Billy Backpfeifengesicht's Handy How-To Guide to Dating

Let's get this out of the way. It's not a drunken typo up there in the title. It's German, because they have all the really good words:

(Oh, the people you'll meet!)

So, say you got the number of a friend-of-friends Susie at a barbecue a while ago, and you've asked to meet up with her for summertime drinks.

It's a good idea for you to text her "Wherever you're feeling, just let me know!" while you're making arrangements - that way you can get a feel for the kind of place she might like, and hey, the pressure's off - you won't be responsible for any flopped locale choice. Women love an easygoing guy who's interested in their preferences.

Has your Susie gotten back to you on the establishment? She has? If she's proffered a hip-but-low-key joint, and an alternative in case you're less into having 20-something amazing local beers on tap and more into food or wine or whatever, then now is the time to shoot both of those down. Do not feel that you need to make any compensatory suggestions of your own. Just include several frowny-faces in your texted response to her voicemail. Women love men who can express their emotions.

After a day of silence, fire up your text-fingers again. Just because a Susie is being a normal grown-ass adult and has broken the talk-barrier by calling you (and speaking with your voicemail), doesn't mean you have to return suit and put on your big-boy pants to call a Susie back. Keep riiiight oooonnn texting. Women love a man who's dependable.

(See above for  recommended "sext-face.")

Ah! So here you are, at your scheduled meetup, because your Susie is a forgiving gal who also sort of has a morbid curiosity about how rom-com-esquely bad a date with you will really be! You've grabbed a patio table, which is a smart move because it's a beautiful day crowded with sun-seeking pedestrians in your city. Do not under any circumstance wave when your Susie strolls up, exactly on time and visibly trying to weed your location out of the melee. If she does not appear to spot you on first scan, give a whistle. A whistle. This will attract any self-respecting woman's attention immediately. After all, dogs are your best friend if you're any kind of MAN, so she should count herself flattered to be addressed in a like manner - women love subtle compliments.

She has located you, navigated the crowd, and is now standing at your table? Wonderful! Do not arise on "hellos," do not even make a cursory attempt to half-stand in salutation, and certainly do not give her a greeting hug or even a handshake. Do not remove your sunglasses. Do not hand her the beer menu you have already perused, sitting idly in front of you. "Gender equality" killed chivalry, amirite brah? Even the genderless type of good old-fashioned civilized human-to-human manners are kind of for little girls and pussies, eh? Instead, since there's no table service out here, let your Susie know what you'd like her to order for you when she goes inside to procure her own pint. Women love feeling needed and competent!

(When she carries back two waters AND two beers, she's just showing off. Don't even comment.)

Ahh, so here we are at the meat of the date: the part where you two will get to know each other with conversation and, if you are lucky, a little witty banter. Wait, did I say lucky? I meant unlucky. Here's how to deal with a joke you don't get or a literary, political, current-event, or pop-culture reference you are going to be clearly a little insecure about having missed: get snotty. No really, don't charm your way outta shit. Just throw out juvenile potty-humor-level comments and try to make it sound like a stupid thing to talk about because you probably know more about it than her anyway, because penis. Women love a man who owns a conversation!

This is your time to shine, and to do so, you must impress her greatly. When she asks what you've been up to since you last socially ran into each other a mere week ago, you should fabricate something humble but believable, like "oh, just... teaching myself new kinds of quantum-math." It's OK if you cannot explain any further, not with a single related vocabulary word, even if she pokes around a little looking for details and seems slightly amused, because trust me, by now you have made enough of an impression that she will for sure quote you verbatim in her blog and besides, girls and math? Ha! Your secret's safe, Einstein. Women love a smart, smart man!

(So maybe you should've been "teaching yourself" "new kinds" of reflexes instead.)

If you really want to heat things up, go for politics, even though she jokingly reminds you it's one of the Big Three to handle with care in polite company.

Universal health care? Living wage? Pay equality? FUCK THAT NObama bullshit. Especially if you're a smug born-into-the-upper-class white dude in America who's pretty much never faced any adversity beyond Ohhh noes beer pong moneys are low and my parents shut off my credit card!, let alone actual systematic discrimination, abuse, harassment, or even any single situation in your entire fucking life where you were not the entitled majority, your scoffingly-certain assertion that these things don't really actually exist for anybody here in the States is sure to make your Susie swoon. You can seal the deal by proudly declaring that you're a social Darwinist oh and also, who even cares (refer back to scoffing approach), but pshhh no, you've never read any Hobbes, Locke, Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, or even, ohhhh say... Darwin. You don't need books because you have sarcasm and volume, so don't get sucked down the hysterical rabbit-hole of socio-economics and history and facts and shit. In fact, don't listen to anything - just keep talking. Women love a man with strong convictions.

