed about her was how flat her stomach was. She said she was 47 years old, but she looked more like 37. I was taken in by her good looks even though her beauty was very conventional, the sort I'm usually not particularly attracted to. I'm more drawn to how a woman projects herself, her sense of quiet, understated, feminine confidence.

And, yet, there I was sipping tea with her as we sat on the seawall outside the cafe, watching people go by and getting to know each other. She was a beautician and owned her own business, a store at the street level and she lived in an apartment above. She had one or two people working for her, depending on the day and the number of appointments she had. Her family was from upstate New York and she'd moved to San Francisco a dozen years ago. She had never been married and didn't have any children. 

After we'd finished our tea, we got up and strolled around the area. I asked her if she'd like to go for a drive. 'Sure,' she said, readily. But first she wanted to get something from her car. I was surprised to find out that she drove a fairly new BMW sedan. What do beauticians make these days? How could she afford such a car and rent in a fairly expensive part of town? Of course, it was none of my business.

We went to my car, and after we got in I held her hand. She smiled. I leaned forward and we kissed. She put her hands around my neck, opened her mouth and our tongues lapped against each other. I sucked her lower lip gently. She liked it. I wanted to test how far she'd go. So I asked if I could touch her breasts. Whether she was easy going in general or attracted to me, I couldn't tell. I fondled her perky breasts. Then I slipped my hand inside her blouse and felt her hardening nipples. All the while I kept an eye out for people around us since we were in a parking lot in broad daylight. 

'Let's go some place private,' I said.

'I don't know any,' she replied.

'How about your apartment?' I expected her to turn down my request, but to my surprise she agreed after a moment's hesitation. 

I parked in the street below and went up a flight of stairs to her apartment. It was a cozy, 1-bedroom place, nicely furnished. Again, I found myself wondering how she could afford such a place. Did she do more than just run her salon? I quickly banished the thought and got busy making out with her on the sofa. I was hard by then. She was also aroused. As she took off her blouse, I ran my fingers on her smooth, pale skin, the arc of her breasts, the hard tips of her nipples. I lunged forward and sucked her breasts hard, even as a thought nagged me. How come she had so readily agreed to let me into her house and get physical with me? Although I'm not ugly, I have no illusions about myself. I'm certainly not the kind of guy women would salivate over. And, yet, here was a woman who could attract any man she wanted, in my arms, stroking my penis, arching her back in pleasure as I sucked her nipples. 

We moved to the bedroom. She took off all her clothes, except her panties. I took off all mine. We looked at each other. I felt a little self-conscious, but she wasn't. She took my penis in her hand and gently rubbed it. She sat straddling me. She was heavy. Must have been her large bones.

'I don't have protection,' I said to her, worried that we may have already gone a bit too far a bit too quickly, and hoped that she didn't either. Fortunately, she didn't. I sighed. She seemed neither disappointed nor relieved. 'We can do this another time,' I said.

We lay in bed, our limbs entwined, feeling each other's heart beat. It was pleasurable. I playfully flicked her nipples. 'Can I take a picture of these?' I asked. She shrugged. Easy going again. 

I took my camera out, and even though she had not told me not to include her face, I was meticulous enough not to do so. She felt comfortable as I took a few photographs of her breasts, hoping that they would be artistic. She liked them when I showed them to her on the camera. I looked at her body. I was overpowered by desire. I fell on top of her and kissed her all over. Then I pulled away, pointed my penis towards her mouth. She complied. She leaned forward and took my penis in her mouth and sucked it gently. It felt good. I pulled away when I was about to cum. I didn't want to do so in her mouth, regardless of whether she would have tolerated it or not. I lay on top of her, simulating having sex with her, going back and forth, prodding her vagina through her panties. And I climaxed, groaning with pleasure.

As we lay in each other's arms, she stroked my back gently. It was soothing, comforting. I felt close to her. She was very giving and there was not a hint of displeasure at my having finished off before she had. 

We met again a couple of weeks later, this time in her apartment. She seemed just as easygoing and hence inscrutable to me. Was she happy to see me again? Or had she agreed to see me simply because I'd asked her?

Again, she allowed me to do whatever I wanted with her, and had the same sense of mild detachment. Yet, she wasn't uninterested, for she participated at the appropriate times. Perhaps she just wasn't as passionate as I was. Perhaps she'd had more sex than me, and hence was less excited by the newness of the experience. As we lay in bed, I realized that I really didn't have much in common with her except for the attraction I felt for her. She wasn't bright or well-read. Her interests were very different from mine. I wasn't even sure if she was attracted to me. This could simply be a situation where we met each other once in a while for sex. I realize that this is a man's dream. And I've fantasized about this as well, this opportunity to have sex with a lovely woman, without any apparent obligation. But it didn't feel right. I paused and cuddled her for a few moments. 

