“Well, it’s a long drive back to Broadview,” she says. “I’ll talk to you soon.” And she pivots and walks out.
I reach into the breast pocket of my suit jacket to fish out my wallet, and I realize that I never gave her the mix CD.
By the time I get home, I have replayed the whole scene in my head, and I am frantic. Joy thought I wanted to have sex with her, and she wigged out. I didn’t want to have sex with her. I told her that. She didn’t understand what I was saying.
And then there was that last line: “I’ll talk to you soon.”
She’s just not that into me.
I make a bold decision: I am not going to watch Dragnet tonight. I don’t have the energy for it.
It’s too bad, too, because the fourth episode of the first season, “The Interrogation,” is not just one of my favorites, it is my favorite. Kent McCord plays a rookie cop named Paul Culver who is mistaken for a liquor store robber while on undercover duty, and Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon, now working in internal affairs, try to wring the truth out of him: Did he rob that liquor store or not?
In this episode, which originally aired on February 9, 1967, Sergeant Joe Friday gives a speech that I think should be printed out and passed out to anyone who wants to be a policeman. It goes on for several minutes, and it never gets boring. Paul Culver sits rapt (I love the word “rapt”) as Sergeant Joe Friday tells him that being a cop is hard work, that people don’t treat cops very well, that he will never make very much money, that his uniform will get torn up by bad guys, and that he will write as many words in his career as there are in a library. He tells Paul Culver that he will see things that break his heart and that bad people will try to do bad things to him.
None of it sounds very appealing, but Sergeant Joe Friday says he is proud to be a cop, and in the end, Paul Culver is proud to be a cop, too. Sergeant Joe Friday convinced him that he ought to stick with it, even though Culver got agitated when he was falsely accused of a crime.
Sergeant Joe Friday always says exactly what he wants to say. I wish I were he tonight.
I also take a pass on writing my letter of complaint. I don’t know who the target should be.
Is it I for chasing Joy away? Is it the vintner of the Gewurztraminer for making me burp? Is it Joy for showing up late and overreacting? Is it I for thinking that she overreacted?
I lack the clarity for a letter of complaint.
Internet dating has wrecked all of the things that I rely on.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25
Here are today’s numbers:
Woke up: 7:37 (seventeenth time this year out of 299 days, because it’s a leap year).
Yesterday’s high temperature: forty-four degrees.
Yesterday’s low temperature: twenty-four degrees.
Today’s forecasted high temperature: forty-eight degrees.
But forecasts, as you know by now, are notoriously off base. I shall wait for the facts, which I prefer.
Here’s a fact: I hate online dating.
After breakfast, I log on to Montana Personal Connect one last time to wipe out my account, and I see this:
Inbox (1).
I click the link.
Edward:
I wanted you to know that I am not feeling “the click” factor with you. I dont really know how to explain it but I feel as though we would not be compatable because I felt at Bin 119 that you were not interested in learning anything about me. When I was telling you about my uncle adopting me you said “I burped” and then didn’t follow up on anything about what I was saying regarding just getting to know me. I guess I feel shut down with you and I dont enjoy feeling that way. I am not saying I wouldn’t want to be friends but I dont want to date. Its a different level and I dont feel it with you.
I can’t really put my finger on it and this is just a lame example of what I am trying to say but I am a very intuitive, sensitive (clearly), sensual and “musical” kind of person and you are more a “TV guy” and not as much of those things…and I have met men who are and I am looking more for that because around gardeners I open up and blossom and that’s how I like to experience life.
When you brought up sex, that freaked me out also but Im willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that your nervous about meeting. I was too.
Anyway those are my thoughts and I share them with you with respect and I hope you will understand that this is a gift, to share anything is a gift…and my hope is you will treat it as such. But thats up to you.
I just don’t see us being more than friends and since we live so far apart I don’t see that either.
Sorry.
I don’t keep records on such things, but surely 9:12 a.m. is the earliest I’ve ever written a letter of complaint. I prepare a new green office folder, put a tab titled “Joy” on it, and sit down at the computer to type.
Joy:
Thank you for your e-mail of the twenty-fifth. Please allow me to retort.
First, I don’t know what “the click” factor is.
Second, I burped because of the wine, which I’d never had before and you were insistent that I try.
Third, you spelled “compatible” wrong.
Fourth, you need to learn how to use apostrophes correctly and consistently.
Fifth, I was listening to your story.
Sixth, I don’t know what a “TV guy” is.
Seventh, your note doesn’t feel much like a gift.
Eighth, why say you don’t see us being more than friends and then say you don’t see that, either? It makes no sense.
I print out the letter and file it away, then come back to the computer, pull up Montana Personal Connect again and see this:
Inbox (1).
Edward:
I had high hopes for this. I really did. Dating men in Broadview is so hard because there are only a limited number of cool places to go here and I always run into someone. I am an extremely private person and so I generally like not being around town and the rumor mill. Also I meant to tell you this last night but didn’t and I feel I should now: my first name is actually Annette. I didn’t want to have my real name for my e-mail so I created this account with my middle name. I figure that anyone reasonable will understand and believe me it has kept me safe.
I go back to my files, pull Joy’s folder, take out the tab, and add this to the “Joy” that’s already there: “aka, Annette.”
Then it’s back to the computer for another letter.
Annette:
I am flabbergasted by this latest revelation. I was honest about my name. Why couldn’t you do the same? Frankly, I find that our correspondence has taken an ugly turn. Please refrain from contacting me further.
I file the second letter, then put the green office folder back in the filing cabinet and return to the computer.
Inbox (1).
Holy shit!
Edward:
The guy Ive been writing to didn’t show up last night. All in all, you seemed like a nice guy but not easy to talk to in person…for whatever reason. I don’t like having to work this hard at something. Im sorry if my perceptions sting and they may be inaccurate as hell, I’ll give you that.