#59 THE HOT JEWISH DOCTOR: OUR SECOND AND FIRST DATE
#59 THE HOT JEWISH DOCTOR: OUR SECOND AND FIRST DATE
I was jealous his painting was better than mine…
In the US, there are often these fun venues where you pay to be ‘taught’ how to paint something and you can also drink wine (that you generally bring with you). They are ‘creatively’ named things like ‘Sips and Strokes,’ ‘Pour and Paint,’ ‘Brush and Bubbles,’ or ‘Vino and Van Gogh.’ I made the last one up. You get the gist. Alliteration is their friend.
I’ve since been to one with Brittany where you choose a painting and you are off, forging your own direction, no painting lessons or technique no how required, as you copy the painting in front of you and the instructor walks around if you need help. I chose a Monet water lilies type thing to paint which turned over very well and I have proudly hung it in my little library room. It’s more for fun than the beginnings of very-badly-done art forgery.
For our second date, Hot Jewish Doctor took me to one of these classes but this class was the type where the instructor takes you step by step in your painting journey. I was good at painting and drawing in high school and always considered it a hobby (abstractly where I only practised it once in a blue moon) but Hot Jewish Doctor knew this was another way for him to shine – yet another thing he was good at – besides being a urologist and 6’3” and 215 lbs of muscle. I mean leave some talents for the rest of us, buddy.
Our first (brief) meeting
Even though this was our second date, it had not been our first meeting (or first date, of course). Somehow a few days before, he’d said he was in downtown Columbus, Georgia at a bar with his friend and downstairs neighbour (we’ll call him Mark), Mark. I said I’d happened to be eating downtown with my housemate Brittany and I could pop by and say hello.
I did say hello and it was suitably awkward and he later told me my outfit hadn’t been flattering and he’d thought I was maybe too fat for him and he’d almost cancelled our first date – but he was glad he didn’t. Negging 101? Something else? Because, huzzah, I was actually just badly dressed and not fat (i.e. my granny cardigan trend back then to cover up my ‘massive’ arms and my too-big boobs I was never proud of).
Also, why didn’t I run at this point of shallowness? I was in my 20s and so desperate to make people like and love me. I didn’t even register the slight because it was negated, naturally. And it was a millennial woman’s job to be pleasing. Even though Gone Girl was a bit mental, she had a point about the ‘perfect cool girl’ trope – except I never pretended to like sports. Sigh!
He later told me I had a nice shape and he frequently watched porn with women resembling me. (Is that a line men use?)
No wonder I had body hang ups especially when my tiny 125lbs roommate Brittany would also get told she was ‘too fat’ on dates. She was not fat. What did men even want? And why are some men such arseholes? They don’t like it if women say they want a man with a big cock and a big bank balance but they can reject women because they’re got a few extra pounds of adipose tissue. Do I sound like I’m ranting? I’m just really thankful not to be in the rat-race and ‘Hot Jewish Doctor’ was one of my ‘better’ dating experiences…
Catch up on my previous post about Hot Jewish Doctor, Dr P, here.
Sips, strokes, and showoff
I found an email from Tuesday, 13 September 2011 where he’d emailed me the website details of the painting place called ‘Sips and Strokes.’ We must have gone during a random weeknight and the class was virtually empty besides us and maybe another couple which made flirting and painting uncomfortable and the instructor happened to be hot, so that was not great for my insecurity. The woman walked us through how to paint a useless ‘cold beer served here’ sign, painted on canvas with acrylics, and I was sulkily jealous (though, hopefully not showing it) that his painting was better than mine. I mean that was supposed to be my talent! I wonder now if he had some collection of paintings stashed in his apartment walk-in closet of all the dates he’d taken to painting class with the express objective to show off? Years later, when living in Germany, I painted over my canvas because I hated beer and it was an ugly painting anyway.