'I forgot to bring protection today,' I told her. She didn't seem to mind it. We lay there for a few minutes. Then I got up and wore my clothes. She didn't seem to mind that I was leaving so soon. I kissed her good-bye. I emailed her a couple of times a few days later. She responded in a polite, even tone. She wasn't upset or hurt. She probably didn't care either way. That was a relief. 

We soon lost touch with each other. I'd even forgotten about the photos of her that I'd taken until I found them by chance on my computer. 

She was lovely, that woman. Far lovelier than I deserved.

Dating in a Foreign Language

There are lots of cliches about love being a language of its own. There are tales of how people who don't speak each other's language fall in love and live happily ever after. Let me tell you, it's all bullshit. You need to be able to have a conversation to be able to get to know someone. You can't do that with gestures, unless both of you know sign language. Or, worse, let your eyes speak. Whoever propagated that mawkish notion must have smoked a particularly potent batch of weed that day. Or he was one smart dude who knew how to get the ladies to swoon for him with unadulterated poppycock.

How do I know? Well, I've tried it. I speak a little Spanish. And I used Google translate to help me start an online conversation in Portuguese with a woman in Rio de Janeiro. As long as I had the translator handy, we were able to exchange some information. Now if you've used the program before you'll know that it's no human. It runs into trouble often, confuses itself and its user periodically. So, sometimes what she wrote got translated into nonsense in English and I had to try all kinds of disambiguation techniques to figure what she might have said. And if all failed, I'd resort to writing back, 'Nao entendi' -- 'I didn't understand' -- and she'd try the say it in a different way.

She was 42, and had a grown son who had a girlfriend. She lived in one of the neighborhoods in the northern part of Rio. Generally, the southern neighborhoods are the wealthy ones. The northern ones belong to the middle and working class.

We chatted back and forth in this manner for a few days. And I was brave enough to ask her out on a date when I visited Rio for a few days. I wouldn't have Google Translate with me, I know. But I'd bought into this silly notion that two people could talk with their eyes.

She asked me to meet her in downtown Rio in the evening after her work. She worked in an office that did something with legal documents, and I was never able to figure out exactly what (Google failed me there). I showed up at the location she'd mentioned, but there was no sign of her. Due to a strange issue with my mobile phone, every time I tried to text her a message, it kept auto-correcting it to such an extent that I was simply unable to compose even a simple sentence. So I finally called her. She answered. And I didn't understand a word of what she said. I tried Spanish, and so did she. Still nothing. I kept telling her the names of the streets whose intersection I was at. Now, you should know that spoken Portuguese is nothing like the written language. At least in Spanish, even if you didn't understand a word, you could read it and say it out loud and more often than not, you'd be right. But if you read Portuguese the way it's written, you'd be speaking gibberish. And that's exactly what I was apparently doing. I thought I was speaking a few words and sentences I recalled seeing on Google Translate. But if she understood anything, I didn't know, for what she said back to me was just as alien as Swahili.

After a couple of such attempts at talking to her, I hung up glumly, thinking I'd just been taken for a ride by a woman who had no intentions of meeting me. Just as I was about to turn and leave, she showed up, smiling. She looked lovely, a lot younger than the 42 years she claimed to be. She had olive skin, dark eyes, dark hair (she probably had Arab blood). She was voluble, pleasant, and chattered away as I listened, unable to comprehend a single word.

Finally, with gestures and monosyllables, we established that we should go to a cafe and attempt a conversation there. We walked a block or two and came across a restaurant. I gestured towards it and she agreed. So we sat at a table. After a few smiles back and forth, she attempted another conversation. A stream of words emerged from her lips, and I understood nothing. It later turned out that even words I would have recognized in writing, went right past me. It didn't help that she didn't slow down and enunciate the words the way you would to a demented child. Occasionally, when we did stumble upon a couple of words that we understood -- like pizza or cafe or 'voce e linda' ('you are pretty') -- we kept repeating them, hoping that the repetition would magically lead to a more meaningful conversation.

We ordered pizza. As we struggled to converse, I became increasingly anxious that she would lose interest and just walk away. She was sweet and lovely. I really wanted to get to know her. And I wanted to kiss her. Finally, after we'd eaten our lousy, excessively salty pizza, I told her, 'Quero beijar voce' -- 'I want to kiss you'. Her reply wasn't a simple yes or no, and I had no idea what she said. She repeated it a few times, and each time I kept saying 'Que?' ('What?') like a dimwit. Finally, sighing, she leaned forward, puckering her lips, and gestured me to lean forward as well.

