huey lewis
from his profile and emails, he seemed like a nice guy and his travels in europe particularly interested me. after speaking with him on the phone, i thought, “he doesn’t seem like the brightest guy, but i’ll give it a chance.” so we meet for drinks at a great martini bar (my choice this time – huey lewis was a bit of a wet noodle, which i was about to discover).
he’s visibly nervous, which is kinda sweet. when the waitress takes our order, his nerves make themselves even more visible. the bar has a menu of many, many pages of wonderful martinis. instead of ordering off the menu, he has this conversation with the waitress:
huey lewis: “i’ll just have a…um…gin.”
waitress: “gin? did you want a mixer with that?”
HL: “yeah…uh…vodka.”
W: “vodka…?” confused look on her face (and mine).
HL: “oh. no, uh…just make me a regular martini.”
W: “ok, do you want that with gin or vodka?” (slight grin on her face.)
HL: “gin.”
W: “any particular kind of gin?” (bigger grin.)
HL: “uh, just make sure it has an olive.”
strange, right? i chalk it up to nerves and try to hid my own grin. we proceed to have a couple hours of fairly dull conversation. huey lewis is a nice guy…but well, he’s kinda dumb. sorry huey. i don’t think i laughed once, except maybe at my own jokes. so some things that are pretty important to me and that i’d like to see also be important to my date – humour, movies, music and books. a guy doesn’t have to be interested in all four, but a couple of them would be nice. and he was not winning in the humour department.
so the bar is playing cheesy 80s music. “the power of love” comes on, and huey says “i love this song!” i question "really?” i’m slightly interested because this is the first time he’s shown any excitement or passion about anything. but it is a NOT a good song. really. he says, “yeah, it reminds me of my favorite movie. pause… back to the future.” i ask whether back to the future is really his favorite movie of all time, and he confirms that it is. this guy is 27, so i'm thinking the only way he really got on the back to the future bandwagon was through sunday afternoon movies on TBS. so i ask him for five of his top movies, and he cannot come up with one. he says he watches a lot of movies, but can’t come up with anything. strike two.
the huey lewis and the news fascination is already taking us down the lane to strike three – music. he asks what kind of music i like. i list a few genres (indie rock, acoustic, emo, punk, folk, ska, alternative, etc), all of which only elicit blank looks. so i tell him several popular bands that have come out of portland that fall into these categories. more blank looks. then i resort to just saying that i like the radio station 94.7. he says “oh yeah, i listen to that station a lot. couldn’t tell you the names of any of the bands though. i don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing.” ok, we’ve arrived at strike three – he doesn’t really care about music.
huey lewis tells me that he’s an avid reader – excellent! he says he recently got into reading when he read the best book of all time…drum roll please “the da vinci code.” groan. i mean, it’s an ok book as far as pop fiction goes. but it’s NOT the best book of all time. he lists his other favorite books are “angels and demons” and “digital fortress”. the man is a one-man dan brown fan club. outside of these books, he says he really hasn’t read much else. and we have strike four.
after four strikes, why would i go out with this guy again? i wondered that myself. but i did. i thought maybe i was being too picky. so we meet to go to First Thursday (gallery open house night) in a local neighbourhood. he says his cousin has an exhibit. what i didn’t expect (and i don’t think he did either) was to meet his entire family at the exhibit. that was awkward, especially since i was thinking the whole night about how i was going to tell him i didn't want to see him again. quick conversations with the fam, and then on to another gallery. he asks what my favorite kind of art is, and i say surrealism. i say that i don’t claim to know much about art, but i really like the surrealists, especially magritte and dali. i ask what his favorite kind of art is and he says…"surrealism". is this guy kidding me?!? he then goes on to explain how he really likes how they paint a blurry scene, you know, like monet and renoir. um, monet, a surrealist? i say, “oh, you mean the impressionists? yeah, it was pretty groundbreaking at the time when they started painting their impressions of the scenes while most others were painting literally.” and he smugly says “yeah, i know, i took a couple art classes in college.” groan again. i mean, don't pretend you know about something that you obviously don't. i don't mind if you don't know much about art, because i really don't either. i know enough not to sound like an idiot though. huey does not.
the rest of the night continues with more dull conversations that do nothing to convince me of his intelligence. nice guy and all, just not very smart. so we’re walking down the street, and he starts telling me how he is a big advocate for marriage and can’t wait to get married. now, if any girl said this kind of thing on a second date, the guy would turn tail and run. at this point, i know i don’t want to date this guy. and i can also tell that he’s a pretty traditional guy - wants the wife with no opinions, two and half kids, a house in the suburbs. he’s already having problems dealing with the fact that i have opinions and am slightly independent. so i decide to freak him out a bit. i say, “yeah, i want to get married, but no kids.” he looks baffled and asks why, and i launch into my whole thing about sustainable development, how i think the world will run out of resources, how i don’t want to add to the burden or make my child go through what i think the next generation will have to, etc. normally i would not reveal this much on a second date, but i was ready to kill it. so his point/counterpoint argument on this is: “but…there are some good things about having kids. like…it’s nice to have kids.” that’s actually his counterargument. wow.
date one had ended with him leaning in for the kiss, and me stopping him with a “not so fast, mister.” date two ends with him leaning in again. this time i put up my hands and said “you know, i just don’t see this going any further than this.” we didn’t really need to prolong it, did we?
lesson learned in all of this? pay more attention to match.com profiles. he had listed as turn-offs: boldness, tattoos and body piercings. i should have known.
he’s visibly nervous, which is kinda sweet. when the waitress takes our order, his nerves make themselves even more visible. the bar has a menu of many, many pages of wonderful martinis. instead of ordering off the menu, he has this conversation with the waitress:
huey lewis: “i’ll just have a…um…gin.”
waitress: “gin? did you want a mixer with that?”
