Poems About Internet Dating

[Made a comment to a date about “the artlessness of undisguised enthusiasm.” He: “Is there really no such thing as artful enthusiasm? That would be sad.” The next day I wrote this.****]

Selected Artful Enthusiasms of Michelmas Van Der Boten

1. Following a mishap with the fondue, six (6) rose bushes brushed with turpentine and set on fire at five-minute intervals, in honor of his mother’s natal day.

2. Assorted giraffes of papier mache and wire deposited on the doorstep of Miss Clement (third grade teacher) by the light of a gibbous moon.

3. (Destroyed*) “Portrait of Elana Hutu, Aged 10.” Salt & flour on Formica.

4. Theft (in 2” vertical sections, stealthily jigsawed) of the Madonna and Child panel from the Church of Our Lady of the Wayward Lamb, their reassembly and subsequent presentation to a singularly unappreciative Elana Hutu.

5. Successful separation and approximately equidistant arrangement on the carpet of 194 3mm-long, 0.5mm-thick magnetized stainless steel diamonds, as documented by Dr. Charles Fenton, PhD, LMFT. The following syllables were also uttered: “Nn.” “Fffft.” “Puh.”

6. (Attributed) Rhymed pentametric declaration of love as recited to Elana Hutu upon rumors of the successful termination of her pregnancy by the widely beloved AP English Teacher whom she insisted on referring to, then and in the future, as “Jack.”**

7. “Women Bathing.” Digital photographs of various female residents of Spencer House, in particular one Elana Hutu. Property of the Swarthmore College Office of Student Affairs.

8. “Grace & Disgrace in the Still-Developing Biography of Elana Hutu.” Undergraduate Honors thesis.***

9. (See Fig. 2) Hand-crocheted lace veil to be worn by Elana Hutu on the occasion of her wedding to the venal and handsome Zed Spiska. Note elaborate carrot detail at edging.

10. “Thirty-two Minutes for Thirty-two Degrees.” 32-minute interpretive dance for Elana Hutu as she waited one February night by the side of SR-77, weeks after her divorce, for AAA to come change her tire.

11. “I Do Not Fear Your Restraining Order, Elana.” Short film. Property of the New Hampshire State Police.

12. “Man’s Death Via Malfunctioning Handmade Automaton Declared Suicide.” The Concord Monitor. We might here debate causality. The elliptical and the inevitable and so forth.

13. Let us include in Michelmas’s oeuvre Elana’s memories of same, scant as her comment was after the fact. We’ll respect her privacy and infer her lament. Or hope for it—even if (to paraphrase Michelmas’s journals) reflection was not her wont. By then he was a realist, though he never wore it well.

-

* Mrs. Van Der Boten was, by all accounts, a vigilant housekeeper
** his real name
*** not approved for degree consideration
**** but did not send it to him, for fear of seeming too enthusiastic

Happy hour.

Sometimes you are wrong about things. Like when you walk in and think
no way he’s it—blonde, baby fat, sweaty palms—
then spend the next hour
laughing. Suicide comedy. Mars colonies. Favorite absurd hypotheses
in current psychological research. (If there were silences,
you blotted them out.)

I remember the curb
I stood on then, meaning the hug but fearing a kiss—which didn’t come,
not yet.

Sometimes you are wrong about things another time over,
like three months in, thinking that first date
might be the last one on this blog. Turns out you are
quite taken.

The hoped-for happy ending. I worried it
like teeth.

Sometimes, sometime later, having revised, then reversed
the revision, you recognize you were right but for the wrong reasons.

Because it is the last one.

Having reached the end, what’s left,
really, to say. Where’s the sense in it. There was whiskey. One minute
he’s picking the piping on the bench
as you try not to watch. Then sparkle then
what.
We all know what. You’re bleeding all over the clamshell packaging
for your sweet and clever design.

(Never quite
got it open. Too blunt,
or it slipped.)

A happy ending shines its opening hour by proxy.
Failure’s roots lead backwards
into any old night of the week.

Friends, strangers, daters.

So, as you’ve likely noticed (or perhaps haven’t, if you’re online right now instead of cooking or eating?), it’s Thanksgiving. In honor of that, I wanted to express my gratitude to all of you for reading.

