Nate

I go on a date with a man named Nate. I giggle to myself on the way there: a date with Nate. We’re going to a fancy bar in the west end. I don’t drink. Over this, too, I giggle to myself, though it’s less a whimsical giggle, as with the rhyme, and more a self-deprecating giggle. I suggested the bar. I told Nate I don’t drink. He did not suggest an alternative. Bar dates are just what you do, I think. 

I was home sick from work all week, so I look forward to human interaction. I look forward to getting out of my house. I never used to be the type to stay home sick. In high school and college, I just pushed through, determined not to miss a graded assignment or time with my friends in class. But now I am different. Now I go on dates with a man named Nate. He’s seven years my senior. That’s why I suggested the fancy bar in the west end. We’re grown now. Or, at least, I’m grown now, I think. Nate has been grown. I have a job now, a career (even if I’ve been home sick from it for a week).

I go on a date with a guy named Nate. When we get to the fancy bar in the west end, he asks me why I don’t drink. I sit across from him at a round table made of dark wood that seems too small for the space we both take up. The plush red velvet on the seat cushion on which I sit is starting to fade. I browse the chalkboard menu above the bar without focusing my eyes on the words or prices. He looks at me objectively, taking in my appearance and waiting for my answer. “It makes me anxious,” I say honestly. “It always has- the idea that I could lose control of myself. I’ve tried alcohol before. It’s not bad. I just don’t see the appeal.” Nate does not seem to ponder this seriously. There is, in my young opinion, lots to unpack. Let’s talk about anxiety, our biggest fears. Let’s talk about the times we’ve had alcohol and regretted it. Let’s talk about what does appeal to us.

Instead, Nate, my date, says, “Oh. I just thought you were religious.”

I smile politely, wondering what religion he assumed I was that wouldn’t allow drinking entirely. He could ask. I could ask. Instead I ask him, “Are you religious?”

“Wow! Getting deep right off the bat!” He smiles, and goes back to browsing the chalkboard menu with his eyes. He must have followed my eyes there. Or he’s looking at the pretty woman tending the bar.

I cross my arms on the table in front of me, subconsciously self-conscious. I notice how tense this move makes my shoulders, and intentionally drop them, folding my shoulder blades into their pockets the way my mom always told me. I open my mouth to speak, fiddle with my thumbnail and bring it up to my mouth to chew, as if out of habit, and not an intentional move to allow him more space to continue. Finally, I politely smile again, and say, “You don’t have to answer if the question makes you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.” I meet his gaze with mine for a moment, before he begins to browse the chalkboard menu again as I bring my hands down from my face, unsure of what to do with them.

I always add the “sorry” to the end of my statements. I never actually am sorry. There’s nothing here to be sorry for. I go on dates, I get to know people. It’s all wrapped up into one with discomfort. Maybe the discomfort is just inherent in my presence, rather than my question, or rather than the “sorry.”

“So, do you want anything?” his mouth asks me, though his eyes are still averted.

I take a quiet sharp breath. First impressions are hard. “Just water.” Another polite smile.

He goes up to the bar and returns with two icy waters in thin glasses. The pretty woman tending the bar poured the water for him, even though it is clear to me that water is a self-serve and complimentary concept here, available for all patrons next to the register.

“Do you drink?” I ask when he returns.

“Yeah. I’m doing dry January, though.”

I wonder if he might be lying. I think it would have been easier if I, too, had lied, and told him I don’t drink because I’m doing dry January. 

“Do you judge people if they drink when they’re with you?”

“No. definitely not.” I give a look of genuine confusion. Does he want me to judge his decision to participate in (or at least lying about participating in) dry January? “You’re more than welcome to get something if you’d like. Sorry if I came off as judgmental.”

He shrugs, bouncing my “sorry” off his shoulders so that it lands squarely in the middle of our small table, in between the two puddles pooling at the bases of our icy water glasses, where I’ll watch it the rest of the evening and envy how easily it plants itself in new situations. “Sorry” seems to fit in well, no matter whom it’s trying to please.

I go on a date with a boy named Nate. The date goes poorly. He thinks I am judgmental, I think he has lied to me. Neither of us buys a drink, even though we are at a bar and he had not suggested a different location. I ask questions to which I give deep value. What’s your family like? Tell me about your relationship with your mother. Describe a big life goal you have. Maybe the questions are too mature. Maybe they’re not mature enough. I’m not sure. 

A group of girls sits at a table near us while Nate tells me about a buddy of his who shot a rattlesnake. The girls look like they’re in college. I envy their youth, though I am probably closer in age to them than Nate. They remind me of my friends from high school, the ones for whom it was worth going to school sick. It felt like the mature thing to do to stay home from work this week when I felt sick. It felt like the mature thing to do to suggest a fancy bar in the west end for a drink with a date seven years older than me.

I go on a date with a kid named Nate at a fancy bar in the west end. The bar is dim, filled with dark wood splotched with sticky condensation stains that match, in shape, the stains on the worn plush red velvet seats. Outside it is chilly and the windows have started to fog up on the inside of the bar. The date goes poorly. I drive home past houses lit with cozy lights. I tell myself I’ll have a cozy house all to myself one day. Or maybe there might be a man there, but only, I guess, if the dates get better from here on out.

I get home from the date and find my roommate on the couch, one table lamp lit beside her in an otherwise dark and warm house. “How was it?” she asks. “The date.”

I tell her I ran into a friend on the walk back to my car whom I want to tell about the date. The friend was on her way to see someone, but asked me to call her when I got home. (Nate does not offer to walk me back to my car. I think this is rude and immature.) I call the friend, so both she and my roommate can hear about Nate. When she picks up the phone, there is laughter in the background.

“I have the date debrief,” I say into the phone. “Is now a good time?”

I flop onto the couch next to my roommate, the phone between us on speaker and my hands in front of my face so I can mindlessly look over my nails while I speak. There is still giggling in the background of the phone call, though she says this is a great time.

“At my old college apartment,” I say offhandedly to my roommate, “whenever we’d have a debrief, we’d sit on the floor of the upstairs hallway, each of us in our pajamas at our bedroom’s door thresholds, and we called it Bible study.”

“That’s pure girlhood,” she says.

I tell her and the phone about Nate, seven years my senior, though I thought he was immature. While I speak, in my mind I pick the “sorry” off the table in the bar, and bring it home with me.