HL: “yeah…uh…vodka.”
W: “vodka…?” confused look on her face (and mine).
HL: “oh. no, uh…just make me a regular martini.”
W: “ok, do you want that with gin or vodka?” (slight grin on her face.)
HL: “gin.”
W: “any particular kind of gin?” (bigger grin.)
HL: “uh, just make sure it has an olive.”
strange, right? i chalk it up to nerves and try to hid my own grin. we proceed to have a couple hours of fairly dull conversation. huey lewis is a nice guy…but well, he’s kinda dumb. sorry huey. i don’t think i laughed once, except maybe at my own jokes. so some things that are pretty important to me and that i’d like to see also be important to my date – humour, movies, music and books. a guy doesn’t have to be interested in all four, but a couple of them would be nice. and he was not winning in the humour department.
so the bar is playing cheesy 80s music. “the power of love” comes on, and huey says “i love this song!” i question "really?” i’m slightly interested because this is the first time he’s shown any excitement or passion about anything. but it is a NOT a good song. really. he says, “yeah, it reminds me of my favorite movie. pause… back to the future.” i ask whether back to the future is really his favorite movie of all time, and he confirms that it is. this guy is 27, so i'm thinking the only way he really got on the back to the future bandwagon was through sunday afternoon movies on TBS. so i ask him for five of his top movies, and he cannot come up with one. he says he watches a lot of movies, but can’t come up with anything. strike two.
the huey lewis and the news fascination is already taking us down the lane to strike three – music. he asks what kind of music i like. i list a few genres (indie rock, acoustic, emo, punk, folk, ska, alternative, etc), all of which only elicit blank looks. so i tell him several popular bands that have come out of portland that fall into these categories. more blank looks. then i resort to just saying that i like the radio station 94.7. he says “oh yeah, i listen to that station a lot. couldn’t tell you the names of any of the bands though. i don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing.” ok, we’ve arrived at strike three – he doesn’t really care about music.
huey lewis tells me that he’s an avid reader – excellent! he says he recently got into reading when he read the best book of all time…drum roll please “the da vinci code.” groan. i mean, it’s an ok book as far as pop fiction goes. but it’s NOT the best book of all time. he lists his other favorite books are “angels and demons” and “digital fortress”. the man is a one-man dan brown fan club. outside of these books, he says he really hasn’t read much else. and we have strike four.
after four strikes, why would i go out with this guy again? i wondered that myself. but i did. i thought maybe i was being too picky. so we meet to go to First Thursday (gallery open house night) in a local neighbourhood. he says his cousin has an exhibit. what i didn’t expect (and i don’t think he did either) was to meet his entire family at the exhibit. that was awkward, especially since i was thinking the whole night about how i was going to tell him i didn't want to see him again. quick conversations with the fam, and then on to another gallery. he asks what my favorite kind of art is, and i say surrealism. i say that i don’t claim to know much about art, but i really like the surrealists, especially magritte and dali. i ask what his favorite kind of art is and he says…"surrealism". is this guy kidding me?!? he then goes on to explain how he really likes how they paint a blurry scene, you know, like monet and renoir. um, monet, a surrealist? i say, “oh, you mean the impressionists? yeah, it was pretty groundbreaking at the time when they started painting their impressions of the scenes while most others were painting literally.” and he smugly says “yeah, i know, i took a couple art classes in college.” groan again. i mean, don't pretend you know about something that you obviously don't. i don't mind if you don't know much about art, because i really don't either. i know enough not to sound like an idiot though. huey does not.
the rest of the night continues with more dull conversations that do nothing to convince me of his intelligence. nice guy and all, just not very smart. so we’re walking down the street, and he starts telling me how he is a big advocate for marriage and can’t wait to get married. now, if any girl said this kind of thing on a second date, the guy would turn tail and run. at this point, i know i don’t want to date this guy. and i can also tell that he’s a pretty traditional guy - wants the wife with no opinions, two and half kids, a house in the suburbs. he’s already having problems dealing with the fact that i have opinions and am slightly independent. so i decide to freak him out a bit. i say, “yeah, i want to get married, but no kids.” he looks baffled and asks why, and i launch into my whole thing about sustainable development, how i think the world will run out of resources, how i don’t want to add to the burden or make my child go through what i think the next generation will have to, etc. normally i would not reveal this much on a second date, but i was ready to kill it. so his point/counterpoint argument on this is: “but…there are some good things about having kids. like…it’s nice to have kids.” that’s actually his counterargument. wow.
date one had ended with him leaning in for the kiss, and me stopping him with a “not so fast, mister.” date two ends with him leaning in again. this time i put up my hands and said “you know, i just don’t see this going any further than this.” we didn’t really need to prolong it, did we?
lesson learned in all of this? pay more attention to match.com profiles. he had listed as turn-offs: boldness, tattoos and body piercings. i should have known.
posted by pdxgirl at 8:13 AM
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