Unwifeable(82)

I tap out all the numbers to call Pat, but chicken out at the last minute and hit the X on my keypad instead. I try to think of other candidates.

I call up four platonic guy friends who I know will be safe. But the answers are all no for various reasons: “I’m married now.” “Moved to San Fran.” “Have a girlfriend; she wouldn’t like it.” “Out of town.”

Fine, I can take a sign. Besides, this isn’t the kind of magical realism justification “sign” where I try to convince myself—after being offered alcohol five times in a row, say—that I should drink. This would be a healthy risk for me, asking out a guy I like, where the only real danger is that my pride and ego might end up wounded if he mocks me afterward.

Fuck it. I’m calling him. What do I have to lose?

I already have my soul mate, after all.

Pat answers his phone after a few rings in his deep newscaster voice. “Hello?”

I talk a mile a minute when he answers.

“Hey, oh, hi Pat, yeah, it’s Mandy Stadtmiller, wasn’t sure if you have my number but yeah, I’m doing this weird paid dating promotion thing so I was wondering if I could ask you out and then write about it for the thing and I realize it’s kind of weird but don’t worry it’s like a stunt date so—”

“I’d love to,” he interrupts me.

The assurance in his voice stirs something in me I can’t quite pinpoint. It feels something like hope.

Before the date itself, I have to prepare. True to the Mandy Project thesis, on this outing I will be testing out the dating cliché of “Don’t play games.”

Ahead of time, I’ve written out a list of relationship expectations that I’m going to give him before we even have small talk on our “date”—to see how he will react.

As I joked ahead of time to one of the corporate consultants managing the Mandy Project, “This will go down in history as the two-minute date.”

I arrive a few minutes late to meet Pat at the restaurant I’ve selected, the Grey Dog, a down-home joint in my neighborhood.

When I enter the restaurant, I see Pat around the corner, sitting down at a table waiting for me.

Dressed in a trim gray suit, he embodies the antithesis of the sloppy, not-trying aesthetic so popular among performers, and when his eyes are on me, my body is on fire.

I feel attracted to the point of embarrassment. I have to look away and down and to the side. I never expect to like guys anymore. Not really like them, that is. Not look-into-their-eyes-and-feel-like-my-goddamned-heart-is-going-to-explode like them. I have never experienced this kind of chemical pull before. It feels like I am seeing someone who I have been looking for my entire life without even realizing it.

“You know this is, like, a stunt date.” I quickly try to diminish my eagerness when I sit down next to him.

“Okay,” he says with a smile. “I like your scarf, by the way.”

I touch my neck. I’m wearing a red-and-white silk scarf Belle Knox gave me as a Christmas present that I threw on at the last minute because in my dating-project-onset sickness, I fell asleep with a humidifier on my chest, and the steaming-hot water spilled on me.

“Oh, this,” I say, clutching at it. “Thanks. I’m covering up a burn.”

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Oh yeah, totally, totally,” I say, cutting him off from getting too deep into the conversation. “Listen, before we start talking like, you know, normal people, I have to ask you to read this.”

I slide over to him my fresh-from-my-printer piece of paper with a big bold title at the top that reads “Mandy’s Relationship Expectations.” My cheeks are flushed hot. Maybe this will go down in history as the two-minute date. And that means there’s ninety seconds left.

Pat picks up the paper and starts reading.

Welcome to this date with me, the note says. I want to be straightforward and let you know what all of my expectations are if we end up having a relationship together. Please take a moment to review:

1. When I feel bad, I want you to make me feel better.

2. When I am sad, I want you to comfort me and/or care.

3. You must say “I love you” first. Please note: This does not apply if you do not in actuality end up loving me.

4. I would like you to spontaneously and organically give me at least one compliment a day.

5. It is a deal breaker if you cheat on me or blatantly flirt with other women in front of me in a way that it is humiliating.

Pat is quiet as he reads the note, seemingly studying the words. I am dying as I realize this is definitely too much.

“I don’t know,” Pat says, and then a smile breaks through. “This all seems fairly reasonable.”

“Oh, thank God . . .” I say, exhaling. “It’s so weird doing this whole thing. It’s like I’ve gone from never dating to doing it so much I can barely function.”

“So, I’m curious,” Pat says. “Have you ever been in a real relationship?”

“Married once,” I say. “A few relationships after that. What about you?”

“Married twice,” he says. “And one woman tried to murder me.”

I laugh out loud.

“No, seriously,” he says.

“Wow,” I say. “Seriously? You might have more red flags than I do.”