magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

Cybèle called this evening, said that she was passing through New York as she headed out on tour for a few weeks with some friends from Providence. Asked what I was up to later. 'Nothing special. I can't stay out late because I've got to work tomorrow, but I'd be happy to get dinner or a drink or something.'

She called again when they got to the city. 'We're at an apartment on Avenue B and 5th Street. If you want to meet up somewhere around here.'

'Actually, you're a block from one of the Vegetarian restaurants in the East Village, Kate's Joint, and I'd love to get some food.' She and I and two of her friends from Providence and two friends of one of theirs who live in the city met up at Kate's.

These girls, the two who live in New York, were attractive, designery, mid-twenties, seemed smart and funny. They fit fairly squarely within what I would consider as my potential dating pool of single women in the city. And moreover, I think were fairly typical of that pool at large. And this really scared me.

The way that they talked about dating and parties and meeting people described a world so foreign to anything that I can imagine myself being a part of. It's what I imagine the New York of Sex and the City to have been like (which I'll admit I've never seen), albeit with more drugs and less expensive clothes.

I guess I've always know that my actual pool of potential compatibility is much smaller than what you get with the broad-strokes, vague definition of whatever it is that I'm looking for. But when confronted with, and to a degree alienated by, that larger broad-strokes pool, I worry that I might not even recognize someone who's actually a better fit. What if I'm thrown off by their friends? What if I just read them wrong? What if they've just adopted this public persona because they feel it's what's expected of them, that it's how they are going to have to act to meet people?

Of all the things I love about living in the city, I don't think that it makes dating, or even the prospect of dating, any easier.