Around the World in 80 Dates (33 page)

I'm sorry if that seems like too much information, but you don't get a second chance to make a first impression: I didn't want Paul to spend our entire date thinking about…

Okay, I'll move on.

 

Paul (Date #66)
and I finally left the flat and caught a taxi to a Chinese foot-massage place five minutes away. I was absolutely delighted: I really love having reflexology (based on the belief that each part of your foot is linked to a part of your body, so massaging your feet can relieve anything from an upset tummy to tension in your shoulders). Paul had chosen a perfect date (and there wasn't a boat or raw fish in sight).

When we arrived at the center, there was a moment of slight confusion as Paul tried to explain to the manager what type of treatment we wanted. (“My Chinese isn't that good,” he confessed with a self-deprecating grimace.) But the situation was resolved by using Travelers' Semaphore (basically a lot of pointing and nodding). We were then led down a white corridor to a small unadorned room, two large wing-back chairs in the middle, a low table between them, two footstools in front. Up on the wall, a television belted out a Chinese soap opera at a deafening level. The place felt less curative, more geriatric: I wondered if we'd come to a local retirement home by mistake.

But then a Chinese man and woman in their twenties walked into the room. Each was holding a footbath and a pitcher full of scaldingly hot water. They gestured we should remove our shoes and socks and immerse our feet in the baths they had laid at our feet.

That neither of our reflexologists spoke English didn't stop them from gamely trying to engage us in conversation. They gave up after a few minutes, though, and settled on chatting animatedly with each other instead. They clearly enjoyed each other's company; crouching over our feet washing them vigorously, they talked and teased each other nonstop. It was almost as if they were on a date, too.

“So I hear you have some dating questions for me,” Paul teased good-naturedly.

I gave a rueful smile and blushed slightly. “It's survival of the fittest out there in the dating world,” I told him in mock seriousness. “A girl's gotta be prepared.”

He laughed. Graciously accepting the two beers the manager had just popped in to offer us (just a thought, Western Masseurs: less Enya, more alcohol), Paul opened both cans and handed one to me. I smiled and raised it in a toast: “Here's to Hector, Ang, and Grace,” I declared.

“Hector, Ang, and Grace,” Paul echoed and laughed.

We clunked cans and drank. Then, leaning back in our chairs, we put the cans down on the low table between us and relaxed as the young man and woman expertly worked our feet.

And, of course, we chatted. Paul was lovely and as he told me about growing up in Perth and we talked about the places we both knew there, I wondered how he could still be single. He was really sweet, good-looking, and gentle, entertaining company. I thought of Garry and felt a bit guilty that I was enjoying myself so much.

Apart from the occasional moment of excruciating pain when the masseur probed a tender part of my foot (
I bet that's the bit linked to my tummy,
I thought each time), we were so engrossed in conversation that I almost forgot there was someone working on my feet.

Until suddenly I was jolted back into reality by the sound of my masseur gasping in shock. His fingers were pressing painfully into the sole of my right foot. I froze in horror: I knew exactly what he'd found and I cursed myself for not having thought about this sooner.

There was a huge, horrible wart on my right foot and the masseur had clearly just spotted it. To my humiliation, he was pointing flamboyantly, trying to bring it to my—and in the process everyone else's—attention.

Okay, I had a terrible wart. He knew it and I knew it; for God's sake, couldn't we just leave it at that?

I felt my cheeks grow scarlet with embarrassment. My masseur didn't speak English, so thankfully wasn't able to come out and say what the problem was. And, mercifully, although Paul did speak a little Chinese, he'd obviously been off the week the class had covered
diseased feet,
and his vocabulary didn't extend to the word for wart. So as my masseur gesticulated urgently, and as Paul's masseur scolded my masseur furiously, and as I sat there red-faced and mortified, Paul was the only one who had no idea what was going on.

I badly wanted to keep it that way.

“Is your foot okay?” he asked in his Australian drawl, clearly concerned for my well-being.