(I'd like to solve and say "THIS FUCKING BILLY," Pat.)

By now she won't even be able to sit still - you've hit all the buttons in the book in the twenty minutes you've been romancing her, my friend. Now's the time for you to just sit back and watch the dividends on your dating prowess come rolling in. If you've played your cards right, your Susie's given you the breathless  "hold on a sec" index finger and has gotten up and is heading inside to the counter to get you another beer, even though her own has barely been touched. Women love a man who fosters their nurturing side.

(I'll be needing another drink to even handle this level of sexy.)

Oh, but wait. Through the restaurant's plate glass windows, you can see that she's ordering... shots! Boom, looks like someone wants to get this show on the road. You're in there like swimwear. And out comes the wallet to settle the tab. This chick really gets what "women's lib" is all about, which is rare these days with all the femiNazis running arou--hold up. Hold. UP.

She just slammed a shot with the bartender, without even looking outside at you. They appear to be sharing some sort of joke.

(Oohhhkay, Kutcher, you got me. Where're the cameras? Hello?)

When she walks out the door and coyly exits the patio without actually glancing back in your direction, you should *immediately* text her this exact sentiment: WTF? :'-(  You should do this so quickly that you will be able to watch her receive said text as she walks away across the pedestrian square. You should thereafter fire off a  :-( ?!?!, again quickly enough that you will be able to see her shaking her head in bemused disbelief upon receipt. And now she's actually physically chuckling out loud as she walks out of your view.

NAILED IT: the number one thing women love is a man that makes them laugh.

Goodbye to Billy Bittersweet

It's well over a decade ago, and I'm in the company car with yet another Billy. He's not even my project - he's my coworker DelValles's Billy - a good-looking semi-punk of a kid who I catch looking at me just a half-second too long every time I say something. Somehow I've ended up working this contract more than DelValle has this last month. It happens like that in Army Recruiting, sometimes.

(Goddammit, DelValle, that's my trick.)

He's leaving tomorrow, this Billy, and I'm taking him down to his hotel room in the bowels of Los Billgeles to await the early-morning ship-out. We haven't been driving too long - we're still on the 101, with a generally-brain-fogging slog through the Valley on the 405 ahead of us. The sun is going down late, it's summertime-hazy, and we're zipping by strawberry fields and factory outlets and scraggly palm trees that haven't been groomed for varying amounts of time just over the "too long" mark. I love this place, southern Billifornia, but for most of my year in recruiting, I'm not even really conscious of it going by. Not like now.

Some of the guys are quiet, and that's OK. I'm comfortable owning the conversation and serving them up their share as I shuttle them south into the city and their big, looming futures. If you make the drive down the coast often enough, with enough Billys, the talk generally falls into a standard holding-pattern of routine topics that change very little. You get so you know what sorts of things will come up almost before you're on your way, just by how the kid's parents say goodbye. The humor might change, the faces might change, the traffic might change (HAHA no it won't!), but the general skeleton of the trip's the same. It's the same drive over and over, chewing up countless five-hour blocks of this, my twenty-first year. 

Eventually it just gets easier to embrace a sort of numbness than try to make yourself care about every face, every question, every four-year contract you set into motion. Recruiting is a fucking exhausting revolving door of people, an 80-hour workweek blur, a year where you'll never talk to so many people for so much of your day, yet feel so goddamn lonely all the time. Mostly, though, I've discovered how not to mind it, because times like the drives, I just don't even really live through it anymore. I bounce through it without realizing it, I chatter without really absorbing any of the kids' hope or fear or regret or boasting or whatever, and it's for the best. It's self preservation. Whether you care or not, they all sail over the edge, they all turn into ghosts one way or another, sooner or later. And they're just fucking kids. They'll be fine. Just like you were - you, who can't even remember your recruiter's name just now.

(Me, on hearing there's no cake in boot camp)

But this Billy isn't one of those kids. He's a little older, and conversations with him are always of their own breed. The first time I talked to him, engaging him in the office while DelValle was out on a call, I was shocked and actually a little irked at the way he subtly managed to run the conversation. This was my job -  I was the professional meant to be running that fucking show from the first handshake all the way to the boarding call bound for Basic Combat Training and he was just a fucking recruit and really, at the end of the day, what the shit, I was young and dumb but he, he was just a high school skater who was more clever than DelValle, for sure, but could barely pass a standard drug-screening UA - a failed-once-and-might-not-graduate-again-this-year who lived every minute of his punk-ass days by the grace of rich parents in orange grove country, up the San Guillermito Valley. 

But also. 

Also, it woke me up in a way, because all of a sudden there I was paying attention and genuinely laughing. I was recruiting, yes, but also with DelValle's Billy, I was Not Recruiting. It was real interaction. I guess that can come from surprising sources.

