The Online Dating Chronicles
Dating
Episode 1: Maya
MAYA
Maya seemed cool enough.
I was dipping my toes in the dating water, so I wasn’t asking for much. She was within my age demo, had some tattoos, an advanced degree, and liked music. That was enough to start.
Her pictures didn’t portray her as drop-dead gorgeous, but she was far from unattractive. The fact was I had been with all kinds of women in my dating life, and at this point, I was looking for a connection. Any type of connection. Sure looks mattered to me, but they weren’t that much of a priority.
So Maya wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous; I didn’t care.
On her app profile, Maya said she had kids. At any other point, this would’ve been a deal-breaker. But the older I became, the more I realized that excluding women with kids was an impossibility.
So as I began this journey back into the dating void, I sat on my couch swiping left and right and amended my “no kids” policy. Now I stridently avoided those 40+-year-old women who still wanted children.
Baby crazy middle-aged women were a hard no.
We initially connected over a fondness of Wilco and Maya was, by her admission, obsessed with the band. I liked them okay but am always left scratching my head at whatever Jeff Tweedy was trying to say.
After a few in-app chats, I asked Maya if she wanted to meet.
She did.
We made arrangements to meet at some basement Mexican restaurant that I had never heard of, which didn’t say much. I hadn’t heard of many restaurants in my adopted hometown.
I’ve always prided myself on m punctuality, and I arrived early. Descending the stairs, I was bobbing and weaving like a prizefighter, trying to avoid the string of promotional beer pendants flapping into me. And the flags were everywhere; the restaurant was not shy about their love for the motherland. When I made it downstairs, I turned around and shook my head as all the pendants were waving goodbye.
The hostess greeted me asking: “Did you have a reservation?”
“No, no. I’m meeting someone. I think I’ll just grab a seat at the bar.”
She smiled and waved me on. I walked around the horseshoe-shaped bar and found two seats in the back corner.
And waited.
Fifteen minutes later, I got a text from her:
Are you here?
I typed out: “Yea, at the bar.”
“Oh, haha. I was waiting in the entry upstairs. Be right there.”
I had just flipped my phone over on the bar when I saw a woman looking around the bar like she was looking for someone. As I raised my right hand, I made a mental note to go back to her profile and check out her stats. I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything about her being around 6'4".
Maya was a big girl.
I waved at her and she nodded and thundered her way over.
As Maya approached me, I panicked: “Shit, she’s huge. I don’t want to shake her hand.” But her hand was jutting out when she walked up.
“Nice to meet you.”
She swallowed my hand: “You too.”
I felt like a toddler holding an adults hand.
Maya sat down and ordered a margarita with salt. She also immediately dropped her phone on the bar, face up: “I have to keep this out. One of my kids is sick.”
I thought: “Jesus, here we go.”
But it came out as: “Of course.”
I didn’t have kids and didn’t want them. Not because I dislike them so much, I just didn’t want to become one of those people who blather on and on about their children.
Like Maya.
I found out much more than I needed to know about her children.
Her oldest was beginning to transition genders.
The next one had been tested for ADHD but not diagnosed. However, Maya was certain that the two experts she took him to were wrong, so she was seeking a third opinion.
And then there were the twins. They were an “accident” as a result of a failed reconciliation with her ex-husband. I got hung up on that word “accident” and wondered how that was even possible any more. There are options.
Anyway, the twins were too young to be anything other than children at this point. But based on what I heard from Maya, I had no doubt they were a couple years away from being diagnosed with some sickness.
I nursed my Guinness and nodded and grunted in the appropriate places. At one point, my mind trailed off on how her ex must’ve also been a giant. Then I went down a rabbit hole of what sex must’ve been like between these two. As Maya explained the depth of Yankee Foxtrot Hotel and the tense relationship between Jay Bennett and Jeff Tweedy, I was picturing her bent over being taken from behind by her giant ex-husband.
Neither the musical discussion nor the images dancing in my head were appealing.
In as much as this was a date, I knew it wasn’t going to last too much longer. Maya had played her giant hand with “one of my kids is sick.”
And when her drink was about 3/4 done, as if on cue, she got a call and stepped aside to take it.
Maya didn’t even bother to sit back down as she lifted her drink and slurped it dry: “Okay, I should go home now. My daughters temperature has gone up. ”
“Sure thing then. I get it.”
She opened her purse: “Do you want anything for this?”
I held up my hand: “No, no. I got it.”
Maya threw her purse over her shoulder and turned to look in his general direction, barely making eye contact: “This was fun. We should do it again.”
I thought: “Like fuck we should.”
But it came out as: “Oh, yea. Definitely.”
With that, she thundered off around the bar. I watched her walk up the stairs and disappear before calling the bartender over.
“Another pint, sir?”
“Yes, please. And a menu.” The bartender took a step back before I said quickly: “And a shot of whiskey.”