Jeremy, Again

The following Monday I again went out with Jeremy. This time we met at a tapas bar on the East Side. I’ve been there a few times and have always liked it. When we met I took the bull by the horns and kissed him (open lipped, no tongue) on the mouth, since I figured he wouldn’t. He seemed pleased by it. Once again we ordered wine and talked a blue streak. Jeremy was reading a book by a writer I’d never heard of. I read a good deal, but even more to the point, I have a very good memory for names. Not to mention I also used to work in a bookstore, and a library – I see a lot of books. I was very impressed to see he was reading something so obscure (it was an Englishman’s My Life Among the {insert ethnic group here}-type story. I like a man whose reading extends beyond the Dave Eggers-Jonathan Franzen continuum and into the world of Penguins and minor dead guys.

I haven’t written much about Jeremy. I found his profile on a personals site and hotlisted him; he emailed me a day later -- he'd seen that I'd hotlisted him! (Again, passive aggressive, but quite useful!). He has dark brown hair in a sort of schoolboy’s haircut and wears jeans and wool sweaters and looks about 28. As it turns out, he’s five years older than I am.

We have a few things in common – more things than I have in common with anyone else I’m currently seeing. We’re both non-religious Jews (OK, like about 30% of this city’s population, but still); we’re both from the tri-state area and we both have two graduate degrees and one sister. Both of our sisters have one child. Not to mention both of us look younger than our actual ages. Both of our parents are a bit older and both are still married. Do you know how often I meet a guy my age whose parents are still married? About never. Nowadays, I feel almost like meeting a guy whose parents are married is about as common as meeting someone who grew up in New York City. That is, not common at all.

In addition to all these interesting but, OK, ultimately not terribly important commonalities, Jeremy is an architect who owns his own apartment. I sort of swooned when I heard that. Oh, God, that’s embarrassing. But first of all, I think that being an architect is cool. As he explained it, “It’s a combination of art and science,” and he’s right. I like the idea of that combination as a career – cerebral but arty, scientific and aesthetically impressive. But of course, I really liked the idea that he had bought an apartment. I thought he probably had some money, despite the fact that he’d told me architects don’t make much. (I didn’t know that. I thought most working architects bring in a good salary, on par with doctors or lawyers, though perhaps not New York City corporate lawyers). Of course, Jeremy’s ideas of a decent salary and mine may be totally different.

Any way, at the end of the night we entered the subway together and on the escalator down to the platform we started kissing. I missed my train (well, it was about to leave anyway) because we were kissing, and once again I left him with a strange dislocated sense of wellbeing...