(I meant enlist! Enlist! Haha, I can't believe you thought I said kill.)

Anyway, I've grown to like him. I think it's because we've made this drive a few times, DelValle's Billy and I, what with him coming up hot at the last minute on the piss tests. In fact, I've probably spent more time in the car with this kid in the last month than I have in the same room with my but-for-logistics ex in the last three. I still live with the dude in a tiny little SoBil studio, we dance silently around each other without touching or making eye contact in the mornings because there's only the one bathroom, and I get through that without really living it, either, and that's also probably for the best. The futon is fine. Nothing could keep me awake by the time I get home at night.

So DelValle's Billy is telling me about flying prop planes out of the San Guillermito airstrip with his dad. He mentions he called the office the other Saturday looking for me, wanting to see if I was serious about taking him up on a previous offer of a free ridealong on one of his practice flights. I was probably busy, I say, and he nods his chin upward almost imperceptibly, like young confident Billys do, and says I guessed as much, but man, sure wish you coulda gone.

He laughs and shakes his head and I think to myself yeah, I wanted to go, and then in my head I privately replay how instead, when DelValle took the call, I whispered to him to tell his Billy I was out at the community college on an appointment. And I think to myself how after DelValle hung up, I shrugged at him and rolled my eyes and then suddenly felt like I might choke if I didn't quietly get up and walk out of the office and back down the hall to the bathroom, where I locked the door behind me and stood there in my uniform, looking down at those awful regulation black-patent heels and that stupid green polyester skirt I ironed every goddamn morning. I think, here at 65 mph with DelValle's Billy next to me, about that dirty, scuffed-up bathroom linoleum where I stood there just breathing in and out and shaking with my palms pressed on my forehead, fingers curled like hooks, not sure why I was suddenly so upset and frustrated and terribly, terribly sad.

(In space, no one can hear you curse.)

The sky is filthy: blood-red smog blocks our view even as we tunnel out of the Sepulveda pass, where a business-as-usual mesquite brush fire this dry summer on the northbound hillside has traffic coagulated to a dehydrated ooze. Jetliners are plowing their noisy way through the air above us, and once we turn off the freeway and into the tangle of the city's inner-workings they seem to hang, sluggish and unmoving, surreal and low over the boulevard ahead.

We pull up to the hotel and I shut off the car. It's late enough in the day that the air-conditioner chill is able to linger awhile even without the engine blowing. I lean my skull back on my headrest, and I want to close my eyes but out of the side of my field of vision I catch him looking at me like he does, just a little bit too long, and he sees me do this. And something about this specific quarter-of-a-second lodges somewhere in me like shrapnel: that image becomes a sharp unextractable foreign object that to this day, not often but every now and then, maybe at night when I turn over on it wrong in my sleep or something, still aches like a scar. He's got a tiny silver stud in his left ear and it flashes in the orange sodium glow of the evening's first streetlights as he glances down and then back up at me. Tomorrow's drill sergeants are going to destroy him if he doesn't take that out by morning.

I think to myself, we're here.

I think to myself, again.

And I think to myself, I probably will never see DelValle's Billy again. 

And then I'm surprised by the realization, not just a string of words occurring to me but an actual feeling, that after all the other kids I've driven over this cliff without a second thought, it's really too bad, this time around.

My head feels like it's made of steel, the headrest is a magnet, and the force required to separate the two to turn and face him as he grabs the door handle is like ten years of tiredness all at once. Recruiting'll take it out of you if you let it, sure, but fucking life: that's the exhausting thing. I don't have any energy to spare on it. I have so many more Billys I still have to find, charm, cajole, convince, sign and seal and deliver, forget. The meter never stops running.

(Clearly not L.A. because green lights.)

I blink at him. You want me to walk you in?

Nah, he says, I know where to go. And I know he does, which is a relief. I hand him his papers full of DelValle's signatures and DelValle's recruiter ID number, and they weigh a hundred pounds. He takes them and holds them in his lap with the sort of quick breath you take before saying something, and I catch his eyes wandering on my face again while he pretends to leaf through the packet.

And me: I look away.

And then he is standing in the parking lot, a rush of balmy, exhaust-filled air settling in his empty seat. The trunk closes with a hollow jolt and DelValle's Billy raps on the roof of the car as he shoulders his duffel, facing the back window with one hand up in a poor civvie half-salute. And waiting.

I turn on the ignition and pull away and in the rear view, we watch each other shrink for a few seconds before he turns away and walks out of the sudden red splash of my brake lights, toward the automatic doors.

Billy Billionaire Comes Aboard

Not long after I made my way to the South American coast aboard Delirium, I started to hear rumblings of a tour de force even greater than Billy Basso headed my way: the yacht's owner, Billy Billionaire.