'Not here,' I said in Portuguese. 'Later.'

She understood and said something as she nodded. She probably said, 'Then why did you ask for it, you moron?' But, fortunately, I had no clue, and I smiled like the moron she probably thought I was.

I paid and we left. I wondered what was next. With all this trouble with even a simple conversations, I could hardly expect her to walk with me around downtown and tell me about the many interesting and historical buildings. To fill the silence, I turned her towards me and kissed her. She responded with enthusiasm. She was a curvy woman, with ample breasts that pressed against my chest as we embraced and kissed. I mustered enough courage to ask her if she wanted to go back with me to the apartment I was staying in. Hastily, I added, 'Nao quero sexo.' I wasn't even sure if it was a proper sentence in Portuguese, but I wanted to assure her that I wasn't looking for sex. She appeared to understand me, but her response was incomprehensible. I kept repeating 'meu apartamento na Copacabana' ('my apartment in Copacabana'). But it was hard to understand each other. What I did gather was that she didn't want to go with me. Whether she was just being coy or pissed off at me for the suggestion I didn't know. The nuances of feelings could hardly be communicated when we were struggling with basic phrases.

We went to the subway station and she said she would go home. I hoped she wasn't mad at me. I hoped she didn't think I was a freaking joke. She said she'd chat with me online the next day. 'Amanha?' I asked. 'Sim, amanha.' ('yes, tomorrow').

So with hope I went back to my apartment that night. She didn't some online the next evening. My heart sunk. I texted her the next day. She replied that she may be able to meet me the coming weekend. My hopes rose. We decided we would meet that Sunday in the evening.

Sunday came along and I texted her to confirm the location. I didn't hear back from her for a couple of hours. I called her and she didn't pick up the phone. My hopes came crashing down again. And then she called back. And, of course, I didn't understand a word of what she said. How the hell were we going to engage in a complex negotiation over where and when to meet? The conversation came to a pause, and I interpreted it as the end of the conversation. I had no idea if she'd confirmed our meeting or had given me a reason why she couldn't meet me. I hung up, dejected. That, I thought, was the end of this little affair.

But we've kept in touch on Facebook and Skype. She'd disappear for a few days and then reappear online and attempt a conversation. I gave up trying to figure her out. I even actively ignored her chat requests a few times and at other times told her that I was busy with something else. But we've also had a few basic conversations. She always addresses me as querido, 'my dear'. We still talk about wanting to kiss each other. We still flirt. I sometimes tell her I want to make love to her. And she responds saying she wants it too. She even says she misses me. But, of course, all of this is playful, and I don't take any of this seriously.

And this evening she initiated a skype session. She blew me a kiss. Then she licked her lips in a flirtatious manner and laughed. I flirted back. 'You have large boobs,' I gestured to her, feeling naughty. She laughed. 'I want to see them,' I wrote on the chat window. She laughed and pretended to slap me, but I could tell that she was being coy. I persisted. I lifted up my shirt and touched my nipples. She had a mock shocked expression, eyes open wide, her mouth open into a perfect O.

'Just once,' I wrote to her. She looked uncertain for a few moments. Then she sat up on her bed and showed me her cleavage. Oh, she looked sexy! 'More,' I wrote. Finally she pulled out a boob. Her dark nipple was thick and erect. She played with it for a few seconds and covered herself. She giggled. She looked like a young woman, trusting, innocent, entirely comfortable with me despite all the communication issues. I wished I was with her, making love to her. It was painful to watch her on my screen. 'Next time you're here we'll make love,' she said.

But she knows, as I do, that there probably won't be a next time. And even if we were to meet again, we'd have very little success talking to each other. You can't build a friendship or a relationship on puerile gestures and kissing noises. It's a pleasant diversion at best, our chats, something we'll indulge in periodically to occupy our moments of boredom. But she has her life. I have mine. We inhabit different worlds. And we don't even have the vocabulary to share our worlds with each other.

Rude in Rio

The women I've met and dated -- even the ones with whom I had nothing in common -- have all been decent human beings for the most part. Only occasionally do I come across a woman whom I truly dislike. 

I came across one such woman in Rio de Janeiro. I met her online. She was a psychologist. (As an aside, there seem to be a lot of female psychologists in Rio since I chatted with at least 4 of them in a very short span of time.) She was half black, and the rest mostly European, but also had some native indigenous blood. She spoke a little English. Conversation was a little difficult, but still manageable. We decided to meet at a place close to the apartment I was staying in, in the tourist neighborhood of Copacabana, by the famous eponymous beach. 

