A Picture Of J. Dorian Gray

Standing in no man’s land, he texted.

One block away, I replied.

When I got to the steamy Korean restaurant, however, no one on the sidewalk matched his Match photographs, neither the damp, bedraggled partiers outside the liquor store nor the hipsters waiting for seats at the wine bar next door.

The address I’d texted matched the large numbers over the door, however. At least I hadn’t sent him to the wrong location.

In the misty rain on busy Divisidero, I pulled out my cell.  You here?

Coming around the corner, he responded.  Is that you on your phone?

And there we were, two strangers connected through the internet, on our cell phones, walking toward each other.

Even as Prince and I had belted out “Let’s Get Nuts” on my way into San Francisco, I had mentally prepared for disappointment.  My last blind date had been forty pounds heavier and twenty years older than the photos he’d posted online.  Seeing him before he saw me, I had repressed blurting out a truth-in-advertising complaint:  I don’t want you; I want the guy in the pictures.

But I hadn’t wanted to be rude or superficial, so I had spent an interminable hour and a half at that tiny table with that enormous man, listening to him describe his high blood pressure and his job programming software.  As he droned on, my glass long emptied, I stared longingly at his full glass neglected on the table, alternating between willing him to drink it so I could excuse myself and visualizing guzzling the drink myself as I ran for the door.  As neither option seemed likely to occur this century, I entertained myself by digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand and debating interrupting his discourse to point out that he hadn’t asked me a thing.

He told me he’d never been married, never even, for mysterious reasons beyond his grasp, had a long-term relationship.

Careening into politics, he explained that the problem with Obama was “this!,” emphatically smacking one forearm with the pointer finger of his other hand.

I jumped in my seat.  Obama secretly beat up adversaries? I had not seen that coming.

My date pontificated, err, explained.

The color of his skin, he said.  People couldn’t deal with a black man as president.

Apparently, this was news.

As my date began a diatribe about the pain in his penultimate toe, I gave up.

Gotta run, I said, fleeing for the door before he had a chance to elaborate on his appendage issues.

And then came a benefit of the brave newish world of online dating, the ability to tell someone thank you, it was nice meeting you, but we’re not a match, and clicking “block” before the non-match attempts to dispute your verdict.

But this guy, J. Dorian Gray walking toward me on Divisidero; he seemed to have potential.

For all that we hear about men being focused on appearance and women being interested in substance, my female friends and I agree that we, too, want hot partners.  Indeed, I’ve found herself on incompatible dates by following my eyes—choosing abdominal muscles and sexy eyes—while overlooking the small print that would have alerted me to a fundamental incompatibility such as the guy having attended little to no college, being a “moderate”  rather than “social” drinker, currently married and just looking around, solely interested in hook-ups, or all of the above.

Here ambled divorced and available J. Dorian Gray, MD, however, with an appealing profile and even better appearance.  Tall, though not as tall as I, slender, and dressed in a cool and casual black padded jacket and black sweatpant jodhpurs, which sounds ugly but looked cute on him; this guy might be okay.

And yet, is it possible to know the moment you meet someone whether you are going to be attracted or not?  In that pre-verbal instant, do we retain an animalian ability to read other beings, to distinguish kindred spirits from adversaries?  Because as soon as he got close enough for me to see into his brownish green eyes, I thought, oh, darn, no. No, no, no; this isn’t going to work; this isn’t what I want, college degrees and jodhpurs notwithstanding.

Perhaps he had the same instinctive recoil, a twinge of disappointment in this tall woman wearing knee-high black leather boots, a black skirt with an exposed zipper, knee-length black trench coat and clingy purple top, but I was too busy trying to conceal my own instinctive reaction to read his.

And then my brain kicked in, the reflective, non-automatic part of my brain.  He looks good, my brain reported.  He’s cute as hell.  He’s in amazing shape.  He doesn’t look close to his age.  You know he’s smart; you googled him.  Besides, you’ve barely met.  You aren’t really going to turn around and walk away, are you?

So into the cozy restaurant we went, ordering our stone pots, perching on stools at the bar, sipping water from small tin cups.

And I tried to engage him, I really did.  I was in a good mood, feeling beautiful and flirtatious and friendly.

You look amazing, I said.  Are you sure you’re sixty-two, or are you lying about your age?

Rather than smiling at my little joke, he declared “it’s all about taking care of yourself” as he launched into a description of his dietary and workout regime, offered an anecdote about being carded on his forty-fourth birthday, and mentioned that he’d gone to the gym twice that day, to do resistance training as well as cardio.

I told him that I like to lift weights as well.

He asked no questions and offered no compliments.

He was a psychiatrist, a doctor of psychology, a subject that interests me.

How do you diagnose and treat your patients? I asked.  Is it by psychological testing, MRIs and blood tests, talking to them?

Talk therapy? he scoffed.  There is no order in that field, no consistency.  Besides, he added, my rates are too high; people couldn’t afford me. 

You don’t see a therapist, do you? he added, almost as an afterthought.

I thought of the valiant marriage counselors who had tried to help my ex-husband and me save our marriage; the therapists who had help my ex deal with his addiction; the therapist who had helped me to get back on my feet after I finally left him.

Yeah, I do, I acknowledged, feeling sheepish.

As he explained it, his practice consisted of effortlessly distinguishing the “personhood” of his clients and prescribing them drugs accordingly.

Trying to make a connection between his work and my own, I told him about a project I do in my English composition courses in which students read a behavioral economics text—by a Nobel Prize winning economist, I inserted– and then try to implement a lifestyle change.

He asked not a single question, showed not the slightest interest.  No “what do your students want to change?  “How successful are they?” Not even “what’s the name of the book?”  Nothing.

Perhaps that’s not psychology, I thought, at least not how he practices it.

You’re only eating meat? I asked, noting that he had ordered his stir fry without rice or vegetables. 

For the month of March, he said. Only meat.

Why? I asked.

To get stronger, lose fat, increase muscle mass.

A meat-only diet works?

It’s amazing, he said.  Never felt better.

I’m pretty much a vegetarian, myself, I smiled, feeling, again—still–sheepish.

Why? he asked.

Environmental reasons, I explained, and it makes me feel better.  In fact, my daughters and I prefer a plant-based diet.  

Why did I feel defensive even though in real life I am relieved that my daughters and I can eat the meals we prefer, no longer having to satiate their carnivorous dad? In addition, we do not want to contribute to the suffering of sentient beings such as pigs, who suffer terribly in concentrated animal food operations.

J. Dorian Gray, meanwhile, was devouring his large pot of sizzling pork.

Smiling, he told me that he liked to frustrate waiters by lifting off the top bun of his hamburger, eating the meat, and then replacing the bun so that it appeared his meal was untouched.  Waiters would walk by waiting for him to eat, annoyed that he was taking so long when, in fact, he was finished.

We found common ground in Iceland, which we’d both visited and deemed dazzlingly beautiful. I told him about a “hot spot” natural spring swimming pool on a fjord in northern Iceland, in a small town where everyone goes to swim and hang out in the evening, on the very edge of a fjord, how spectacular it was to swim in that Olympic sized pool while rainbows speckled the fjord below, how much I love to swim.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust.  He would never swim in a pool, he said. He knew what is in an eight-year old’s underwear.

I told him that I’d envied the people on the plane with their mini-backpacks and walking sticks, and how I was hoping to return to trek from one hot spot to another.

He might trek from one Icelandair hotel to another, he expostulated, but no showers?  No way.

He raved about all of the tasty species he’d eaten on his trip; endangered puffins, Icelandic ponies, and also whale, which, according to him, was particularly pungent and succulent.

I thought of the stories I’d read about whales in captivity, mourning their families, and of bloody whale massacres.  And who the eff would eat those beautiful ponies?

Right about then one of my chopsticks flew out of my hand, bouncing off the shoulder of the man seated next to me at the crowded bar.  His inquisitive eyes and crinkled smile suggested that he and his date were enjoying our conversation.

So you never had children?  I asked, changing the subject.

Had a vasectomy at twenty-two, J. informed me.  Never wanted kids.  No way. They would be too much work; require too much of my time.  If I were to have them, I’d expect them to repay me for all of the time, effort, and expense.  Same goes for having a dog; they might be okay sometimes, but then they’d expect me to take them for walks, feed them, take care of them.  No thank you.  They’d take up too much of my life.

I thought about my daughters, prime source of joy and harmonies in my house, and the blissful evenings when we are sprawled in the living space doing our homework together.

I thought of my border collie shepherd, lavishing affection on everyone she meets, particularly those most anxious, like one of my daughters, or isolated, like strangers in wheelchairs.

I asked about his divorce, and he told me he’d married his college girlfriend to appease her; he didn’t care about social norms or religious views.

He was working full time and going to school, sleeping just four hours a night.

One night she awakened me during the short window from six to ten p.m., the only time I got to sleep, he said with anger and disbelief in his voice even now, some forty years later.  When I asked why, she said it was because she wanted to spend time with me; can you imagine?

That’s so sad, I said, feeling sorry for the wife and remembering my own college days, living with a boyfriend who was in his office at an investment bank from before I awoke until after I fell asleep.

Sad? he said, perplexed and provoked.  How else was I going to finish college and get my degree?

He told me that he was a ‘child of poverty,’ that he had never met his father and hoped he never would.  His mother would disappear for days at a time, leaving him scrounging to feed his five younger siblings.  He said his last interaction with his mother had been decades earlier. He had called Children’s Protective Services to remove his sister from their mother’s abuse, but by the time CPS came, his mom, forewarned, had hidden all signs of abuse.

His mother spoke standard English, J. told me, disdainfully, so CPS believed his sister was okay.

Did your sister recover? I asked.

The last I heard, she was homeless in Florida, he told me, his voice flat.

Suddenly, without warning, I was exhausted, and I was done.  I had been polite, trying to keep an open mind and to find common ground.  I did, in fact, feel sorry for J. Dorian Gray and his family.  But I don’t want a project.  I want a man, a companion, a partner.

Goodnight, we said as we hugged goodbye, cars cruising by in the night.