I'd get tipsy on the dock with Ginger and she'd say something like "Oh he's just going to eat you up!" Then Billy Basso would chime in with something similar, but less encouraging, like "Oh yeah... he'll eat you alive."

("Don't worry," they said. "It's all in play," they said.)

But I wasn't worried about all of that. After all, I'd cast off the lines of my suddenly-quite-dreary-seeming former life for the barefoot work of a suntanned deckhand in the tropics. I'd sailed off into the blue yonder with dolphins jumping at our bow, I'd swum in the ocean with green eels as big around as my thighs, I'd toured through steaming jungles and sat salt-sprayed helm watches in the middle of stormy nights and woken up to butterflies landing on our little ship when there was no terra firma in sight for 360 degrees. I'd had small near-daily word-nerd epiphanies on the nautical etymology of everyday language like "learning the ropes" and "giving leeway" and perhaps most importantly, I'd managed to not get myself fired. In fact, while learning that seasickness was, inexplicably, not really a problem for me on Delirium, I'd also managed to learn a fair amount about sailing in a short time and even though there were absolutely no Billys on any foreseeable horizon of mine in this new unpredictably nomadic life, I'd fallen in love with the water. I'd become smitten with the work of sailing in proportion to my growing competence on-deck. Yeah, I still had my occasional late-night moments of lonely mourning over Billy Builder when he'd cross my mind from halfway around the globe, but I'd made a couple friends and started to see the world and the related distractions were many. I wasn't invincible, but I was on the upside of life. I was ready for Billy Billionaire.

Or so I thought.

We prepared for days before he was to arrive: Ginger provisioned and cooked some of his favorite things, Billy Basso and I scrubbed and polished every surface, I made up the stateroom with 1,200-thread-count sheets and fancy towels and Godivas tucked into nests on every pillow, and at night we ate dinner and I received what, in retrospect, should maybe have been a disconcerting amount of coaching about how to "handle" Billy Billionaire.

"He just..." Ginger offered, trailing off. Expectantly-raised eyebrows did nothing to revive her sentence. That was all she had.

So here are the things I had heard:

He's in his seventies. DO NOT let this fool you, because:

• His visit will mean big changes to your daily routine.
• He likes to snorkel and sail to new snorkel spots all damn day. ALL. DAY.
• He drinks every night.
• He drinks nothing but gin martinis.
• Cocktail hour will be your cue to get out of uniform and ready for the town. All three crew. Every night.
• Gin causes him to get outrageously funny.
• No really, he drinks nothing but gin.
• He is hilariously, self-deprecatingly charming.
• He is generous to a fault. Money is nothing to him.
• He lives for other people's drama.
• He will try to get your life story out of you for said drama.
• You must not tell him your life story, because he is your boss and he will never ever forget anything you say.
• You will have to drink martinis with him. It is literally part of your job.
• However, you will love drinking martinis with him.
• You will invariably drink too many martinis with him.
• This will not help you to refrain from telling him your life story.
• He will tell you his life story. And it is fantastic.
• He will get adorably animated.
• He will spill lots of gin.
• He will love it if you spill more.
• You will probably start to spill more.
• The man. Is fueled. By gin.
• He will make friends with the entire bar, every bar, every island, every time.
• He will never *ever* have a bad time. He is always at his best.
• He is invariably a center of laughter.
• He will sneak off to bed once everyone else has set sail for blackout island.
• He is happiest when everyone else is having a roaring time.
• Your roaring time will not keep him up and you will continue to roar. Later than you should. You late-roaring imbecile.
• He will always be up early in the morning.
• You will always have to be up earlier.
• He will get you to drink too many martinis for this crack-of-dawn bullshit.
• GodDAMNit.
• You'd better be bright-eyed anyway.
• Sunglasses on the morning sails are your friend.
• Fuuuuuuck.
• There is no point even hiding it. We're all in the same boat (literally).
• He will invite you to share $100 wine at lunch. Do this if needed.
• You will be excited about the evening by the afternoon sail.
• All of the above: repeat daily.
• You will be exhausted, relieved, energized, and sad when he leaves. Except your liver, which will just be exhausted.

(I... am... failing to see any problem with this.)

So, the first day Billy Billionaire came strutting down the dock, an utterly unassuming-looking dude in a t-shirt and cargo shorts escorted toward Delirium's slip by a suitcase-toting Billy Basso, I stood barefoot at the edge of the teak with Ginger. He came aboard with hugs, immediate at-ease jokes, high fives, and smiles. And the night proceeded to follow the above script near-verbatim, until he fell down his stairs putting himself to bed. Ginger and Billy Basso both commented that even for him, this was a new level of drunken merrymaking. "I think you're in," they said.

I loved the guy.