She showed up about 25 minutes late, which I wasn't bothered by because she took public transportation from her home in the northern part of the city. Our plan was to have lunch and then go to Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf Mountain), one of the major tourist attractions there. We ate at an Arab restaurant on the main beach thoroughfare. The food was good and we had a reasonably good -- albeit slow -- introductory conversation. She had shiny, curly hair, brown skin that matched mine. She had a nice smile and I liked her.

After lunch we started walking, primarily to go look for an ATM so that I could withdraw some cash. We held hands and we kissed, after I ascertained that she was willing to do so. Feeling very comfortable with her, I asked her if it would be okay if we popped into the apartment to take some clothes from the washer and hang them to dry. I even gave her the option of hanging around downstairs if she didn't feel comfortable going to the apartment. She became visibly upset. 'If you have things to do maybe we should meet some other time.'

It felt like an over-reaction, but in an attempt to mollify her, I told her that I would take care of my clothes later in the day. We went out in search of an ATM in an awkward silence. As luck would have it, the first ATM I tried didn't recognize my US bank card. So we went looking for an international bank. Neither of us knew where one was, and it was a Sunday. We stumbled upon 2 other banks, and neither one was able to read my card. I could sense her growing impatience. Sweating and anxious -- since I had practically no cash left -- I suggested that we try one more bank. Fortunately, after a couple of attempts, the ATM started cranking and gave me the money I needed. Sighing, I walked out to join her on the sidewalk. 

'Did you get your card back?' she asked. I was both touched and encouraged by her concern. The she said, 'Is it okay if we change our plans a little? Can we go to a gastronomic fair in Lapa?'

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was game for anything the locals found interesting. So I agreed.

'Can we take a taxi?' she asked. I'd have preferred to take a bus or the metro, which is what I did everywhere I went. And, clearly, that was her normal mode of transportation too. But I agreed and after a 20 minute ride, we were at Arches of Lapa. Now, Lapa is an interesting neighborhood with lots of bars and music halls. It's a happening place in the evenings, particularly weekends. The food fair, it turned out, was in a square right under the arches. The line to get into it was long. Instead of going to the end of the line she walked towards the entrance. I wondered if she wanted to get some information before taking her place at the end, but it turned out a friend of hers was already in the line. They had apparently agreed to meet there since he appeared to have been expecting her. They hugged and chatted in Portuguese about something that I did not understand. 

Even though I was uncomfortable with the sudden turn of events I smiled and shook the friend's hand. He was a pleasant enough fellow and spoke a little English. We chatted for a bit about Brazil, Rio and America. And then the two went back to having a long conversation in Portuguese. I stood by, pretending to amuse myself with the activities around me. Every now and then she would hold my hand or hug me. I reciprocated, still hoping I could salvage the date.

The line moved slowly, and eventually we made it inside the fair. It was small and very, very crowded. I wasn't sure what the two had planned, but I learned then that a mutual friend of theirs was a chef and had a booth there. We weaved our way through the crowd presumably looking for him. I just followed them wherever they went. But there were so many people that it was impossible to find anyone there. After a few minutes of wandering around, it appeared that they'd decided that they didn't want to eat anything. The guy said he was going home and he left. I looked at my date and wondered what she wanted to do. She didn't say anything, and started walking in the opposite direction. I thought that perhaps she wanted to get away from the crowd before talking to me, so I followed her. She didn't look back and walked briskly towards another exit. I lost sight of her for a few moments, but then saw her again near the exit. I approached her and asked if there was anything in particular she wanted to do. 

'I'll go home now,' she said. Her tone was decisive. I didn't think that I had a chance of persuading her otherwise. She waved to me and walked away, just like that, leaving me in the middle of the street, surprised and disoriented by her utter rudeness. 

Once the initial surprise faded, I felt an anger I had never felt against any of the women I've dated. Time was precious since I was on a visit. I'd set aside the entire afternoon -- prime sightseeing time -- for her. Because of our planned date I didn't go anywhere in the morning either since that wouldn't have given me enough time to meet her. And with rains forecast for the next few days, I had a very small window of opportunity to see the sights that day, when it was gorgeous. But now it was too late for me to go to Pao de Acucar. Essentially the entire day was ruined. There was nothing to do but to find my way back to the nearest subway station to catch a train back to Copacabana.

'It could have been worse,' I kept telling myself. Rio is notorious for its crime. I still had my wallet and my camera. Only my ego was a bit bruised.

SF Pride Parade

The Pride Celebrations yesterday were a blast. Lots of pics, but here's a sampling of the sexiest...