The mechanic

"Fie fie.... dart not scornful glanced from those eyes." 

Dear Petruchio,

My mechanic called me while I was on a break at school last week. Here's how it went:

"So, this is Joe from...blank blank Auto Repair,"
"Hi," I said.
"Hey, how are your brakes?"
"Fine,"
"Have you gotten your wheel bearings fixed yet?"
"No," I said, grumpily, thinking about what the brake job cost me.
"I'm kinda broke right now," I said.
Then came the deep pause in the convo. A long pause. I was thinking I needed to get back to what I was doing, I had things to do.
"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to go out,"
I started to laugh.
"Really, you want to go out with me?" I said, thinking about the day we met, how destitute I must have looked rolling up in my demolition derby car, going on 340,000 miles, with the front bumped Gorilla taped on and a dent on the trunk where I kicked it when I found out my ex boyfriend got married three months after we broke up. (The Scottish guy who I moved to Idaho for, who secretly had another girlfriend on the side... oh for the love!)
I also tried to paint my car an unmatching gold color in the place where I turned too sharply backing out of my much too narrow apartment garage.
So, back to Joe.
"Why would you want to go out with me after you've seen my car," I said a bit puzzled. Did he feel sorry for me? Did he have a hero complex? Thought he could save me, or at least my car?
"I do," he said. "I want to go out with you."
I was thinking of the guy, the way he followed me outside and waved goodbye, sort of longingly as I pulled my busted car onto the highway. He wasn't bad looking, about my age and I remembered the way he laughed. The memory was good. And I would be lying if I didn't also wonder if he'd give me a better deal on new wheel bearings after the date.
"Sure, I'll go out with you." I said. "I'll call you after work."

OK Cupid is Not Really Okay

"Tis Hatched and Shall be So,"  William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew

Dear Petruchio:

I hate modern online dating. It's so unromantic.

How do modern people find true love hunched over laptops like trolls, scrolling up and down at photos then pressing their cursor over a SEND button and waiting, like fisherman for the fish to bite.
And to be honest, I'm sick of first dates at coffee shops, where of course I look so hipstery and smooth, nevermind that I park my car ten blocks away, the one that looks like an abandoned car a homeless person lives in.

The online last guy I went out with was Jewish, nice enough guy, though he seriously had a bit of a crusty in his right eye on our first date and he was snobbish about the wine he was drinking. He went on about his bad experiences with online dating. I was fairly charming and he wanted to see me again as soon as possible. And then we had the second date. We were both grumpy from working too long that week. We went to a French restaurant. He said he broke up with his last girlfriend because she wanted to live in the suburbs and have more kids and she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.
The shame!
He said: "I'm a feminist. I want a woman who works." And then he asked if I wanted to split the bill, though he had asked me out.

I wanted to tell him, "Dude, you know, you think you're so suave, but to tell you the truth, 80 percent of the guys I go out with pay the bill if he asks the girl out."  

The Portland guys are all waaay too interesting. They all have obscure literary and musical tastes as though they had the luxury of camping out at Powells Bookstore and not working all day.
And they dress in vintagey clothes from another epoch that smell like moth balls or maybe gunpowder and pachouli. They own about ten bikes for different weather conditions.

They also shave their facial hair in odd ways, maybe they learned that from a chapter in the Books on Beards section at Powells.

Most of the time, I actually like the guys I meet in person because I've learned how to weed out the creepos, the sexual predators or just the plain incompatible ones. Just this week I weeded out a fedora-maker who said he doesn't believe in "ANYTHING". Really? How can you not believe in anything? He also said that "humans are no different than any other animal." Then some naturopathic doc asked me why I wrote him because, duh, he wasn't looking for a long-term relationship, just casual sex. Oops, forgot to scroll down to read that. He wants a polyandrous thing. My sister, who lives near Rexburg, Idaho still thinks polyandrous is a synthetic fiber.

There's a "bang my head against a wall" element when it comes to dating people who don't share my religious values. But I've dated hundreds of Mormon guys and let's face it, in Portland, the picking are slim for eligible Mormons. The list of eligible men who aren't of my faith is expansive, like a wine list in the Willamette Valley. My religion is important to me, but it's not the only thing that defines me. I know myself enough to know I'd be happier married to a wine-drinking Unitarian who treated me like an equal, respected my faith and traveled the world with me then a devout Mormon who was a couch potato and expected me to play some fairy tale Mormon housewife role.

But dating people who don't share my faith comes with a price tag and it can feel heartbreaking.

The second date convo's usually goes something like this:

"So, you're a Mormon. Do you wear the sacred underpants?"
"Yes,"
"Are you wearing them now? Can I see them?"
"That's a little personal, isn't it?" I say.
"So, you don't live by that whole chaste thing do you, your not waiting to have sex until marriage are you?" And then, if I admit it to them, they say how impressed they are and how admirable I am and then the ones who are just looking for sex right away which feels like 80 percent, are gone. I never hear from them again. And I guess I should be glad, but sheesh. Unless it's a guy who is looking for a challenge and then I become the Mormon Girl Challenge.

Oh, gotto go, this cute Israeli just wrote me back . He said he was snowed in and living off of P and G sandwiches. He spells Jelly, Gelly. And I asked him if he knew anyone who owned a snowmobile because I was worried about how he'd survive off of PB &J. Wait, give me a minute, he just messaged me.

Oh dear, he just wrote: "I will survive the day and we will go out to dinner." Like I really thought he wouldn't survive. I grew up in the woods. Ugh, the guy who doesn't believe in anything just emailed and asked, "How many atheists have you ever sat down with and talked with?" I have nothing against Atheists, but gee, that sounds like a fun date, why don't we talk about Obamacare while we're at it.  Oh and a new one just wrote: "I like how you cook." Seriously, I've never cooked for him. But his profile says he likes shining the chrome on his fixtures, likes the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, spends a lot of time thinking about quantum physics, the perfect breakfast, or why people drive slow in the fast lane. Sounds funny. I'll message him back. Plus, he knows how to spell.

Bye,
Jen