Tales from the KC Dating Scene...

Now that I have left Kansas City in a cloud of dust (with a fifty cent lighter and a whisky buzz…) I feel that it is time to reveal some of my dating stories from my time in the Cowtown. I think there just might be enough distance between myself and the land of barbecue that it is now safe to tell the tales. Names have been changed to protect the slightly less guilty. Also, if these stories do not automatically get me cast in The Pick Up Artist 3 nothing will.

The first tale: The Dark Knight Returns

Like all good stories, this one begins in a bar which for me was Harry’s, easily the best bar outside of the Linebacker that I have ever found. What I loved about the place is that it was a bar plain and simple. No décor, no shot girls wandering around, no mechanical bull left over from the urban cowboy phase in the seventies, just a bar and some tables and some music on an iPod. It was the type of place where you could just head in, take a seat at the bar, and spend the entire night drinking, thinking and people watching. And that is precisely what I did most weekends for five straight years. When I told them I was moving they had to adjust their budget.

Well on this night I was in my usual seat at the corner of the bar, joking with Jim the Bartender (one of my New Orleans compatriots) and trying to understand just why Sprint had sent me to Seattle and back where my main accomplishment was a) not falling asleep during any of the meetings and b) getting really good seats to Cirque du Soleil. It had started off as a really standard night when these two girls walked in and sat next to me.

Now for the most part, I tend not to start conversations in bars. I’ll engage in them of course, it’s not like I just sit around and drink morosely in a corner, but I tend not to open sets. However, in this case the girls were talkative and were discussing area bars so I joined the conversation. I found out that the two girls were sisters and I found myself talking to…let’s call her Alison because I have a fun story about a girl named Alison from Australia that I should tell one of these days.

So I’m talking to Alison when several guys of the striped shirt and Abercrombie and Fitch wardrobe variety all begin a valiant attempt to pick up her sister. Valiant in the manner of being horrible and pathetic. Much of what I talk about with Alison is how bad these guys’ game is and how it is never going to work. This goes on for an hour where I mention that I a) just flew in from Seattle, b) was in the fourth row at Cirque and c) didn’t pay a dime for any of it all while Jim the Bartender is taking care of our drinks for me. Finally her sister discourages the guys enough to leave her alone as it is time for them to go and Alison asks me “I would really like to keep talking to you.” My reply…

“Here is my card. My cell phone number is on it. Give me a call if you want.”

Now there is still much debate as to whether or not that is a proper move on my part. I am very fond of it for a number of reasons. First, it dispels any of the potential stalker fears that a girl might have. I can’t call you so you’re in control at the moment and if you really do like me you will call. More importantly, it means that I will not have to endure the following scenario. The girl gives me her number. Two days later I call her and leave a message on her voice mail. Four days after that I call and leave her another message on her voice mail. A week later I leave one last half-court shot message on her voice mail with the hope that maybe, just maybe, she will acknowledge my existence, which of course she won’t so I’ll just spend three weeks moping around thinking about how big of a loser I am. At least if I give her my number I won’t have to go through the whole Swingers scenario.

So what happens next? Not surprisingly, a few days later she gives me a call. I say not surprisingly because we did hit it off really well and I wanted to talk to her some more but mainly because she mentioned that she was about to turn thirty and that immediately raised a red light over my head. In Kansas City if you are not married by the time you are twenty five you are viewed quizzically. To turn thirty and not be dating someone, well, that is just setting yourself up to be a social pariah. We talk some more, set up another meeting at Harry’s during the week, have another really fun conversation and decide to go out on Friday night for what would be considered a proper date.

Her suggestion as to what we should do on this proper date? Play miniature golf. Now I understand that this is a rather cliché thing to do on a date, especially a first date, but in my entire life I never went miniature golfing on a date. Not even when I was in high school and my options were rather limited. Given that I can now legally drink I’ve always assumed that the ability to imbibe in beverages in order to avoid awkward silences is recommended if not actually required. Instead we played at a rather downtrodden course, rescued a dog that had gotten loose on the street, ended up in a bar (thankfully) and finished the night in a vaguely romantic fashion.

(Look, I’ll explain a lot of things here but not everything. For some parts you will just have to use your imagination.)

I was feeling pretty good about myself as to how all of this was progressing. Remember I met her by pointing out how all the guys were doing a horrible job hitting on her sister and by not hitting on her I had ended up dating her. Now we were talking regularly and we had plans to meet up right before her birthday so I could take her out to dinner and celebrate. Which we did and had another good night. So she turned thirty and had a guy like myself with all that entails if not wrapped around her finger at least highly interested.