I’ve heard from so many of you—people I met yesterday, people I haven’t seen for years, exes, good friends, friends of those friends, total strangers—and the kind and unexpected feedback you’ve sent my way has been amazing to receive. I started this blog because I was expending so much time and energy going on these dates—going on them, recovering from them, analyzing them—and I needed a way to try to catch some of that energy instead of just having it all just pour through the bottom. I honestly had no clue these experiences would resonate so much with other people. And if I may be syrupy and candid (tis the season, right?), learning that has been an incredible gift for me as an artist and as a person.

Now. Since I am thanking you, I think I should also warn you that next week is going to be the last entry in this blog… at least for awhile.

I’ll miss it a lot—I suppose it’s one of life’s perfect ironies that keeping a blog about internet dating has been such a delight when the dating itself has been, you know. When you read next week, you’ll see why it has to stop… and you can draw your own conclusions about whether it’s the end of the whole series, or just a season finale. Right now even I don’t know the answer to that.

I’ll take your questions following the presentation.

In the meantime, a million thanks. Seriously. Wow. Thank you.

Love and happy thanksgiving,

P.A.I.D.

(oh right, and this)

Both logic and heavy foreshadowing suggest your “type”
includes this hapless vessel for existential dread.
(A fellow minstrel. Who is King?)

Night after night
he lifts the sill to call the monsters.
In they pour, all corpse-breath
and fang: Closet-dwellers. Underbed
lurkers. Creepers, keeners, pounders-on-doors.

A game, you tell yourself—you trust
his skill. He spent years gaining the knack for the nick of time, the turn,
the on-a-dime dick joke
that beats them back.

Delightful, no question. But keep that guard up—
this tests agility, not strength. You should check
his other performances. (Also,

your contract: Some night
you’ll be a monster.)

This blog is getting predictable. I’m back online
(something about hope & eternity,
or was it repetition
& insanity?) and now I open with directions.

Please check your profile or disposition
against the listed non-starters:
Rage, possessiveness, paralysis,
hypochondria, egomania, self-hatred,
inchoate or long-nursed resentments,
financial incompetence, crisis addiction, apathy,
violence, and bad tipping.

In addition, I require, in deadly earnest:
purpose, openness. Some modicum
of confidence. The desire to support
and be supported. Obviously,
literacy.

And that’s my profile, all setup, no punchline? 
No such luck—I can’t resist the joke. Can’t spill my guts
sans undercut,

so here it is (incision, rider, and valve): Comedians

equipped with aforementioned dysfunction—entertain me,
and we’ll talk.

If you go on enough of these things,
you’ll finally show up to one drunk.
Not that you planned to—something came up: karaoke, your ex,
that fuck it feeling. Courtesy would suggest cancelling,
but you were doing that stupid dance with the shaker
and she hates raising her voice.

That’s right, you’re an asshole. Congratulations and cheers:
As you can see, in here it’s all quite dandy. Plenty of room, all-new
upholstery, Dolby surround. You could have a dog named Dolby!
At 8 are cigars and backgammon.
If you insist on maintaining some recreational stake
in kindness, please observe its sorry lifecycles through the glass.
so why is it smiling

But look here; Jeeves has got his head stuck in the ice bucket again!!!
Hide my profile for awhile? Don’t mind if
I do.

Remember the one I skipped due to dating saturation?
We took turns. After I cancelled, he cancelled. Then we each did again.
And both gave up. Or so I thought, until he appeared,
and idled awhile in sight.

I call.
We meet. First for coffee, which fails 
to mutually dissuade us.

Now for drinks.

He’s classic late-middle twenties: broke, aspiring, assured
it’s a phase. He made us swap work! (I skimmed.)
His prose has a pretty face; what it needs
is a wasting disease. 

I’m prepared to allow him
to surmount this.

Talk turns—as it will—to what we’re doing.
And its odds. Nearly all who’ve tried it find the jackpot  
plausible; we’re also all
about to quit. Tonight: same house, same dealer.

