Last night I went on a date with Mr. Straight Talk - our first date, if you even would call it that. He and I had agreed beforehand that there was the possibility that we might not get along, so calling it a date was premature until we could tell if there was a connection (like I said, he's a straight talker). I'm honestly curious today to hear his opinion on whether it turned out to be a date, since he certainly didn't act like it was when we were out. Or if this is his idea of dating, then perhaps I'm getting the lesson in Indian dating culture that I wanted when I set out on this experiment.
Mr. Straight Talk got off on wrong foot for the evening when he tried to switch our date from 7:30 pm to 7 pm. It turned out that I actually had a pretty busy day at work yesterday (hooray!) so I told him I would try to make it by 7 but wasn't optimistic. I get stuck in traffic on the way to Bandra to meet up with him, and so get there around 7:40. During my car ride, he's been texting me with charming messages like "I'm bored." Chill, dude - I told you I wouldn't get there until 7:30, so it's not my fault you have the attention span of a gnat and can't entertain yourself for a mere 30 minutes until I arrive! Geez.
Upon arrival, I call him to tell him I'm there, and he sets off the tone in the most romantic way possible - a handshake. I'm more comfortable with that greeting than if he had tried to kiss me or something, but it still was awkward. We go inside the restaurant and he starts saying how this isn't the best place, but we'll have to make do, blah blah blah. Um...you chose the restaurant, dude! We could have gone somewhere else - easily. Plus it turned out to be not that bad of a place - it was kind of a sports bar/restaurant playing some ridiculous combinations of 80s and 90s music - some of the songs I hadn't heard since the last time I attended a middle school dance (think Lady in Red). Plus the food was good.
We order drinks, and he acts surprised that I ask for a gin and tonic. His response is puzzling - that he had been under the impression that I was a party girl, and party girls don't drink gin and tonics. I have two problems with that statement: 1. Why did he assume I'm a big party animal if he hasn't met me yet? and 2. Gin and tonics are perfectly social drinks with no negative stigma attached to them. We start bantering (arguing?) about that, and I'm starting to think that this guy is the most argumentative person I've ever met about things that don't matter.
Next we order food. He tells me he's a vegetarian and acts shocked that I say I am as well. I start to explain to him that I've been enjoying it, that I had expected to be craving a hamburger by this point but am really not missing meat, etc. He then takes the hamburger comment and changes the conversation to how he's an activist against cow slaughter. I find this topic interesting, so we start talking about Hinduism and the reasons that cows are sacred here. It quickly becomes clear that religion is one of his favorite topics of conversation, so off the conversation goes down this politically charged and emotionally sensitive rabbit hole. I don't think I will ever be able to do justice to the ridiculous nature of that conversation, but I'll record a few gems here for posterity:
Him: "People think that everything that happened before Christ was born is mythology, but that's not true. It's history!"
Me: "I'm pretty sure everyone else calls it history too."
Him: "No, but the Catholic church instituted the Gregorian calendar to make people think that anything that happened 'BC' didn't really happen."
Me: (eye roll...sip of my drink...check the time on my phone)
Him: "Evolution isn't real - it isn't fact. It's just a hoax that Darwin made up."
Me: "Then how do you explain the fact that people are taller today than they were in the middle ages?"
Him: "They haven't gotten taller over time - they've gotten shorter! The average height of a human used to be 6'5"..."
Me: "Um, no it wasn't...but you're proving my point that populations have changed over time. And what's another word for change? Evolve! Granted there are environmental non-genetic factors affecting something like average height, but..."
Him (interrupting me): "Yeah but natural selection is still a bunch of bullshit."
Him: "People and animals were all created at the same time by God, so it's impossible that people and monkeys are related to each other."
Me: "Do you agree with the scientific classification system that maps kingdom, phylum, etc.?"
Him: "Yes I don't dispute science."
Me: "Do you agree that humans and monkeys are both mammals?"
Him: "Yes..."
Me: "Then you agree that we're related to monkeys!"
Him: "No there's no way we're related to monkeys!"
