The Mystical Ritual of Yuppie Dating
Steve arrives five minutes early at the restaurant, rubbernecking as though he just stole a purse. Upon seeing that his pre-arranged companion for the evening has not yet arrived, he darts into the bathroom where he proceeds to adjust his hair and check his teeth. Emerging, Steve looks the same but seems to feel a whole lot better. He is shown to an empty table set for two by a waiter.
Jane arrives ten minutes late. Prior to entering the restaurant, she checks herself in a pocket mirror and make several complex last-minute adjustments which result in no appreciable improvement in her looks, but make her feel a whole lot better. She then enters the restaurant and is shown to the table where Steve is trying desperately to look thoughtful and nonchalant, but is in fact bored out of his wits.
Upon seeing each other, Steve and Jane make an exaggerated show of joy and make several pointed exclamations. Steve makes sure to ask whether Jane had any trouble finding the place. She assures him that she did not and invariably states: “I hope you didn’t have to wait too long for me.” To which Steve invariably replies: “No, I just got here, like a minute ago.” Even if Steve had been waiting for two hours, this would be the response given.
At this point, Steve and Jane grab their menus and begin to study them with a level of intensity rivaling that of a professional tennis player waiting for a serve. Jane will now ask whether Steve comes to this particular restaurant a lot. Even if Steve eats there on a daily basis, he will respond: “not really, maybe a couple times at most.” Jane will then ask whether Steve has any recommendations. In turn Steve will ask in a solicitous tone of voice whether Jane has any dietary preferences. Jane will explain that she used to be a vegan, a vegetarian, and a pescaterian at various point in her life, but now she eats pretty much anything. Steve will nod with deep understanding, even though he has only a vague idea what those words mean, and make as general and innocent a recommendation as possible. “I hear the pasta is decent,” he may say, or perhaps: “a friend had one of the seafood dishes and he liked it a lot.”
After several minutes, Jane will finally look up at Steve and say: “so, have you decided?” To which Steve will reply, “yes, I think I’ll get a starter salad and the chicken” while mentally praying that Jane chose one of the less expensive items on the menu. “Oh, that sounds good,” Jane will respond, lulling Steve into a false sense of security, as though she too might get the chicken. Of course, she won’t. She will get the most expensive item on the menu – either the filet mignon or the lobster. And if Steve picked a restaurant that serves caviar, he is about to go into some serious debt.
Once the entrees are decided, Steve will snatch up the wine list and spend at least ten minutes flipping through its pages with the concentration of a theology student studying the Bible. He may grunt or make comments such as “oh, interesting” and “I hear that’s a good vintage”. In reality, the extent of Steve’s knowledge about wine may be summarized as “don’t get red wine with fish”. After several pages of fruitless searching, Steve will locate the second cheapest wine on the list and, with an authoritative voice, pronounce the entire name of the wine, the vineyard, and the vintage regardless of the fact that there is only one merlot on the list.
Once the ordering is out of the way, Steve and Jane will embark on that awkward period between ordering and the arrival of the food when there is absolutely no natural pauses available for the conversation. Knowing this, Steve will boldly plungs ahead with what he deems to be a safe and natural transition. “So what are some of your favorite restaurants?” he will ask, exhibiting all the originality of a set of Cliffs Notes.
For the next several minutes, Steve and Jane will play the restaurant game, where they name various restaurants that they like and ask the other person if they have been there. At some point Jane will grow tired of this game and suddenly realize that she has yet to verify Steve’s pedigree. So she will say something like: “yes, that restaurant reminded me of a place I used to go when I was at college. Where did you say you went to school?” Of course, Steve did not say where he went to school, but, as an Ivy League graduate he is ready for the question. He looks down at the table with such incredible false modesty, that it could only come from years of practice and says in a carefully controlled half-mumble: “Cornell”. Or perhaps he says “Brown” , “Columbia”, or even “Harvard”. Regardless, he will say it the same way.
Of course, irrespective of the specific Ivy League institution, Jane will respond with: “oh, I had a friend that went there.” Steve will lift his eyes and ask: “really, what’s your friend’s name?” For the next several minutes, Steve and Jane will play the name game, where they will throw out the names of every person they know who went to the same school as the other person, was related to someone who went to the same school as the other person, had a friend who knew someone who went to the same school as the other person, or lived in the same general zip code as a friend of a relative of someone who knew someone who went to the same school as the other person. At some point they will realize that Steve’s college roommate’s second cousin once threw a party where the janitor from Jane’s dorm had gotten drunk and passed out. They will then marvel at what a small world it is until the appetizers finally arrive.
Over appetizers, Steve and Jane will complain about how expensive apartments are in the city and how impossible it is to live in a decent neighborhood. Both will then proceed to point out how each of them “lucked out” and got a great place in a good neighborhood for a decent price. Then they will compare horror stories about friends who ended up paying double the price for some dump in the middle of nowhere.
Upon the arrival of the entrees, the waiter will lie in wait until each of them has placed a large bite of food in their mouths and begun to chew to pop up and ask “how is everything going?” Steve and Jane will then begin to gesticulate wildly while trying to get their food down to express the sentiment that everything is going just swimmingly. Steve will silently curse the waiter because the next question he was going to ask Jane was “so how do you like the food?” and now he is at a loss of where to take the conversation.
While Steve is chewing and feverishly running through possible themes for conversation in his mind, Jane will ask: “so how do you like the food?” Steve will look at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then nod violently and say: “oh, good, you?” Jane will wait a beat then say in the most uninterested tone she can muster: “yeah, it’s not bad.”
As they eat, Jane will provide Steve with a conversational out by saying something like: “my friend just got back from two weeks in the French Riviera and she absolutely adored it.” At this point, Steve and Jane will play the travel game, each subtly trying to outdo the other. Steve will mention that he studied abroad in London. Jane will reveal that she spent a month backpacking through Thailand. Steve will talk about how he went scuba diving off the coast of Brazil. Jane will describe how she went surfing off the coast of Costa Rica. Steve will talk about how his friend traveled to Africa with the Peace Corps. Jane will mention how a friend took her on safari in Kenya. Steve will suggest dessert.
Jane will pass on dessert, saying she will have coffee instead. However, when the waiter arrives, Steve will order coffee, but Jane will order a latte or a cappuccino. Before the beverage arrives, Jane will excuse herself to go to the bathroom. While there, she will check her voicemails and make a decision regarding Steve. She will decide either to see him again or not. If she decides to see him again, she will make the follow-on decision about how far she is willing to go physically. With her battle plan in place, Jane will return to the table.
Meanwhile, Steve will be deciding how far to push his luck with Jane. He will make the decision about whether to make a run at inviting himself over to her place, balancing his sex drive on the one hand and his ego on the other. Upon Jane’s return to the table, an awkward conversation will follow over coffee as both Steve and Jane try to feel each other out and get a sense for each other’s motives. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that Steve will attempt to feel Jane out. As far as Jane is concerned, Steve wants the same thing all of her dates want: to get into her pants.
We finally take our leave of Steve and Jane outside the restaurant. Hopefully this edition of “yuppies in the wild” has proved illuminating. Be sure to tune in next time as we explore these fascinating creatures in further detail.