Hot Jewish Doctor was charming and funny (see original flirty messages here) and I wanted so badly to continue to impress him…
Our first date
For our first date, I wore this white halterneck polkadot dress. (I wrote about the second date first because it was more memorable really). It was starting to get cooler in Georgia as it was September. He picked me up in his SUV. I don’t care about vehicles so all I remember was that it was nice and I brought along my water bottle. I used to have this beat-up camping metal water bottle that Brittany bought me one birthday and repeated dropping had bashed off some of the shiny red coating. When I went to take a sip, he asked if it was vodka. I laughed and looked a little incredulous. He said it had happened to him before on a date and was a turn-off where the woman was left practically legless and puking in the bushes at the end of the night. I let him sniff the bottle and said, no, it was pain water and I just liked being hydrated. (I’ve always had a 2-3 litres per day habit.)
He took me to a bar in downtown Columbus where we had drinks. He said he only ever promised drinks and not food in case the date didn’t go well and he didn’t want to waste money on food – oh so nice and was this yet another form of negging in hindsight? I guess the date went well because eventually, he said we should go for sushi. Also, the fact that I always ate like a horse didn’t put him off at this point. But now I feel like he swallowed some sort of man manual before dating (a la I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell – beer theme fitting) – thank goodness he was good in bed.
Info dump: the background info
Here’s what I learned about him on the date or over the course of our short-lived weeks together (until I met Captain Thor): he grew up wealthy in Florida somewhere like Palm Beach, Naples, or Fort Lauderdale. His father was also a doctor. He worshipped his mother (like many men, which can be sweet or not, depending on how the man turned out). He also had a sister who wasn’t as successful and struggled financially. She had young children and he adored his niece and nephew. I remember when my older sister, Jae, announced she was pregnant with my beautiful niece, Caroline, he was one of the first people I told – because he happened to be there when I found out, not because he was significant per se. I was going to be an aunt for the first time (outside of marriage that is)! And I was bursting with excitement.
His family were all blonde, all American, and Jewish. I saw a family portrait once and they were that sort of perfect American family who all look good in photos together, bright, shiny, smiling, securely in their class strata.
I asked him (maybe this is prejudice?) why he was blonde and Jewish but I don’t recall his answer. He asked if my surname was Jewish; I said I didn’t think so but I knew my Grammy’s grandparents had been German and moved to Illinois but as far as I knew they were all protestant. It didn’t, however, seem to matter to him to date women in the faith. I find the whole faith intriguing so I’d have loved to be able to go to some kind of Passover meal or something.
He joined the military to graduate from medical school without debt. After briefly having a couple of dates post-Captain Thor with the handsome Chinese American Doctor (more later) who actually knew Hot Jewish Doctor and had worked under him and considered him a bit of an arrogant arse, Chinese American Doctor did something along the same lines. You get paid for med school and then you have to serve five years as an Army doctor but you get to go in as a Captain and can work up to Major and beyond.
Hot Jewish Doctor said he’d studied zoology or something in undergrad because he’d heard it was an easier route to med school. He found being a doctor easy but his passion lay with other pursuits. He spent a fortune on his comic book collection. He’d met with comic book writers and artists and taken all sorts of classes around the subject matter. He later showed me many, many drawings of Spiderman and other comics and he was, indeed, a talented artist.
He had been married and was now divorced. When I saw a picture of his ex-wife she resembled a Blue Crush-era Kate Bosworth. Her body was my ideal body: long, lean, athletic, abs, flat chested, beautiful. She had a blonde bob and was naturally beautiful. For once, however, this was not my date’s ideal look. (What is it with me and attracting men who prefer smaller-chested blondes like Captain Thor and my first husband?) Surprisingly, to me, How Jewish Doctor’s ideal women were brunettes with a big bust (check). Also, he later married that type, so I guess he was telling the truth. He didn’t have a preference for stick thin which makes the whole I-almost-cancelled-the-date thing more baffling.