But then, the next morning, with Billy Basso and Ginger and I all at the ready in our polos and khakis at sunup, Billy Billionaire failed to emerge at his usual early hour. According to them, this was absolutely unheard-of.

We waited. We joked about how my presence might have been the overstimulation that sent him over the edge the night before. We listened occasionally at his door for audible signs of life (there were none). And hours crawled past.

By eleven, in the neighborhood of four hours past his usual rise-and-shine, some serious worry had developed. What was the responsible course of action here? After all, he was the yacht owner, we were the help, and disturbing him was the last thing anyone wanted to do. But... what if he'd hit his head on that stair fall and was in bed with a subdural hematoma? What if he was just dead on the floor from alcohol poisoning or aspirating his own vomit or something in there? Finally, when I couldn't take it any more, I knocked.

There was no answer.

(Time for Plan B.)

It was "agreed," in a sort of ro-sham-bo loss, that I should go in for reconnaissance. It made sense: I was new, he seemed to think I was cute, and if he was mad about having his privacy invaded I could at least fall back on one or both of those excuses.

I cracked the door. Inside, in the dark, I could make out an inert human shape under the comforter.

Maybe six steps separated me from the edge of the bed. I squinted in the dimness, hoping to at least detect the up-down motion of breathing coming from the covers. No such luck.

Two steps closer. I could see now that the bed was a tangled mess of linens, covered in dark streaks. Ohgodohgodohgodisthatblood??ohgodohgodohhhh... The bed is absolutely destroyed. It looks like there has been a struggle. Now, as my eyes adjust, I can see definitively that some of the bloody streaks are clearly trailing handprints. And there is still no movement from Billy Billionaire's form.

Another two steps closer. Those blood streaks are so ominous now, so clearly not just the evidence of a nighttime nosebleed that I feel like I might throw up. OhgodohgodohgoddidI*kill*himlastnight? ThatistheONEwayIcouldpossiblystillgetmyselffiredGATDAMMIT!  I'm right next to the bed. I whisper Billy Billionaire's name but of course, nothing but silence and dread are in that room with me. I reach out to where I'm guessing his shoulder should be. I hesitate, taking a deep breath. OhgodohgodohgodOK...SoldierUPohgodohhh--and just as my fingers touch down on the corpse, the en-suite bathroom door bursts open and Billy Billionaire, looking a little haggard but freshly-shaved nonetheless, finds me bent over the bed in horror.

"Thought the old man shit the bed, huh?" He asks, with his trademark wry twinkle.

I'm still catching up with my pounding heart, barely processing that he meant "shit the bed" quite literally as opposed to the figurative meaning I'd been convinced of, as he shuffles past me to the door. Over his shoulder, he adds with a touch of reproach, "Oh for Christ sakes, it's chocolate. You hide those goddamn chocolates in a drunk man's bed, that's what you find in the morning."

And as I'm still clearly dumbfounded, he pauses in the doorway. "C'mon kid. Let's get some coffee."

(...Or therapy. Either one.)

And that, on what turned out to be the first day of the Billy Billionaire years, is exactly what we did.

Meet the White Rabbit

For your sake, I hope you have that girlfriend.

I started to recognize her in passing long before I knew her name. As it turned out, even though we worked on two fairly professionally-isolated floors of the same agency in Billy City, she knew through the grapevine who I was months before we ever actually talked, too. 

See, we were two of a slim selection of single young Susies in a big office building populated heavily by Good Ol' Billys (who, true to the profession-based cliches, frequently tended toward the socially-stunted side). Add to that a smattering of middle-aged, big-haired secretary-type dames who wouldn't hesitate to bite you right in the jugular over office supplies, and you get a workplace dynamic such that she and I actually first genuinely bonded, one random day, over the tandem wakes of suggestive workplace gossip* that we both had trailing us.

*(For the record and much to his credit, the Billy Big-Wall interlude, which happened after I'd already put in notice but nonetheless would have been one piece of actually-legit fodder among otherwise-baseless bullshit, never even hit on the catty-rumor-spreading radar.)

And so, as sister tailored-shirt-wearing black sheep (black is the new... black) there in the sea of ill-fitting oatmeal-colored slacks and tie-dyed socks that is the Aging Federal Workforce Where Fashion Goes To Die, it was only natural that we became either arch-nemeses or fast friends. Obviously, we went with the latter.

(...and that is assuming we're grading on a curve around here, Billy.)

Lest you think I'm just humblebragging for myself about the undeserved default attention (both friendly and saboteur) that comes an even marginally-attractive Susie's way in a male-dominated work environment, allow me to divert your attention with a shinier object:

This Girl.

She's this beautiful, athletic sexpot with a wicked sense of humor and a wonderfully no-bullshit approach to everything, who also just happens to be a brainy engineer.

She's the sort of girlfriend who, every time you assess your lives over drinks, unwittingly inspires your resolve to seriously tighten up your ship and step up your game to a more adult level - she's raised a lovely tweenage daughter solo while building a real power-career and yet her outfit's never ever mismatched and her hair's always goddamn perfect, for fuck's sake!

But also, virtually every time I spend time with her, the hours seem to spiral down a rabbit-hole of increasingly bizarre or hilarious or just pricelessly stupid adventures that simply do not happen to real grown-ups this side of the looking-glass. 

She is The White Rabbit. And I fucking love her.

(Well, wrong Rabbit, but right idea.)

So, 'twas a time in life when The White Rabbit and I were both online dating, and possibly due to the stream of ensuing stories hashed over in our lunch-hour Sushi/Sake Thursday tradition, we hooked a third single coworker, Jen, into enlisting on the same matchmaking site, too. And Jen, being a sweetly-optimistic country-mouse kinda gal, and maybe not having much extracurricular experience with The White Rabbit on which to base a wiser decision, divulged to us the details of an upcoming first date she had set up with a fellow and asked for advice. "I mean, y'all go on dates all the time, but I ain't gone out in years! I'm bad at it! I get so nervous! Y'all gotta help me!"

The White Rabbit and I sprang into action: our naive lil' small-town girlfriend needed us! What if we came on the date with you? we asked. Jen was skeptical but we persisted: What could go wrong? we countered, grinning like jackals. Jen worried that we would make her even more nervous, but we were already sold on the idea and thus had a majority vote. You'll never even know we're there! we promised, fidgeting with anticipation. After all, Jen wanted feedback. Jen wanted backup in case he was a crazy. Jen wanted coaching. Jen had no goddamn idea what she was agreeing to. We'll just... you know... assess from a distance. Like date-insurance! If things aren't going great we can bail you out! If there are snags we can throw you a line! We can all triangulate our impressions after the fact! It'll be a fun review session next Sushi/Sake Thursday!

Jen was a supremely good sport. So the deal was done: we had a 4-way date.

(What Jen's response by all rights should have been.)

It was a lunch meetup, and so on the ordained day, we all met up at the elevators of our building, then The White Rabbit and I took off in a car ahead of Jen. We quickly scurried to the bar while she was still parking, scanning madly for whoever might be waiting around to meet her. We were going to do some good today: we were here for Date Assistance.

Several potential candidates were present. We flipped through online photos, trying to recognize the right suitor, as Jen came through the door and they spotted each other. But then, before we could even really take stock of anything about him, they were ushered to the general restaurant seating, far out of our visual and auditory range. Now the pressure was on: The White Rabbit and I had to find a casual way to immediately change our locale.

"Can we maybe get a booth?" The White Rabbit called out to our bartender. "We just..." (looks at me and smiles) "...we need some privacy."

(Definitely doesn't think we're lesbians. Nailed it.)

Shortly thereafter, a surly hostess led us into the dining room, to the one available booth.

But it wasn't any better. We were still separated from Jen's rendezvous by a half-wall stacked with silk plants and Italian-themed tchochkes! This would not do. As discretely as possible, we again summoned the nearest waitress.

"Um, this table isn't quite what we were looking for," ventured The White Rabbit. The waitress, clearly unamused by our section-hopping, glanced around the rest of the full dining room in no hurry. Her gum snapped. The ice in our cocktails, on a tab that had not yet even been transferred from the bar to our current table, continued quietly melting. On the other side of the partition, Jen's first date was progressing rapidly without our witnessing presence. We were approaching a crux.

"I mean, could we get... a table?" asked The White Rabbit, eyeing an empty but uncleared four-top closer to Jen's. I was acutely aware of what pain-in-the-ass customers we were being, but desperate times, man. We were missing our goddamn date, here. Jen needed us!

(We. Are. Stalking. Capisce?)

"I'll see what I can do," said our waitress. What she could do, and (possibly justifiably) did do, was hurry away, never to return.

Half the date had already escaped us by now. Still undefeated, we agreed to make the best of it and take turns going to the restroom, to gather what little information we could as we passed their table. The White Rabbit went first, but when she got close, she lost her nerve and bolted past without even turning her head. I could see she was trying not to laugh.

I stood up and started their way. And right then, Jen caught my eye for the first time in this operation and gave me an impossibly brief but unmistakable "get your shit together" look. She was watching our floundering this whole time! It was not, as promised, like she'd never even know we were there - and yet, despite our bumbling background interference, she was motoring through it like a true champion actress. She was the undercover agent! She was acing her date while we were choking!

Deflated, I hurried to the bathroom, and when I emerged, being as how it was taking place under a lunch-hour time restriction, the date was drawing to a close. Fuck a duck! The White Rabbit and I had to position ourselves for this! We'd blown the rest of the thing, but we sure as shit weren't going to miss the ending!

I quickly descended on our table, communicated my panic in the most Dude way possible...

(Calmer'n'you are but C'MON, we gotta roll!)

...and we scrambled out the door before the smitten couple so we could position ourselves to casually observe their goodbyes. But they were goddamn efficient diners and check-payers and they were emerging right after us! And here is where things took the White-Rabbit turn:

On a wordlessly synchronized decision, we sprinted. Directly into the shrubbery.

I'm not kidding: we literally dove into the bushes. This is The White Rabbit's magic: what shoulda-coulda-woulda been a mildly-interesting, low-key lunch date of professionals with anyone else had somehow been turned into a fifth-grade ninja debacle with her.

(Just play it off, noooobody noticed...)

Let me see if I can sum up the scene accurately:

• Jen (the self-proclaimed "terrible dater"): culminating a fruitful, adult date with friendly conversation, eye-contact, and plans for another meetup.
• The White Rabbit and I (the smooth "coaches" to aforementioned "terrible dater"): awkwardly vying for the more hidden position amidst the landscaping trees of a family-friendly chain restaurant, suffering seizures of laughter at ourselves, punctuated by prodding and mutual eye-shusshing, causing renewed laughter, spurring more shusshing, etc.
• One of these things is a picture of normal dating success. One is not.

I'd like to say, for dignity's sake, that at least we remained undetected. But then, this: they parted ways, Jen coolly shot daggers out of her eyes in our general direction, and he started walking toward his car.

Which was right next to us.

Which triggered in both of us a pathetic freeze-or-flight reflex so powerful and moronic that instead of, say, just staying still (and at least possibly-undetected) behind leaves and trunks, we opted for the alternative: colliding into each other in stooge-like panic as we broke and fled.

(Ohhh honey. Just NO.)

Did he see us? Did he recognize us as recurring extras from the cast of his earlier dining experience? Did he wonder what the fucking fuck two grown-ass women in well-pressed business-casuals were doing crashing around in the trees outside of Macaroni Grill? These were the fleeting thoughts that accompanied us as we ran, mission completely aborted, around the back side of the stucco building, in full view while Jen's Billy slowly drove away.

Curiously enough, we were not invited on Jen's second date with him to find out the answers to these questions.

Evading Billy Bike-Cop

The U-Billy campus is teeming with bicycle police, a status which never fails to amuse.

Generally they hang out in little highly-visible packs on the busier pedestrian intersections and take turns verbally pulling over cyclists who fail to dismount in the designated zones. They have zip-ties instead of handcuffs, they are made to wear ridiculous janitorial-esque outfits, their average age is probably right around 21, and they land somewhere between meter-maid and Paul Blart, on the respect spectrum. So look, I know they're probably wholesomely-intentioned kids aspiring to a life of real-world heroism someday policing the bad guys with their very own squad car. But this doesn't mean I can't silently mock them a little bit. And the thing is, they are so laughably simple to avoid that it's an easily-indulged schadenfreude to watch them playing "cops-n'-robbers" with the poor dumb schmucks who they actually manage to nab and ticket.

(*sigh* They grow up so fast.)

***

Billy Blades and I have offices in the same U-Billy building, meaning that despite my generally-swift skulking through the public spaces, I see him incidentally more days than not, because probability and luck and timing and just FML. One day, as I started off on my bike toward home, I happened to spy him walking on the sidewalk away from our building. It was late in the afternoon and campus was virtually empty to the point I'd unconsciously assumed there was nobody still around to even run into, and so I was momentarily flustered by my sudden recognition of him there ahead of me.

I noticed a little bit of a slow shuffle in his step.

Aw, he looks tired, I thought. Or kinda bummed.

I'm a person who tends to notice these sorts of things, and then has a hard time ignoring them. This used to lead to That Crying Girl at the Bar hugging me (sometimes inescapably) in club restrooms in my twenties, and nowadays tends to result in having my ear bent at all hours by friends of both genders needing a prod toward laughter about the latest bullshit in their lives. And so I considered, for a split-second, just socially chatting as our paths crossed, since even though we're not exactly chummy, the guy's not a total stranger and we're all human and I've long held that you can never be just plain good to too many folks.

Maybe he had a shitty long day.

Maybe people, as people sometimes are, were mildly, gratingly awful to him at work today.

Maybe he just needed a friendly smile.

(Because why not? (and also, ulterior motives))

And then, like a cynically closed-off and/or non-crazy-person, I nixed those socially-inclined notions and pedaled on past, resurfacing from my little Billy Blades friendly-conversation reverie to the sound of someone calling out.

"Miss! Hey miss, stop... please?"

The 'please' sounded like a hesitant question, like some kind of a joke setup. One glance over my shoulder and the punchline materialized like a low-grade nightmare, huffing and puffing toward me earnestly on his university-issued velocipede. Billy Blades is presumably still ambling along behind me, possibly (if there is any mercy on this godforsaken fucking Earth) unaware that the two-second distraction that was his mere presence on the left side of the street had caused me to completely fail to observe the gaggle of Enforcyclists that was congregated on the right, breezing through a stop sign right in front of them with nary a thought to braking.

And so it came to pass, at an hour when aforementioned characters were pretty much the only traffic left on the street, that *I* became one of those morons who somehow got pulled over by the U-Billy Bike Patrol. Literally right in front of Billy Blades.

God fucking dammit.

(Hell is full of mustaches.)

There are some complicating factors here that, at this point in the story, I should explain. No no, maybe not exactly explain, but at least mention in a vague and purely hypothetical way:

Let's just imagine that a friend of mine had recently been hauled into the Student Conduct Office to answer for a previous unfortunate encounter with The U-Billy P.D., involving a choice exchange of words which (though the ensuing police report made for a delightful reading experience that actually caused the attorney in the Student Legal Services office to involuntarily laugh out loud upon review) didn't sit well with the U-Billy administration.

(Dash-cam footage prior to arrest, as seen at disciplinary hearing.)

What can I say? Sharp Susies who are sufficiently well-versed in their goddamn constitutional rights and supporting American case law are no darlings of beginner cops who are not. And, unsurprisingly, insufficiently-obsequious Susies who don't handle being badgered via a badge with as much grace and self-restraint as they, in hindsight, maybe hypothetically could have shown* are required, once released from the hoosegow, to answer to a Student Conduct board in the form of a hearing. And thus, this hypothetical Susie I know may or may not have been unceremoniously placed on disciplinary probation by U-Billy, pursuant to the board's decision on said hearing, which may or may not affect the remaining story. Hypothetically.

*(like say,  just for example, the most poised course of action for a small-wristed, pissed-off Susie might not be to twice hypothetically slip out of bunglingly-applied handcuffs.)

So anyway, immediately, upon this detention, I pictured myself getting not-at-all-hypothetically zip-tied by a bike-cop in front of Billy Blades and internally fucking died. There was only one alternative: kindness. All that kindness I'd been musing about sending forth toward the more attractive parts of my universe mere seconds earlier had to now be grudgingly redirected toward Billy Bike-Cop, lest he look me my friend up, see my my friend's tenuous record, and take me down.

The thing is, I am capable of being pretty charming, given the right set of motivating circumstances. So I stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to face the pimply music pursuing me.

(Oh, haha! The "miss" confused me, since I usually get "ma'am-ed" these days!)

He was perhaps 20. He was panting slightly from the exertion of a half-block's acceleration. His white Humpty-Dumpty bike helmet, emblazoned with an authoritative "POLICE" decal, was comically too large and sat askew. And it was clear, within the first 5 seconds of our interactions, that I (or maybe his job in general) scared the shit out of him.

This would not do: authority figures do not like to feel uncomfortable. People with a little authority turn into terrible humans when they're uncomfortable! I needed lil' Billy Bike-Cop to feel unthreatened and respected and - dare I say it - loved.

He stammered through a couple lines about the state law concerning bicycles and stop signs while I smiled and maintained eye contact like an upstanding citizen. He tried stumblingly to return the dialogue to the official topic of traffic rules and cycling safety while I apologized and swallowed my lack of actual fucks-to-give and asked about his day and nodded and laughed on cue. He started to loosen up. When I leaned in and tilted my head to subconsciously mirror his posture and complimented his friendly professionalism and bowed slightly to make him seem dominant and otherwise pulled out every salesperson's ruse I ever had up my former-U.S.-Army-Recruiter's sleeve, he finally broke and smiled back. This was the moment I knew it was in the bag: Billy Bike-Cop shot a quick "yeah, bicycle contact terminated" response to the inquiring fuzz squawking out of his shoulder-radio, then mentioned that he was willing to "go against policy" just this once and forgo a ticket. I beamed as hard as I could with a straight face.

And then, still straddling his bike, Billy Bike-Cop awkwardly hopped toward me, handed me a slip of paper containing what I took to be a warning, winked, and rode off, looking over his shoulder at me as he carefully braked to a dead halt at the deserted intersection between him and his uniformed brethren. I fled the scene.

Once I was home I unfolded the warning and found it empty, save - scrawled on the "Officer information" line - Billy Bike-Cop's first name, a non-local cell number, and a smiley-face.

(Mmmyesyes, well played, young Billymmm, but I wasn't born yesterday. Or even yesterdecade.)

I believe this juncture is where Billy Bike-Cop's story will, in accordance with all applicable rules of the road, be required to come to a complete stop.