Atrocity 2: The Saga Continues...

When last you heard about the event recorded in history as The Atrocity, I was upset with my mom and grandma over my grandmother trying to set me up with a guy.

It has gotten so much worse.

I had a long talk (fight) with my mom, at the end of which I had thought we had come to a tearful understanding in which she realized that grandma arranging a date for me hurts my soul. A week or two went by during which I had thought 1) my mom was sane, 2) my grandmother had learned her lesson, and 3) the guy was as horrified as I and would not contact me.

I was wrong on all counts.

K**** (the guy) called the other day, and his message said he wanted to go out. Ahhhhhhhhhh. I called my mom in frustration because I had told my grandma to not give him my number, only my email, and I had thought this was all over with. Once again lapsed into amnesia, my mom couldn't believe I wouldn't want to go on the date. So I made a deal with her, one I never thought she'd take: I would go on the date if she was Miss Ohio-hospitality and showed me the business cards of the new people she would have to meet. And she took it. Dammit.

So I called K**** back. He immediately started talking about the most exciting thing that had happened to him recently - his purchase of a 50 inch television. He'd had his whole family over to see it. Sports never looked so good. He couldn't believe that he'd ever lived without it. It was the only piece of furniture in his apartment. Oy.

This brought to the surface that his family was nearby. Which means he's a Jersey boy.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with New Jersey, my own mother is from there, and the only lasting side effects seem to be her occasional lapses of insanity concerning my dating. But I don't really care for the NY mentality (NY is the world, so I don't need to see the world, nor any parts of NY outside my neighborhood, and I love using racial slurs) and I find that Jersey has a desperate want-to-be NY mentality (I'm so close to the world, so I don't need to see the world, I just need to go visit dives in trendy neighborhoods on Friday nights). Indeed, he made a comment during the conversation that when visiting St Louis he was surprised at how much of a city it was, he hadn't thought the Mid West was so developed. Oh yes, I said, we have cars and everything.

I tried to make light of our awkward meeting. I said it was odd to be set-up by my grandmother, after all we don't talk very often, didn't he find it funny? No, he did not. He didn't think it was at all odd for his grandmother to be a part of his dating life, and after all he talks to her 3 times a week and his whole family goes to dinner at the diner every Sunday.
I can see the cuteness of this, I can see how these statements can be endearing. But for me, they're not. If things worked out between us I could see 50 years of sitting at a Formica tabletop with a chain-smoking waitress serving me tuna salad on melon with my mother-in-law dabbing at a stain on her husband's tie with her napkin.

That's not to say K**** isn't a nice guy. He definitely is. Very nice. He even asked about what I study, and asked a few times what peace education means before giving up. He explained he doesn't like English or reading or writing much. He only took a lit course in college because he had to, and that was only just one. And that's the point, we have NOTHING in common. Besides of course being short, as my grandmother pointed out.

The clincher:
I know from my mom and grandma that he's doing his surgical residency. So I asked him what surgery he does. And this could save him, because if he does pediatric surgery I could love that. But no, he does COLON and RECTAL surgery. He's a tushi man. He's an up-the-tushi man. I hold out hope still, I mean maybe someone in his family died of anal complications and it impassioned him young in life to save other people from that terrible fate. So I asked how he got interested in that specific area. His response is that it's "marketable" and not too "complicated."
I never thought of the tushi as an easy way out before.

Obviously, as a peace educator I am not very interested in uncomplicated or marketable jobs.

And so, due to the agreement, I still have to go out for drinks with this guy. Lots of drinks.