Nocturne - 
Well, can’t deduct points for him not being upfront and honest. Better than finding out months into the relationship.
My most interesting date? Hmmm…That would be the one involving Cute German Girl, May 1997. Or, actually, the entire sequence of dates involving Cute German Girl. Dare I spill my guts on this one? Hmmm…this may take a while, and may be only interesting to me. Eh, frig it…Here it goes.
I don’t remember the exact date, but sometime in April, Cute German Girl walked into Cafe Express, where I had been working for several years as a barista to help pay the bills at Northwestern. I had just gotten off a semi-failed attempt at a relationship and gotten on a mild prescription of Prozac. For the first few weeks, I misapprehended her nationality and referred to her as “the Cute Swedish Girl.” (Compounded by an American prejudice I had at the time that somebody German couldn’t possibly be that cute. I’ve become much more worldly since then.)
We’ll gloss over the descriptions and fast forward. Needless to say, I became slowly enamoured. The accent. The freckles. The blond hair. The smile. The infectious optimism. And, well, the tits.
Next time Cute German Girl popped by, she had a stroller with her (baby included.) Aw, fuck, ain’t that just my luck. James Iha, of Smashing Pumpkins fame, happened to be in the cafe and opened the door for her. I took her order, she sat down, just another normal day at the cafe. Eddie, a former cafe worker and bassist for Poi Dog Pondering comes in, so we chat, he informs me that James Iha is sitting in the corner. Cute German Girl overhears. After Eddie leaves, I get my first break. CGG is a huge Pumpkins fan and comes to talk to me. I finally ask her name and about the kid. Her name is Nadine and she’s an au pair. Phew. Maybe there is a God.
Of course, I don’t work up the balls to have a full-on conversation to her until several weeks after that.
One day I decide “this is it. If Nadine comes in, I gotta be a man, get her number, ask her out. Gotta do it. I can do it.” After a few more Nike-inspired inner monologues, it happened. She came into the cafe. By this point, my co-workers knew my plan.
So I simply serve her with a friendly non-chalance, make small talk, and send her off on her merry way – to the middle room. OK, I’ve bought myself ten or fifteen minutes. What’s my line? Shit! How do guys do this? How do I hit on her without seeming like a slimeball? Arghh!! I do a round of washing the tables and ignore her. This is it. “I’m taking my break,” I announce to the staff. Oddly enough, I felt as though I had just said “I’m going out to get run over by a bus, could you get that last latte for me?” After all these days of working up my nerve and preparation, what’s my big line?
“Um…hi…do you mind if I sit here and talk to you?” Dude, it’s okay. Chicks kinda dig that cute nervous guy schtick. “Sure.” And we were off. About 20 minutes into our conversation, I had realized I never actually introduced myself. “By the way, I’m Pete. Can I show you around Chicago some time?” “Sure, here’s my number.” [cue 1812 Overture]
The first date is a flurry of activities. We start at the B’hai Temple in Wilmette, then catch part of a Northwestern baseball game. Turns out Nadine played baseball in Germany, and is a huge fan. Well, that’s easy. Next we go to the batting cages, where I embarass myself by whiffing on all ten pitches. This used to be easy. We’re getting hungry. Turns out she’s a vegetarian (somehow, I end up with a disproportionate amount of veggie girlfriends.) Turns out she’s unfamiliar with Indian food. Devon Avenue it is! Samosas and vindaloos and lassis all around! Yippee! Man, this girl is so cool. Shall we keep this night going? I pick up the check, and ask her whether she’s getting tired, or would like to hang out some more. She wants to hang out. You da man!.
We drive down Lake Shore Drive to Taylor Street, get some Mario’s lemonade, and then I take her to the Sears Tower. OK, you gotta slow down here. Don’t want to show her all of Chicago in one night. Finally, I take her home. First date, I generally don’t kiss. Besides, I don’t know whether this is a date date, or just a date, so I peck her on the cheek goodnight.
I light up a smoke, open the window, crank up XRT and enjoy the high all the way back to Evanston. It’s either the Prozac or Nadine, but damn something’s working.
Next few weeks, I’m the proverbial boy in love. I ditch my Prozac prescription. Life is good. Really good. But I still haven’t kissed my fine fraeulein. She’s very comfortable with close physical contact, but gets all weirded out when I try to kiss her. Something’s up here. I know my breath doesn’t stink, what’s the deal?
During our next date, I invite her over to watch movies. Perhaps Wallace and Grommit and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off aren’t movies to rent when you want to get laid, but these were the perfect movies for us. I picked her up. She wore a very provocative, low cut dress, and a blouse that accentuated her finer points, so to speak. We get on the counch, watch the movies (after kicking my roommate out), and basically end up in a spooning position. All signs read “go.” I kiss her neck and ear, and receive encouraging groans. I lay my hand on her breast. She doesn’t swat it away. She doesn’t shudder. OK, so far so good. I move in for the kiss and she turns her head. I have gotten to the breast-fondling stage without passing through the kissing stage. Huh? That’s a ground-rule double for you folks keeping score at home. Well, this definitely isn’t in the troubleshooting section of the manual. I’ve seen this on Pretty Woman, but I don’t think Nadine is a hooker.
Maybe she’ll be more comfortable in the bedroom. (In retrospect, perhaps not the soundest line of thought.) She agrees to come into the bedroom. I’m still befuddled. She has no problem with me touching her. As I later discover, she has no problem with me touching her anywhere. In fact, she rather seems to like it. As soon as I realized I was, in effect, “rounding third without having stepped on first,” I decided this was way too weird for me. I know Europeans are a bit different, but I’m sure this can’t be chalked up to a cultural difference.
One last ditch effort. I lay on top of her and slowly go for her lips. I notice her tense up again and quiver. OK. This stops right now; something is way wrong. Somehow, I manage to put the brakes on my raging hormones. All systems shut down. Time to have a talk.
The problem? Turns out she’s still carrying a torch for some guy she broke up with two years back. But then, she mentions some other guy since then whom she lost her virginity to. “Um, did you kiss that guy?” Silence. It’s obvious she did. Argh! She seemed so normal. (Actually, she did turn out to be quite normal in the end.) I’m thrust into wondering, like a 13-year-old schoolboy, does she really like me, or doesn’t she? There’s no reason she shouldn’t, yet none of this makes any sense to me.
We finish talking and I drive her home.
There’s more to all this, but this has already gone long enough, and it’s a truncated version. I do win the girl in the end, at least for a time, and do get that kiss. But there was still about two months of preparatory work ahead of me.
