Post 74: What is worse than a blind date?

Post 74: What is worse than a blind date?







On a very very hot and humid evening in Tel Aviv, some really nice and talented people got together to celebrate a friend's birthday. The location wasn't ideal and apart from M for men, the other 3 Ms that accompanied them were rather unbearable: Mugginess, mud, and mosquitoes.






The fire of the campfire kept the mosquitoes away, for the most part (most also starts with the letter m, but who is counting?) but it really was too hot for a fire. As I got a lift and didn't have to take a bus, I mustered the initiative to bring two straw mats (known as machtzelot in Hebrew. Read "Me and my machtzelet" to find out why this is (usually) a good idea).





(Ok, this is what happens when you read Dr. Suess's ABC book too many times...)





The advantage to this evening was the darkness. People can't usually tell my age or see the pimples or cold sores on my face. I actually felt and looked nice this evening, despite the enviromental factors. A guy named Meir started talking to me and despite the fact, that I usually prefer dating divorced men with children, and not bachelors, I decided to stay near him because he was a guitar player, and not a bad one at that. Plus, I had brought my guitar which I lent him. I am always amazed by the sounds semiprofessional guitar players manage to emit from my guitar. I don't do my Japanese guitar sufficient justice. So I wonder if Meir would have taken my number at the end of the evening if he didn't break my guitar string. Not only was he a guitar player, but a guitar teacher.





The next day, sure enough, Meir calls me at work and we arranged that I'd go with him on his motorcycle into Tel Aviv to have coffee and pick up my new guitar string. I hadn't been on a motorcycle for years, so this was fun. We sat at a quiet coffee house in north Tel Aviv and perused our menus. The first thing Meir did was take out a large MP3 player, or a small boom box that plays MP3s....not sure about the correct term for this device. The coffee house didn't have any background music, so why not? Ok, I thought...stramge. but at least we have similar tastes in music. I asked the waitress about the iced coffees. Meir didn't listen at all and repeated my questions. He told me that he didn't consume any sugar except for natural sugar and took out a box of dates. He did order a cup of coffee and laid the box of dates on the table. He offered the waitress and me a few dates. I actually expected him to bring out his own cutlery and coffee mug, but to my relief, he didn't.





It was obvious that Meir had some sort of communication problem, but when we spoke about music, it was ok. I learned that despite him having travelled all over the world, his English wasn't very good. You see, in Hebrew, the word "date" is tamar in Hebrew so I'm sure that he didn't understand the irony.



So what's worse than a blind date, this writer asks? She's been on many dates, but this is the first one where her date brought his own dates along.