For all the planning and plotting you put into dating in New York, every now and then you realize how little it has to do with actual chemistry.
I’m still walking on air after a mad romantic encounter last week. I smile and smirk whenever I think of it. It made me feel like I was on vacation.
The night began innocently enough when I popped into Langan’s, my work bar, to send off a co-worker who was leaving. I had planned on being in bed by 10 but instead got invited to a party at Marquee. Why not, I figured. It was on my way home.
But not long after we arrived at the club, I lost all my friends and ended up standing alone. I was about to take off, when a guy chinked a bottle of water I was holding with his beer.
He had an athletic build and long black hair – but was not particularly my type.
He told me he worked in film and had been a male model in Italy. I was sure he was spinning me a line, and laughed in his face, though I did note his unusual green-blue, almond-shaped eyes.
He turned out to be great company, so I walked outside with him when he went to smoke a cigarette.
On 10th Avenue it was a hot and steamy evening – my favorite kind. We stood around on the corner of 27th Street, and I couldn’t helping thinking how cool it was kicking back with an exotic stranger, with the atmospheric industrial backdrop of the old iron High Line behind us.
We talked about tattoos. I demanded to see his – a row of ancient symbols across the top of his smooth, muscular back. They meant something cheesy, like “heart and soul,” he told me. I teased him mercilessly.
He went on to tell me he’d been adopted by a Navajo Indian family and had a ton of big sisters. This made him suddenly rather appealing – though again, I was wondered if this too was a line.
We were laughing about something, then he suddenly said: “I know this is totally insane, but I really want to kiss you.”
I felt an overwhelming desire to kiss him, too.
But for a moment I paused. We’d known each other exactly 10 minutes – and it would be seriously tacky to start making out with some random guy outside a club.
Then my spirit of adventure asked me: Why the hell not?
When our mouths met, it was one of those kisses you hope for every time you kiss a guy – and rarely get. One where someone else’s biology feels totally in tune to your own. It was the kind of kiss that makes you want to keep kissing, for hours and hours and hours.
Which we probably would have done if we hadn’t been interrupted by two Norwegian tourists looking for directions to a good nightspot.
So we went back into the club. I was at an utter loss for words over our intense moment. All I wanted to do was take him home and shag his brains out.
I kept thinking – would that be a cheap and whorish thing to do? Or was it just the kind of exciting thing a single girl should do when she lives in New York?
When you strike gold and find chemistry with someone, should you throw out your principles and give in to instinct?
Of course, I also wondered, was this guy a huge player with those cheesy lines?
And if so, did I care?
In the end, decorum won out, and we refrained from hotfooting it home. Instead we walked hand in hand to find the Norwegian tourists and make sure they were having a good time. We kissed for the rest of the night.
By 3 a.m., the idea of going home with a stranger didn’t seem like such a good idea. So I went to sleep alone in a daze and woke wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing.
But I got an email from him the next day to say thanks for a great night. We didn’t make any plans.
Would I like to see him again? I’m reluctant, because I fear the myth would be blown. Sometimes, I reckon, a perfectly brilliant encounter should stay that way.