#NerdsUnite: Online dating confessions w. your host @datestable (Valentine’s VSOP)
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Datestable. Thats obvi not his real name, but what he chooses to go by in the on that there thing called the "internet." He's super chill, super smart, and super freaking nerdy. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT DATESTABLE!!! </editorsnote>
Happy post-Valentine’s Day, the aptly named Hump Day for those of you not occupying your local Wall Street! As you wake up from your chocolate/obligatory sex hangover (or that pitcher of loneliness and vodka punch you brewed after falling asleep in front of a Glee/New Girl double feature…or whatever you kids TiVo these days), I reflect on an epic Tuesday night spent with my greatest current love…my parents. In the spirit of cheese and alternative interpretation of Valentine’s (read: I don’t have a date and want to have a normal Tuesday, except everything I do will be interpreted as an attempt to compensate for not having a date and feigning indifference even though my soul is crying, but I really truly don’t care even though I can’t definitively prove it to the world and damn it there’s no winning here) …where was I? Oh yeah, so I decided to go to invite my parents to the movies. I felt bad about neglecting them of late (full disclosure: like any good Russian Jew, I live in the same county as Mom and Dad), plus my dad has some tough medical issues to deal with in the short term, so I decided a little quality time was in order.
Of course, Tuesdays means Optimum Rewards Day for Mom and Dad (apparently Cablevision/Optimum entice customers by giving away movie tickets for Tuesday matinees), and I decided to take them up on a long-standing offer and finally see The Descendants. I sprinted from my office, high atop MSG, where the latest episode of Linsanity was streaming live, to Clearview Chelsea Cinemas. With only minutes until previews, my dad was sweetly waiting by the ticket taker with my comp ticket. I grabbed it and advised him of the “will call” option. I entered a barely half-full theater (the beauty of an early-evening show on a random weeknight). My parents reserved two short rows (I had one to myself). I was told to sit in the corner with the boys (my dad and his friend Ed). I offered to go buy some popcorn but was immediately waived off. My parents smiled slyly at each other.
“Trust me,” their faces said in unison.
I complied and sat down. As soon as the lights dimmed and the green box of the first trailer lit the screen bright green, an unidentified hand proffered a foil-wrapped package over my shoulder. I wasn’t there to ask questions, especially when starving. The package revealed a cheese sandwich. Next came a little squeeze bottle of Purell®. Wrong sequence, I thought, bits of whole wheat and Danish cheese falling from my mouth, but again I dared not question it. I scarfed down the cheese sandwich and had my next question answered before I completed the thought as another foil package was extended to me—this time it was a delicious chicken cutlet with a sweet honey glaze. Then I heard Ed’s voice summoning me from behind:
“Cognac or vodka?”
Now, this is a very welcome ritual, and a familiar one from several yacht outings I’ve been invited to by my dad and his friend. But I didn’t expect him to bring a portal bar to the movies. Suddenly my mom’s guilty smiles and broken insinuations when I entered the theater made sense. I refused but Ed wasn’t having it. I also understood why I’d been assigned to the men’s corner. Without hesitation, I took the rather elegant shot glass and downed what turned out to be a pretty damn rarefied and tasty cognac (and I’m no fiend). Ed was ready to pour another but I preempted him, prompted by visions of narcolepsy cutting short a movie I actually wanted to be awake for.
I’m not sure what happened behind me. Suffice it to say I’d be shocked if Dad and Ed had any intention to come home with cognac in their pockets. Toward the end of this rather long and somewhat underwhelming Alexander Payne flick, I heard some sobs from the back and for some reason associated them with Ed. When we left, my mom was visibly upset and scolded both me and herself for bringing someone about to undergo neurosurgery to a movie whose plot surrounds a woman vegetating in a hospital. “At least it wasn’t a documentary about tumors,” I offered.
We walked out into another cold New York evening, and walked toward the subway past half-empty restaurants and against a stream of rushing girls glued to their smartphones and dudes last-minute-shopping for sex-salvaging flowers.
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Datestable
Happy post-Valentine’s Day, the aptly named Hump Day for those of you not occupying your local Wall Street! As you wake up from your chocolate/obligatory sex hangover (or that pitcher of loneliness and vodka punch you brewed after falling asleep in front of a Glee/New Girl double feature…or whatever you kids TiVo these days), I reflect on an epic Tuesday night spent with my greatest current love…my parents. In the spirit of cheese and alternative interpretation of Valentine’s (read: I don’t have a date and want to have a normal Tuesday, except everything I do will be interpreted as an attempt to compensate for not having a date and feigning indifference even though my soul is crying, but I really truly don’t care even though I can’t definitively prove it to the world and damn it there’s no winning here) …where was I? Oh yeah, so I decided to go to invite my parents to the movies. I felt bad about neglecting them of late (full disclosure: like any good Russian Jew, I live in the same county as Mom and Dad), plus my dad has some tough medical issues to deal with in the short term, so I decided a little quality time was in order.
Of course, Tuesdays means Optimum Rewards Day for Mom and Dad (apparently Cablevision/Optimum entice customers by giving away movie tickets for Tuesday matinees), and I decided to take them up on a long-standing offer and finally see The Descendants. I sprinted from my office, high atop MSG, where the latest episode of Linsanity was streaming live, to Clearview Chelsea Cinemas. With only minutes until previews, my dad was sweetly waiting by the ticket taker with my comp ticket. I grabbed it and advised him of the “will call” option. I entered a barely half-full theater (the beauty of an early-evening show on a random weeknight). My parents reserved two short rows (I had one to myself). I was told to sit in the corner with the boys (my dad and his friend Ed). I offered to go buy some popcorn but was immediately waived off. My parents smiled slyly at each other.
“Trust me,” their faces said in unison.
I complied and sat down. As soon as the lights dimmed and the green box of the first trailer lit the screen bright green, an unidentified hand proffered a foil-wrapped package over my shoulder. I wasn’t there to ask questions, especially when starving. The package revealed a cheese sandwich. Next came a little squeeze bottle of Purell®. Wrong sequence, I thought, bits of whole wheat and Danish cheese falling from my mouth, but again I dared not question it. I scarfed down the cheese sandwich and had my next question answered before I completed the thought as another foil package was extended to me—this time it was a delicious chicken cutlet with a sweet honey glaze. Then I heard Ed’s voice summoning me from behind:
“Cognac or vodka?”
Now, this is a very welcome ritual, and a familiar one from several yacht outings I’ve been invited to by my dad and his friend. But I didn’t expect him to bring a portal bar to the movies. Suddenly my mom’s guilty smiles and broken insinuations when I entered the theater made sense. I refused but Ed wasn’t having it. I also understood why I’d been assigned to the men’s corner. Without hesitation, I took the rather elegant shot glass and downed what turned out to be a pretty damn rarefied and tasty cognac (and I’m no fiend). Ed was ready to pour another but I preempted him, prompted by visions of narcolepsy cutting short a movie I actually wanted to be awake for.
I’m not sure what happened behind me. Suffice it to say I’d be shocked if Dad and Ed had any intention to come home with cognac in their pockets. Toward the end of this rather long and somewhat underwhelming Alexander Payne flick, I heard some sobs from the back and for some reason associated them with Ed. When we left, my mom was visibly upset and scolded both me and herself for bringing someone about to undergo neurosurgery to a movie whose plot surrounds a woman vegetating in a hospital. “At least it wasn’t a documentary about tumors,” I offered.
We walked out into another cold New York evening, and walked toward the subway past half-empty restaurants and against a stream of rushing girls glued to their smartphones and dudes last-minute-shopping for sex-salvaging flowers.