On the Rocks(22)

I wasn’t sure if that was an insult. I decided not to find out.

“DC?” I offered.

“Nope,” Bobby said. “Everyone there is in politics, i.e., they’re game players, they know how to play them, and most importantly, they actually recognize them when they see them. Besides, half the guys in that city think emailing naked pictures of themselves to people they meet on MySpace is a normal way of getting to know someone. Are you up for that?” he asked. I sensed sarcasm.

“What do you think?” I answered. “What about Chicago?”

“Too windy,” he said. “Boston may be just as cold, but the wind in Chicago will kill you. Plus, then you’d have to be a Cubs fan.”

“Funny.”

“You need to do some research if you want to move. You need to go somewhere where there are a lot of guys and not a lot of good-looking girls,” Bobby offered.

“I can’t believe I’m going to ask you this, but why is that?” I asked.

“Because guys who live in those cities don’t know what really pretty girls look like. Their scale is all screwed up, so a seven on the East Coast is like a nine in some places. You’d definitely be a nine in some cities.”

“Really? You couldn’t just give me a ten?” I asked. I was oddly insulted . . . again.

“No, this is like Zagat’s. No one gets a perfect score,” he said flatly, as if his explanation somehow justified his insult.

“I see.”

“This exercise is pointless,” Grace said as she scooped salsa out of the dip bowl with a chip and then walked into the kitchen to add a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips to the Scrabble picnic. “You and I both know you aren’t going anywhere, and besides, moving won’t solve anything. You’ll have the same problems in any city anywhere in the world, so let’s take geography out of the equation and figure out what you can do to change your situation here.”

“Okay, how do I go about changing my situation here? How do I go about being proactive?” I asked, thinking that in this case maybe four heads were better than one malfunctioning one.

“Would you go online?” Wolf asked. “The Europeans love Internet dating. I bet you’d be popular with them.”

“I don’t think that’s for me. I thought about it at one point, but then I chickened out.”

“Oh, you got wet feet,” Wolf said, nodding sympathetically. “I understand.”

We shook our heads in unison. “The expression is ‘cold feet,’ Wolf,” I said.

“Why would cold feet keep you from doing something? Wet feet are way more annoying than cold feet. I’d change my plans if my feet were wet, not if they were cold,” Wolf said in a no-nonsense tone.

He had an interesting point.

“Anyway, I don’t want to go online. I want to meet someone live and in person. I know that’s a crazy concept in this day and age, but I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way.” I sighed. My reluctance to let go of the concept of fate and being in the right place at the right time was probably going to be the end of me.

“Times have changed,” Bobby said. “If you don’t want to change with them, then you need to get aggressive, and since that’s clearly not something you’re comfortable with, you’re going to have to think outside the box.”

“What does it mean to think inside the box?” Wolf asked.

“No one says ‘Think inside the box’!” Grace said.

“If you don’t know what’s inside the box, then how do you know when you’re outside of it?” Wolf asked, confused.

It was quickly becoming clear that idioms in the English language didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

“I don’t know. I’ll get back to you on that,” I answered him as Grace and Bobby laughed.

Wolf appeared bemused as he continued. “When I first came here, I didn’t know anyone. I had to force myself to go out and meet people! I didn’t want to, it was scary, Americans talk way too fast. It’s hard to understand you. Girls especially, because you squeak a lot when you talk. You sound like birds chirping.”

Bobby laughed as Grace and I stared at him. “We don’t squeak!” Grace, well, squeaked.

“German isn’t the easiest language to understand either,” I added.

“It is for me,” Wolf answered. “Anyway, I pretended it was my job, and I had to go. It helped me make my new friends. Maybe it will help for you too.”

“So what are you saying? That the only way I’m going to get my head back in the game is if I treat dating like it’s a job?” I asked.

“It worked for me. I have a lot of friends now,” he pointed out.

“Wolf is right,” Bobby said as he finished his beer. “Dating is not fun. First dates by and large suck, but they’re a necessary evil if you want to get a boyfriend, right?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I admitted.

“This is genius. Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of this before?” Bobby asked as he scratched his head, frustrated that Wolf had come up with this idea and he hadn’t.

“I don’t know. Most people don’t listen to me, I guess,” Wolf said with a shrug.

“I mean, it’s just so obvious! Relationships are hard, exhausting, soul-sucking work. Everyone knows that,” Grace mused.