Femme Fatale

Readers,

This week, my very first girlfriend Vic came to NYC to participate in a training program for her summer internship. It didn't work out between us as we were both young and stupid (maybe we still are, not too sure), but because we had made amends, she reached out to me and we agreed to meet up and hang out over the weekend. Initially, the plan was only to take her out for a dinner (we ended up getting Indonesian food, which was great!) but we ended up doing other stuff too.

And we did have a lot of fun! Now, take your minds out of the gutter, por favor. While my buddies in the office were curious about the prospect of me hooking up with her, I think there is a sense of "best practices" that we mutually understood. I did flirt with her, I did touch her softly, but we knew that the ship was sailing nowhere. But we did, however, visit the Trump Tower, got pretty smashed in the HIMYM (How I Met Your Mother)'s bar, and watched a hilarious stand-up at Comedy Cellar.

I think I forgot what it felt like to have a lady treat you so well. Call me a fool, but I am so used to play the part of the f#@king gentleman, which makes me blind to the fact that a woman can treat me really well too. Don't get me wrong, I did try to be a gentleman for her in the past two nights. I successfully covered two out of the four bills (the last two she fought fiercely for), I made sure I dress up well, made sure she had enough water to drink (she was coughing), and walked her back to her place before going back to my own.

She was great, though. She was very respectful and kind when speaking with me, but she took my jokes well and responded in kind. She was really responsive and flexible when we tried making plans, and she was open about her preferences. There were no games. She showed up looking gorgeous (been a while since I had a lady dress up for me) and earlier than me, under the pretext of, in her own words, "just in case there is a line." She enjoyed and laughed hard at the stand-up, she consciously ate less when we ate together and made me eat more. She fought for the bill everytime. She made sure I texted her when I got back to my place safely. Never once she checked her phone when I was in her presence: She made sure to wait until I had to go to the bathroom or something.

Thank you, Vic. Really appreciate it. Our encounter opened my eyes, that actually there are women out there who are willing to put in the effort for me. That is really, really much appreciated.

Make no mistake, readers, I don't foresee any future between us. I am no longer the naive boy who I was, and I know that we're much better off being friends like the past weekend. Having said that, I really appreciated how she treated me as a man, and going forward, I resolve to dedicate my resources to other such ladies. She'll find a great guy!

-R