Oh, who do we think we’re fooling? The house is on fire, the dealer left
in a funk. We’ve each brought
our lucky deck (what we call the pile that lost us
the last one). He deals next,

face up: I usually go for crazy girls,
but I like you, and you don’t seem
crazy. Please

tell me which of us this utterance
more roundly condemns.

Right. It’s no kind of game.

Stiffness & Fatigue
are two common symptoms of overexertion and may also indicate
“something autoimmune”
(my favorite symbolic affliction). Here they represent this date.
Need I clarify, I’m Fatigue. And he’s—

Now, now. Don’t dive straight for the gutter; I wasn’t there; what I mean is he’s
English. And Oxfordesque, our shared tongue ungainly
beside his private speech. Ruskin. Cricket. Sonata.

It’s our second date and Stiffness, bless him, planned it. What he overlooked
was drink. (Credit to wine for being so self-effacing,
hiding its fine machine-work
for date number one. Still,
I wouldn’t have made this mistake.)

Stiffness dines like a dog surprised
by an invitation to tea. Eager, yes, but tense.
Transfixed by forks.
No yelping. (No yelping!)

The exertion of small talk
and whether there’s food in our teeth.

And next, to the theatre, where many over-50 
attendees laugh long,
and heartily. He faces perfectly forward throughout.
I jog a matched distance
in conjecture:

Does the anxiety come off with the clothes? Do I even want to know?
Does he want me to? Is he miserable? The play lets out
after midnight; we walk to where I parked.
He: Would I like to come back to his place

for dessert? There’s my answer, I suppose, if I’m hungry—whether for sweets,
or euphemism, or further metaphor.
A revelation,
perhaps.
But I’m just
so tired.

(In lieu of a poem, an at-a-glance guide.)

“I gave up my car a year ago”

It broke and for six months sat outside his old apartment, even after he moved. The city has billed him for its disposal. He ignores their notices.

*

“I sold my car and have been getting to know the city by bike”
(architect edition)

It’s not that he’s classist—but desperation spoils the view. Besides, Los Feliz wants for little. His ideal mate? Sinewy, “attractive.” Willing to drive to LACMA.

*

“I sold my car and have been getting to know the city by bike”
(vegan edition)

The car was sold out of fiscal necessity, the meat renounced to lend said sale a look of deliberateness. As a twofold pain in the ass, he’s asked to dinner less often. Much expenditure has thus been avoided.

*

“ ”

But he walked here. And he lives across town. He’ll wait until the second date to mention the DUI. Add “waiting for a cab” to any possible date scenario; consider that sum.

*

“I don’t have a car but I live downtown”

On a map downtown looks like a place one might live. Which means he had no one to inform him otherwise. Q: What is Los Angeles? A: Fine for now. (And you’ll do, too. See also: The Rule of Grad Students)

*

“kinda broke so no car at the moment”

Such frank speech—is it brave or is it shameless? SWM seeks Netflix with benefits. Might suit you fine, depending.

*

Run, don’t walk is a thing people say.
I say drive.

Our mothers never criticized us ironically enough. They didn’t know
only irony’s edge could cleanly part the membrane of our self-regard.
Give the gift of seizure.

So let’s talk teachable moments. I’d resolved to start messaging
cuter men. Half the city schlepped a rucksack packed with entitlement;
why fear beauty?
For my first venture, a tall, soulful-eyed specimen
from Tennessee—a writer—
whose profile was unpretentious yet error-free.

He actually phoned to make our date. The hills around my house thwart
reception (and with it, most intent); his accent shambled past the static.
A proper drawl. Adorable.
Then around 6 p.m. on a Sunday fact ploughs headlong into fantasy
and guess who’s driving, that asshole…

The point is, something was the matter, namely
his teeth.
Not just a little bit bad, bad like You could make good
as a hillbilly character actor bad.
Or, finer: I can never put my mouth near your mouth

no I’m not proud, but oh,

the long & wretched minutes. From somewhere across them he calls me “sweet”;
it’s just that I have manners. The sweetness he sees is his own.
Behind my mirror it’s me and mine, and we’re terrible company, clearly…

And released! (the nick of time, my hands shaking) Okay irony, you’re so smart,
tell me how to make the fate box work.
I put all this fucking money in. I’m going to kick it now.
This is me kicking it.