I’m at LaSalle Power Co. in River North and—it being my first time ever hanging out with Jenn, who’s invited me along to her friend’s birthday party—I’m trying to put a good foot forward by not being a needy and clingy guest. So when I see a tall, well-dressed gentleman checking me out, I decide this is a good opportunity to prove just how self-sufficient a guest I am.
I don’t quite make eyes back at this target, but that’s okay because I can hear his friends pushing him to approach me. I feign surprise when he comes up to me and holds out his hand.
“Hello. I like-uh Asian guhrls,” he says to me straight off the bat in heavily accented vernacular. Uh-oh, this is off to a rocky start.
Determined not to come back to Jenn empty-handed, I deter him from his feverish ways and ask for his name. I half expect him to respond, “I’m Maaaaaaaa-rio!”
Turns out his name is plain American Steven. His preamble and regular-Joe name notwithstanding, Steven certainly doesn’t dress like a schmuck. He’s decked out in a fitted blazer with nerdy hipster black plastic-frame glasses and a bowtie that actually fashions him dashing. Add to that he’s off the boat fresh from Italy. Top that off with some graduate business student-ness at U. of Chicago. Overall am I now impressed? Certainly.
It doesn’t last long. Five minutes into our conversation, Steven comes up with the kicker.
“So-ah, when a-ru we gonna ha-vuh the sex-uh?”
“Say what?” I retort, incredulous.
“You know-uh. The sex-uh, the sex-uh.”
Of all the things I could be thinking, my first thought: He gave “sex” a direct article?! I laugh uncomfortably, eyes darting sideways in an instinctual search for an escape. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“You say no-uh?”
“Ah, we’ve just met, you know.”
He shrugs disappointedly, but remains resolute in his quest.
“Okay, okay. What do I hav-uh to do-ah to hav-uh the sex-uh with you?”
Never let it be said that Steven isn’t considerate.
Love Games, or the Lack Thereof 