Me: "Agree to disagree?"
Him: "As long as we both agree that I'm right."
Him: "Do you believe that there is a higher power of some kind in the world?"
Me: "Yes of course I do..."
Him: "Then you're definitely not an atheist."
Me: "Um, I never said I was an atheist..."
Him: "Yeah but now you know you're not because of how you answered my question."
After about two hours of that nonsense, it was time to go to Blue Frog to meet up with my friends. Actually - there are a few other things to note about our time at the restaurant. First, I was really put off by the way he treated the waiter. We were sharing a paneer dish for dinner, and the waiter had divided up the food onto our two plates, leaving some on the original serving plate. The serving plate was right next to me on the table, but when my date noticed that I had finished what was on my plate, he calls the waiter over, points to the food, and say "serve us." Um, really? This is definitely a cultural thing here that I've noticed about other people too (not everyone, but some people) - people don't always observe the niceties when making requests. Ami and I were talking and we think it may have something to do with the way that these types of requests are translated from Hindi into English.
The other off-putting conversation we had was about race. He kept telling me that he's Aryan. My basic understanding of what Aryan means is that it's some kind of European people that migrated to the Caucasus region, so it makes sense that there would be some people in India who self-identify as Aryan. He is definitely very fair for an Indian - he looks nearly as white as I do, actually. In my experience, though, the term "Aryan" conjures up images of white supremacy and ethnic cleansing, which are not the most endearing topics of conversation on a first date. I asked him if he ever felt that by calling himself Aryan if he ever felt that people reacted negatively to it, and he basically then just gave me a lecture on what he means by Aryan and how he has Irish ancestry, but missed the point of the question entirely. Then we were back to the topic of how all people were created at once by God and that God created different races at once, and how white people (Aryans) are nomadic in nature and so therefore they don't farm as much, which makes it even more impressive that they don't eat meat. Or something - I zoned out for part of it. Then we were back on the topic of meat and how India is the only country in the world that's a vegetarian country (even though I pointed out that there are non-vegetarians here and being vegetarian isn't a law here) - oh and let's not forget about Nepal where there are also a lot of vegetarians. He then talks about the Moghul invaders and how they're the reason that some people are non-veg here because the Moghul armies told the Hindus that the reason they were so fierce in battle is that they eat meat and therefore have fewer qualms about killing people...because they already kill animals, and what's the difference really? I'm going to stop here because I'm getting exhausted just recounting the conversation, and I think you have an idea of what it was like...
We had planned the date on Thursday even though I already had plans to go to Blue Frog. He had told me over email and gchat that he is "passionate" about music - he's a musician who composes and performs his own songs, so I figured he would love the whole Coke Studio performance - plus it was the finals, where the bands that we had been watching every week for the past month had been whittled down to the top 5, and they were all competing for a spot on the TV show itself. I figured he would be in his element....oh how wrong I was.
He had asked me earlier if it was ok to invite a friend to go to Blue Frog with us - I had told him it was completely fine, especially since a bunch of my friends were going to be there. His friend and my friends had all arrived on time (we were late due to his long-winded religious diatribes), so I was hopeful that we could all just hang out and have it be ok. Once we got to the club, though, he kind of started ignoring me. Ok, maybe I won't go so far as to say he ignored me, but he definitely wasn't acting like we had come there together. He and his friend would stand there talking while I sat and listened to the music. He talked to my friends but kept his distance from me. I would turn around and ask him his opinion on the music, and he would respond with something negative like "It's terrible - I hate fusion music." Charming.
