The Musician and the Mathematician [new guest post!]

An NYC-dwelling friend of mine -- let's call her Philomena -- recently filled me in on the ups and downs of the singles scene in the big city. Here's a story worthy of a DD post, to be sure.

I am smart. I am funny. But I am not the girl that normally grabs every man's attention in a bar. I kind of like it that way because I can sit there, enjoy my beverage with friends, and blend in just enough as to not get bothered by every meat head in a pub. I also can strike up pleasant conversations. These conversations go along nicely and then it comes up that I work (and enjoy working in and listening to) classical music and that can be a conversation killer. Either the guy assumes that that makes me boring and works himself out of the conversation or he thinks it is great and then says that he "used to play the trombone in middle school and wishes he stuck with it" or that he "loves listening to classical music when he relaxes/reads/studies" and when asked what he listens to it is something that I (admittedly on my high horse) judges as a cop-out way of impressing me with fake classical music knowledge. (Who really listens to "The Nutcracker" or the "Moonlight Sonata" all the time? Give me something off beat like "Jenufa." Or, if you're going to say Tchaikovsky, give me Pathétique. If you are going to say Beethoven, give me Fidelio or Waldstein.) I fully admit I'm a judger.

By now in my life, I have been in enough pubs that I can kind of assess situations like when I or one of my friends is being checked out by a sketchy person, when to intervene... etc. You know, the usual. So one evening, a group of girl friends of mine went out to one of our favorite little no-frills bars to catch up since we hadn't seen each other in a month or so. At some point, I realized that I was being shadowed by a kind of nerdy, sketchy guy and I just was not in the mood to mingle. I was out with friends and enjoying their company, so I went into avoidance mode. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of where my shadow was and turned around only to come face to face with him.

Now, in this split second, I thought, "I need to shut this down." I came up with a plan, thinking that I could just lay out what is usually one of the deal breakers (boring classical music) and point blank said "Listen, I'm really boring. I work in classical music." I was so proud of my quick thinking for a hot second until my plan backfired.

Without hesitation he said, "I'm a mathematician."

(Touché. Far more boring than I will ever be.)

And I was stuck talking about fractals for the rest of the evening.

Disaster.

When You Wish Upon a Starbucks

Depending upon the exact location, walking into a Starbucks can be an adventure for the young, single, middle-class-with-upper-class-pretensions woman who is at least mildly educated. There are always at least a couple of guys sitting alone or waiting in line, and if she's having a good day and is at least average-looking, one of them might check her out when she walks in the door, or turn his head when she places her order. If she's in a college town or on a university campus, there is the inevitable collection of corduroy-clad grad students, tomes in hand, spending their meager stipends on caffeination. (Those who prefer men with a more financially stable future should head toward the java joints located near law or med schools, as I discovered this morning.)

Starbucks stores located in urban areas are preferable, as there is one on every block anyway, so the sheer turnover of customers in one day is exponentially higher, both in number and in variety. Instead of being limited to the new generation of literati or up-and-coming moneymakers, she can also meet Usual Guys With Usual Jobs, or someone altogether different.

But if she lives in suburbia, as I do, picking up a fella in Starbucks is far riskier. She is generally limited to two characters: Moved-Back-In-With-His-Parents-After-College Guy, ie. the barista; or, far more often, The Middle-Aged-Man With A Business Suit And Wandering Eyes [often divorced but even more usually married]. Mr. Business Suit will oh-so-graciously hold the door for her, or even allow her to cut in front of him in line, trapping her in his net of smooth but not-so-witty banter and surprise over their newly discovered mutual love of coffee.

I know all of these things when I walk into a Starbucks, a Panera, or any other place selling legal addictive stimulants that's been deemed hip. Yet I'm still always surprised when something like this happen, as it did this morning: