Brunching with Boredom

Cousin Terry visited me this past weekend, and in return for her thoughtfulness, I took her out to brunch where we accidentally became part of the most boring date in the world.

The young woman sitting behind us at the restaurant had a very loud voice, which is how we first noticed her and her date. It wasn’t an unpleasant or grating voice; it just never stopped, and at a volume we couldn’t ignore.

Terry had her back to their table, and after about 10 minutes, she asked me, “What race is that woman behind me?”

I gave her a puzzled look, and peered around her to look at the woman. “Just white, I think,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “She sounds like she has an accent.”

“I think she’s just talking very fast,” I said doubtfully.

The woman was talking so fast that at first, I couldn’t distinguish any of her words. Luckily, Cousin Terry is under 30 and therefore, according to the Internet, able to hear high-pitched sounds that we over-30s can’t, so she was able to understand the conversation and translate for me.

According to Terry, the woman was telling her date about her family in Montreal (“Ah-ha!” said Terry. “Maybe she speaks French.”), about her past relationship (too soon, we agreed), about her job (boring), about what she did during the days (also boring, but longer), and something about speaking French (“I knew she had an accent,” said Terry.).

The woman went on and on, until both Terry and I felt we knew her quite well. (Spoiler: neither of us wanted to date her.)

“I think she’s my age,” I told Terry. “She looks kind of old.”

“She is,” Terry said. “She just said something about dating in her 30s. I think she was divorced…something about her family supporting her?”

Eventually, the man she was with got to say something. He spoke at a normal volume, and all Terry could catch was something about his roommate (“That’s kind of weird to have a roommate when you’re in your 30s,” she commented. “But I guess it’s better than saying, ‘my mom.’”)

So we couldn’t hear everything he was saying, but we were pretty sure he had spoken. Though not much, because it wasn’t his turn. In fact (spoiler!), he would never really get a turn at all.

Mostly he sat and listened to her, and so did we. He didn’t seem bored. She didn’t seem bored. She was attractive. He was attractive. But during the entire date, we heard them laugh maybe once.

“My god,” I said to Terry. “If this is what dating’s like, I don’t want to do it. I can’t believe how boring this date is.”

“Well, people have different ideas of what’s boring,” Terry said, wisely and maturely.

“They must be very boring people,” I said, completely ignoring Terry’s point. How could anyone be enjoying this? I mean, I wasn’t enjoying it. The sheer transmission of data from the woman to the man was overwhelming.

(The man, I was pretty sure, was hoping his listening would pay off in a transmission of another kind, later.)

“Do you think they’re on a second or third date?” I asked Terry. “She’s telling him an awful lot of background info.”

“I think it’s a first date,” she said. “They don’t seem to know each other well.”

“Yeah, they’re definitely not married,” I said. “Married people would just be sitting in silence. But brunch seems more like a third date kind of thing.”

“Not in New York,” Terry said. “A lot of people go out to brunch. I mean, it’s still during the daytime, so it’s safe.”

“But this is a twenty-three dollar brunch! All I get are guys who want to go out for coffee, and no one pays for my drink, let alone twenty-three dollars’ worth of food,” I said.

Terry was eating a raisin scone with her head tilted toward the table behind us, in an effort to overhear more. If I hadn’t been sitting on the wrong side of the table, I would have been tilting right there with her.

“If the woman gets up, lean over and ask the guy if they’re on a first date and if this is how first dates are,” I suggested. “I need to study them. I’m not ready for this kind of boredom.”

“I am not doing that,” she said firmly. “You do it if you want.”

Terry and I were just getting ready to leave when I saw the man behind us start to pay the check. The woman, instead of reaching out to make a token grab at it, got up and went to use the restroom.

“I really want to ask him about the date,” I whispered to Terry.

“I’m leaving,” she said, and went out, via one last pass by the dessert table.

I started to stand. I tried to leave. I really tried to. But I just had to know.

I walked over to the man and tapped him on the shoulder.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” I began, not meaning a word of it, “but I was just wondering if you’ve known her a while, or if you’re on a first date?”

The man looked surprised, but said, “Yeah, this is a first date. We just met the other day.”

“Is this –” I said, gesturing vaguely at him, the table, the currently absent date, “going well? I mean, I’m just starting to get back into dating and…I mean, no one was laughing.”

Although he didn’t seem the brightest bulb on the planet, in the man’s defense, he’d just been accosted by a complete stranger who was trying, perhaps not so subtly, to let him know that his date sucked.

And I was not doing this because I was interested in him, but because if he couldn’t save himself from her nonstop talking now, I was damn well going to try to do it for him. Hey, if I saw a lost dog, I would try to help it, too.

There were some moments of confusion as the man first thought I was talking about dates in general, and then realized what I was asking.

“Oh! You mean her? Yeah, it’s going really well. Why, what did you think?” he asked me.

Uh-oh, now he was in for it. He had asked my opinion. (I would have given it anyway, but now I was being SOLICITED for it, and I was unstoppable.)

“She talks an awful lot,” I said. “I mean, it kind of sounded like a business meeting. But if you feel it’s going well, that’s great.”

“Yeah, it’s going really well,” he said again, and I could tell he honestly meant it.

I tried not to give him a pitying glance, but my parting “Good luck” was probably tinged with some horror.

The worst part was not how boring the date had been. The worst part was that there were people out there who genuinely, truly, enjoyed this factual exchange of information and had no problem with the lack of laughing, and for whom mutual physical attraction was enough to make it a good date.

Maybe I’m expecting too much and this is actually a perfectly normal, good first date. Or maybe the date wasn’t the boring part — maybe the people were just boring. But all I know is that I’d rather be a crazy old spinster shouting at the neighborhood kids to stay off my lawn, than become someone who thinks a date like this is good.

Posted by: Supersonic Jane | October 19, 2009 | 12:43 pm
Posted in: This Life