And you thought speed dating was awkward…
“It was a scene you’d imagine watching in a dumb rom-com or an episode of The Bachelor: a burly man was kneeling before me, clasping my hands and smiling up at me as he uttered softly, ‘I promise to forever honor and respect you.’ But in this scenario, we weren’t alone on some cliff overlooking a sunset. And he wasn’t my longtime boyfriend.”
It all started with rosé.
“10:02 p.m.: We detour to a market in North Beach for wine. We are late. I am still hungry. We are slightly drunk, and when we arrive, there are firetrucks and sirens and smoke and a crowd of people standing on the sidewalk. The liquor store is on fire. A man stands with his dog, watching the scene, and I bend down to pet him. “Careful — he bites,” the man tells me. I understand because I feel the same way.”
It’s not a mistake if you learn from it. Right?
“Eventually, and probably more than once, you’ll find yourself in spitting distance of someone you’ve gone on a date or two with before one of you ghosted the other or you did that thing whereby you both tacitly agree to fade out of each other’s lives without talking about it at all.”