I asked what had gone wrong in their marriage and he said she had been depressed. She’d grown up in New York. I can’t remember now how they’d met but I think he’d been living in New York as well, maybe for med school. When married, he’d been the equivalent of a junior doctor (or resident in the US) and residents don’t earn as much but he had to spend money on plane tickets every few weeks as they were living in Hawaii where he’d been stationed with the military. She’d been miserable missing her family and her parents. He wanted children; she didn’t at the time. She’d maybe had a brother who later took his own life which made it even more difficult for her.
He’d loved her fiercely but felt inadequate that he couldn't make her happy and give her the life she wanted, so he let her go. Having never been married at the time and merely 24 to his 36, I didn’t fully understand this concept but I do now (at past his age then)!
Overactive Chihuahua versus chill Golden Retriever
He was a big nerd and proud of it. This was before being a hot nerd like Henry Cavill was a thing. He loved unwinding to television, painting, drawing, and playing the piano. He did try and learn what I was into but I behaved like an overactive chihuahua when I was with him. I was full to the brim in energy and excitement (or nervousness to impress him). When things had settled more (before things ended or before we became FWB at my suggestion), he wanted to relax and watch How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory or some such sitcom and I couldn’t concentrate on television. I hadn’t yet reached that age in your 30s where unwinding in front of the TV was desirable. He was tired after a long day – like a chill Golden Retriever who just wanted cuddles and relaxy time – and I was still in my 20s in the grad-school mode where you think it’s cool to have long “deep” conversations well into the early hours and talk about ideas and books and theories – he found that utterly too much and far too boring.
On another yet random note, he had the most exciting pantry and fridge I’d ever seen – filled to the brim with snacks and drinks like a fancy hotel. I was always dieting at the time so I didn’t go full-on truffle pig on the snacks but I wanted to. He loved eating Reece’s peanut butter cups and Cheez-Its as snacks whilst watching said television.
Of course, he lived in one of those fancy gated apartments that Columbus was known for at the time (like I write about with Captain Thor here). It had a big living room, dining room, kitchen, marble counters, and a massive master bedroom with one of those jacuzzi tubs, a walk-in closet, and a super king bed (more on this later). He had everything perfectly decorated and coordinated, too.
Like Captain Thor’s apartment, none of it was to my taste but it was done nicely. He had pictures on the walls, many framed photos of his own artwork, his degrees in the office area near the printer. He had a proper TV cabinet that you could even close to hide the TV (not that I’m sure he ever did) and a big, comfortable sofa and large armchair. It was like those two-seater massive chairs they have now but before those were started to be rolled out by Next and M&S (and this was in Georgia).
The beginnings and endings are muddled for me with Hot Jewish Doctor as our official dating life was short-lived (a couple of weeks) but our FWB life was longer (a couple of months) and I gleaned many of these details over time I expect. We also kept in touch as friends after I started dating Captain Thor and I’d meet him downtown for Korean BBQ lunches (more later) but by then it wasn’t sexual. Hot Jewish Doctor left a big impression on me over the year and a bit I knew him even if I left very little of one (presumably) on him.
The end of the first date
But back to the end of our first date. We had a wonderful night. We kissed at some point. Some of these past dating moments I recall with clarity and others fade from memory. He went to drop me off at my apartment. I remember not wanting the night to end. And talking about how I couldn’t date a man without books and he said he’d show me his bookshelf next time. I think I made a hint that I could see it that night but I’m not sure he took me back to his place then or another night (again, my memory of this man – although impressionable in big strokes – has some gaps).
The next day, he spent the day texting me on and off and it felt like the beginning of something exciting.
Next up, the juicy details with the Hot Jewish Doctor, including that time I charmingly had diarrhoea in his hotel room and accidentally whacked him in the face during sex.
Don’t forget to check out the other fifty-eight posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place – and the odd “present day snippet” of what I’m up to lately.
Do you recall random full-scale details about past people you dated? Also, have you ever behaved super hyped up about a date when the person was more low-key and chill? With some people, especially if I was trying to impress, I really just could not relax and be myself (a sign, perhaps).