The first three bands were just "eh," but I was waiting to hear the fifth and final band because my friends had seen their performance a few weeks ago (but I missed it) and they've been talking ever since then about how great the band was. After the fourth band, however, my date tells me he wants to leave to "go on a drive." He invites me to go with him, which sounds like an absolutely terrible idea in my book. I ask him where exactly he will be driving, and he says that his friend will be driving but that they're going to go "wherever." He again asks me to go, and I tell him that I want to stay and see the last band and plus I want to go home afterwards. He asks why I don't want to go with him, and I tell him - quite honestly - that going for a drive at 1 am with two strange men sounds like a recipe for abduction for me, and I'm doing my best to not get kidnapped while I'm in India. He laughed and said his friend is the abductor type (I'm pretty sure he was joking...I hope), and then took off. Oh right - he gave me a handshake before leaving. How romantic. Afterwards, Praneetha told me that "going for a drive" is something that people do in Bombay at night, since traffic is so bad during the day that you never get the chance to just cruise. She said it also could be a code for "let's go make out" but I'm really hoping that's not what he meant, particularly because his friend would be there too. Either way, I'm comforted that he wasn't trying to lure me away for devious purposes - that the whole "going for a drive" thing is normal.
You'd think that would be the end of the story, but today he has been texting me and asked me out on a second date. I actually said yes - not because I think I have any future with this guy, but because I'm expecting great future material for this blog. Plus I've probably been a little unfair to him above - I spoke only about the negative experiences, but he does have some redeeming qualities. He's clearly intelligent (although drastically misinformed), passionate about his country, and a talented musician. He was nice to my driver and made me a laugh a few times, so he's not all bad. Plus he's kind of fun to argue with because he's so used to arguing that I don't feel bad at all about getting up in his face.
His charm has continued during our texting conversation today. I'll leave you with one direct quote from today's conversation as a parting treat:
Him: "Also wanted to tell you that you have a very pretty face :)"
Me: :)
Him: "And pretty eyes and smile too :)"
Me: "Aren't my eyes and smile technically part of my face?"
Him: "Technically some people who have a pretty face need not have pretty eyes or smile."
Him: "They can just have nice facial features and shape such as nose ears lips...Salma Hayek has ugly eyes, but still considered a pretty face."
Me: "But if they have ugly eyes or smile then it's hard to say that they have a pretty face"
Him: "Do you always reason so much about compliments people give you?"
Me: "Always. Are you always so argumentative when you're complimenting someone?"
UPDATE: He just called me and serenaded me at the office with a live acoustic performance of "When You Say Nothing At All." (He's working from home this afternoon). It was sweet, actually. Like I said - there are redeeming qualities to him - plus I've never been serenaded before. Bonus points for Mr. Straight Talk.
Mr. Straight Talk got off on wrong foot for the evening when he tried to switch our date from 7:30 pm to 7 pm. It turned out that I actually had a pretty busy day at work yesterday (hooray!) so I told him I would try to make it by 7 but wasn't optimistic. I get stuck in traffic on the way to Bandra to meet up with him, and so get there around 7:40. During my car ride, he's been texting me with charming messages like "I'm bored." Chill, dude - I told you I wouldn't get there until 7:30, so it's not my fault you have the attention span of a gnat and can't entertain yourself for a mere 30 minutes until I arrive! Geez.
Upon arrival, I call him to tell him I'm there, and he sets off the tone in the most romantic way possible - a handshake. I'm more comfortable with that greeting than if he had tried to kiss me or something, but it still was awkward. We go inside the restaurant and he starts saying how this isn't the best place, but we'll have to make do, blah blah blah. Um...you chose the restaurant, dude! We could have gone somewhere else - easily. Plus it turned out to be not that bad of a place - it was kind of a sports bar/restaurant playing some ridiculous combinations of 80s and 90s music - some of the songs I hadn't heard since the last time I attended a middle school dance (think Lady in Red). Plus the food was good.
We order drinks, and he acts surprised that I ask for a gin and tonic. His response is puzzling - that he had been under the impression that I was a party girl, and party girls don't drink gin and tonics. I have two problems with that statement: 1. Why did he assume I'm a big party animal if he hasn't met me yet? and 2. Gin and tonics are perfectly social drinks with no negative stigma attached to them. We start bantering (arguing?) about that, and I'm starting to think that this guy is the most argumentative person I've ever met about things that don't matter.