However, I knew we were going to have to spend a little time apart as right after her birthday I was heading down to New Orleans to do some volunteer work. This was a huge event for me. My love for New Orleans is pretty well known and this was my chance to help after Katrina. I joked with myself that just wait I’ll come back and everything will have changed. But come on, you’re dating a guy who is using his vacation time to rehab homes of complete strangers. How rare of a find is that?

My time in New Orleans was life changing I came back full of stories to tell. I call Alison, get her voice mail, and leave a message. A few days later I leave another message. And then a week later I leave another one. Finally, she calls me, tells me that she has been incredibly busy and we talk for a while and set up a theoretical meeting some point in the future. A week later we randomly meet at the bar, talk for a bit, we do one of those vague friendly hugs, she heads out to the patio to be with her friend, and I contemplate following her out later but decide discretion is the better part of valor and decide to not hover about her.

A month or so passes. I leave a few messages on her voice mail but never hear anything back. I’m not calling every day or anything. Maybe every two weeks. She had said nothing to me other than she was really busy and that she really enjoyed spending time with me. But let’s face it, even I could tell that this one was kaput. However, in a million years I never would have expected the following to happen.

I had taken a Friday off from work just so I could have a long weekend. As a result, I headed over to Harry’s on a Thursday night. When I walked into the bar I was immediately met by someone who looked much like a member of the Insane Clown Posse. That person was flanked by a fat guy in a suit and someone in a Robin costume. It took a little while but when the guy in the Batman costume turned around I figured out that for some reason there were a group of people in Harry’s dressed like the cast of Batman (including Joker and Penguin). I walk past the comic book characters, say hi to Jeremy the Bartender, and as I am about to sit down in my regular corner stool I realize that sitting at a table is Alison joking with a bunch of her friends. They are the only other people in the bar.

I went through the following thought process as Jeremy put my Boulevard Wheat in front of me.

“Shit”
“Ok, so I have the cast of Batman to my left and the girl who won’t return my calls to my right. What should I do?”
“I can’t leave the bar. Jeremy knows me and if I leave after one beer, especially when I’ve told him that I’m not working tomorrow, he’ll know something is wrong.”
“I can’t stay where I’m sitting right now because this is just the freakiest thing in the world. I mean, is that guy actually dressed as Mr. Freeze?”
“I can’t go over to her table and say hi because there is not a single sentence that I could say in that situation that would not lead to something really bad happening.”
“The patio bar should be open. Jamie will be working and she always knows what to do.”

So I down my beer quickly, tell Jeremy that I’m heading outside and flee. Jamie is working and when I tell her about the cast of Batman she just looks me dead in the eye and goes “I don’t serve superheroes.” While I’m sitting there we are randomly joined by one of my favorite people on the planet in Heather the Bartender who had moved to Chicago earlier in the year and was just in town for the weekend. I had a mad crush on Heather and she served me more free drinks than anyone else in Kansas City. As I told her once, I wasn’t sure if she loved me or if she wanted to kill me. Heather and I spend the next few hours talking and when I finally leave I glance through the window on the way out and still see Alison sitting at the table. And I hoped, or maybe wished, that she had stepped outside to talk to me only to see me embracing a beautiful redhead.

You can guess the ending of the story from here. I left one last message for Alison, which I ended with “give me a call or if not, have fun.” I never heard from or saw her again. It still bothers me that it ended with, well, nothing. She just stopped talking to me. Treated me like I didn’t exist. I felt I deserved a little more than that. At least if she called me an asshole I would know that I had done something wrong. So that was that. Except…

A few weeks after the whole Batman night was my birthday. A few days later I came back to my apartment to find sitting in front of my apartment door a small Styrofoam food container housing a piece of pound cake with whipped cream as well as a bag of trail mix and candy wrapped with a nice ribbon. No note, no card, no explanation whatsoever. It was just sitting there right in front of my door. In five years of living in that apartment in Kansas City it is without a doubt the strangest thing that I ever came across.

To this day I have no idea who it was from. Maybe it was meant as a welcome gift from a new neighbor. But in my gut I really like to think that it was Alison. She was one of the few people who actually knew where I lived, when my birthday was, and who would have a reason to do such a thing. Maybe it was her way to try to have the whole situation end on a happier note. Even if it wasn’t her I’ll think of it that way. I’d rather have it be a meaningful attempt at reconnection than a random stranger leaving food at my doorstep.