Next we order food. He tells me he's a vegetarian and acts shocked that I say I am as well. I start to explain to him that I've been enjoying it, that I had expected to be craving a hamburger by this point but am really not missing meat, etc. He then takes the hamburger comment and changes the conversation to how he's an activist against cow slaughter. I find this topic interesting, so we start talking about Hinduism and the reasons that cows are sacred here. It quickly becomes clear that religion is one of his favorite topics of conversation, so off the conversation goes down this politically charged and emotionally sensitive rabbit hole. I don't think I will ever be able to do justice to the ridiculous nature of that conversation, but I'll record a few gems here for posterity:
Him: "People think that everything that happened before Christ was born is mythology, but that's not true. It's history!"
Me: "I'm pretty sure everyone else calls it history too."
Him: "No, but the Catholic church instituted the Gregorian calendar to make people think that anything that happened 'BC' didn't really happen."
Me: (eye roll...sip of my drink...check the time on my phone)
Him: "Evolution isn't real - it isn't fact. It's just a hoax that Darwin made up."
Me: "Then how do you explain the fact that people are taller today than they were in the middle ages?"
Him: "They haven't gotten taller over time - they've gotten shorter! The average height of a human used to be 6'5"..."
Me: "Um, no it wasn't...but you're proving my point that populations have changed over time. And what's another word for change? Evolve! Granted there are environmental non-genetic factors affecting something like average height, but..."
Him (interrupting me): "Yeah but natural selection is still a bunch of bullshit."
Him: "People and animals were all created at the same time by God, so it's impossible that people and monkeys are related to each other."
Me: "Do you agree with the scientific classification system that maps kingdom, phylum, etc.?"
Him: "Yes I don't dispute science."
Me: "Do you agree that humans and monkeys are both mammals?"
Him: "Yes..."
Me: "Then you agree that we're related to monkeys!"
Him: "No there's no way we're related to monkeys!"
Me: "Agree to disagree?"
Him: "As long as we both agree that I'm right."
Him: "Do you believe that there is a higher power of some kind in the world?"
Me: "Yes of course I do..."
Him: "Then you're definitely not an atheist."
Me: "Um, I never said I was an atheist..."
Him: "Yeah but now you know you're not because of how you answered my question."
After about two hours of that nonsense, it was time to go to Blue Frog to meet up with my friends. Actually - there are a few other things to note about our time at the restaurant. First, I was really put off by the way he treated the waiter. We were sharing a paneer dish for dinner, and the waiter had divided up the food onto our two plates, leaving some on the original serving plate. The serving plate was right next to me on the table, but when my date noticed that I had finished what was on my plate, he calls the waiter over, points to the food, and say "serve us." Um, really? This is definitely a cultural thing here that I've noticed about other people too (not everyone, but some people) - people don't always observe the niceties when making requests. Ami and I were talking and we think it may have something to do with the way that these types of requests are translated from Hindi into English.
The other off-putting conversation we had was about race. He kept telling me that he's Aryan. My basic understanding of what Aryan means is that it's some kind of European people that migrated to the Caucasus region, so it makes sense that there would be some people in India who self-identify as Aryan. He is definitely very fair for an Indian - he looks nearly as white as I do, actually. In my experience, though, the term "Aryan" conjures up images of white supremacy and ethnic cleansing, which are not the most endearing topics of conversation on a first date. I asked him if he ever felt that by calling himself Aryan if he ever felt that people reacted negatively to it, and he basically then just gave me a lecture on what he means by Aryan and how he has Irish ancestry, but missed the point of the question entirely. Then we were back to the topic of how all people were created at once by God and that God created different races at once, and how white people (Aryans) are nomadic in nature and so therefore they don't farm as much, which makes it even more impressive that they don't eat meat. Or something - I zoned out for part of it. Then we were back on the topic of meat and how India is the only country in the world that's a vegetarian country (even though I pointed out that there are non-vegetarians here and being vegetarian isn't a law here) - oh and let's not forget about Nepal where there are also a lot of vegetarians. He then talks about the Moghul invaders and how they're the reason that some people are non-veg here because the Moghul armies told the Hindus that the reason they were so fierce in battle is that they eat meat and therefore have fewer qualms about killing people...because they already kill animals, and what's the difference really? I'm going to stop here because I'm getting exhausted just recounting the conversation, and I think you have an idea of what it was like...
We had planned the date on Thursday even though I already had plans to go to Blue Frog. He had told me over email and gchat that he is "passionate" about music - he's a musician who composes and performs his own songs, so I figured he would love the whole Coke Studio performance - plus it was the finals, where the bands that we had been watching every week for the past month had been whittled down to the top 5, and they were all competing for a spot on the TV show itself. I figured he would be in his element....oh how wrong I was.
He had asked me earlier if it was ok to invite a friend to go to Blue Frog with us - I had told him it was completely fine, especially since a bunch of my friends were going to be there. His friend and my friends had all arrived on time (we were late due to his long-winded religious diatribes), so I was hopeful that we could all just hang out and have it be ok. Once we got to the club, though, he kind of started ignoring me. Ok, maybe I won't go so far as to say he ignored me, but he definitely wasn't acting like we had come there together. He and his friend would stand there talking while I sat and listened to the music. He talked to my friends but kept his distance from me. I would turn around and ask him his opinion on the music, and he would respond with something negative like "It's terrible - I hate fusion music." Charming.
The first three bands were just "eh," but I was waiting to hear the fifth and final band because my friends had seen their performance a few weeks ago (but I missed it) and they've been talking ever since then about how great the band was. After the fourth band, however, my date tells me he wants to leave to "go on a drive." He invites me to go with him, which sounds like an absolutely terrible idea in my book. I ask him where exactly he will be driving, and he says that his friend will be driving but that they're going to go "wherever." He again asks me to go, and I tell him that I want to stay and see the last band and plus I want to go home afterwards. He asks why I don't want to go with him, and I tell him - quite honestly - that going for a drive at 1 am with two strange men sounds like a recipe for abduction for me, and I'm doing my best to not get kidnapped while I'm in India. He laughed and said his friend is the abductor type (I'm pretty sure he was joking...I hope), and then took off. Oh right - he gave me a handshake before leaving. How romantic. Afterwards, Praneetha told me that "going for a drive" is something that people do in Bombay at night, since traffic is so bad during the day that you never get the chance to just cruise. She said it also could be a code for "let's go make out" but I'm really hoping that's not what he meant, particularly because his friend would be there too. Either way, I'm comforted that he wasn't trying to lure me away for devious purposes - that the whole "going for a drive" thing is normal.
You'd think that would be the end of the story, but today he has been texting me and asked me out on a second date. I actually said yes - not because I think I have any future with this guy, but because I'm expecting great future material for this blog. Plus I've probably been a little unfair to him above - I spoke only about the negative experiences, but he does have some redeeming qualities. He's clearly intelligent (although drastically misinformed), passionate about his country, and a talented musician. He was nice to my driver and made me a laugh a few times, so he's not all bad. Plus he's kind of fun to argue with because he's so used to arguing that I don't feel bad at all about getting up in his face.
His charm has continued during our texting conversation today. I'll leave you with one direct quote from today's conversation as a parting treat:
Him: "Also wanted to tell you that you have a very pretty face :)"
Me: :)
Him: "And pretty eyes and smile too :)"
Me: "Aren't my eyes and smile technically part of my face?"
Him: "Technically some people who have a pretty face need not have pretty eyes or smile."
Him: "They can just have nice facial features and shape such as nose ears lips...Salma Hayek has ugly eyes, but still considered a pretty face."
Me: "But if they have ugly eyes or smile then it's hard to say that they have a pretty face"
Him: "Do you always reason so much about compliments people give you?"
Me: "Always. Are you always so argumentative when you're complimenting someone?"
UPDATE: He just called me and serenaded me at the office with a live acoustic performance of "When You Say Nothing At All." (He's working from home this afternoon). It was sweet, actually. Like I said - there are redeeming qualities to him - plus I've never been serenaded before. Bonus points for Mr. Straight Talk.
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