“Ummm, yes,” I replied brittlely. “It's…err…a blister from running. I did a bit of training with the NBA in Tokyo.” (Well, I'd chatted with the Sonics' assistant coach in the gym, that was like training, wasn't it?) I was desperately trying to sound ladylike and dignified. I was also trying to ignore the completely appalled expression on the face of my masseur, who continued to point animatedly at the sole of my foot.

“Mate, must be a pretty bad one,” Paul observed in a mixture of sympathy and awe.

The pantomime continued.

At the end of my leg, my masseur had given up pointing and was now miming a vigorous chopping motion with his hands instead. The girl working on Paul's feet rolled her eyes and hissed at him angrily. I think she'd picked up on my fervent and increasingly desperate wish that he would please, for the love of God, shut up about my foot.

But he wouldn't. He continued to energetically act out the chopping motion.

I guessed however bad the wart, it was unlikely my masseur was recommending amputation as the most appropriate course of action. I wondered if perhaps he was advising some light pumicing. I would have agreed to pretty much anything at this point, so like a secretive bidder at an auction, I gave my masseur a discreet but definite nod to proceed with whatever he had in mind. The man immediately jumped to his feet and dashed out the door.

In the face of such sustained drama, all pretense that everything was fine was abandoned at this point. Conversation stopped dead as Paul, his masseur, and I sat silently watching the space in which the man would soon reappear. Thirty seconds later, he did. He burst theatrically through the door, dropped to his knees, and with much ceremony took a long roll of black cloth from under his arm. Laying the cloth reverentially on my footstool, my masseur unfurled it slowly. And as he did, one by one, fifteen deadly silver scalpels came terrifyingly into view.

That would explain the chopping motion then.

There was a collective intake of breath.
“Jeez,”
Paul breathed out, openly horrified as we watched the light fall and die on the cold edges of the pitiless steel. “I hope he knows what he's doing.”

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was genuinely in a quandary at this point. Of course, I didn't want the masseur to hack out my instep, but at the same time this was excruciatingly embarrassing and had gone on for what felt like forever. I wanted to go back to the happy chatting of ten minutes ago; I wanted us all to forget about why my hideous feet had become the uneasy focal point for the entire room. If my masseur's plans kept him quiet and happy, let him get on with it; I was willing to take my chances with the consequences.

Paul's masseur had lost patience by now and resumed her work on his feet. But both Paul and I watched mutely as my masseur trailed his fingers gently over the handles of his scalpels. They came to rest on a knife whose broad blade resembled a flat chisel. Untying the ribbons that secured it to the pack, my masseur carefully plucked it from the cloth and oiled the blade lovingly. Lifting it high, then pausing for a moment to admire its wicked edge, he plunged it down dramatically on the sole of my foot, again and again and again.

I let out a gasp and braced myself for the terrible pain, but, surprisingly, there was no sensation at all. I felt nothing. The knife was so sharp it sliced effortlessly and painlessly through the skin (or the whole thing was a cruel joke and he wasn't chopping at all).

Mortification turned into irritation. I was meant to be on a date; this had now taken up more than enough time. I turned to Paul and, stuttering in an unstable, high-pitched voice, demanded: “So, Paul, why did you decide to move to China?”

And incredibly, the dating questions worked their magic.

As I asked and Paul answered, gradually we forgot about the stupid drama that had distracted us and instead focused on the task at hand. Our date. We chatted about loves we'd had and lost; places we'd visited; how work can absorb and make you feel good about yourself. We lost ourselves in conversation, talking easily and comfortably. All was as it should be once more.

Until, from outside the cocoon of our conversation, a sound jolted us back into our surroundings: We were having our feet massaged and the man working on mine was clearing his throat, trying to get my attention. Paul and I stopped midchatter and I instinctively reached forward as my masseur held something out for me to take. He dropped it into the palm of my hand and I retracted my arm so I could inspect it more closely. Paul looked over curiously.

As I unclenched my fingers, Paul and I looked in. Nestling in the center of my palm was the large, yellowing, blood-encrusted lump that up until very recently had been my wart. Like something out of
Reservoir Dogs,
the masseur had cut it off and given it to me. Paul and I both looked at it open-mouthed. We turned to each other, our eyes wide and blank in surprise. We looked back: I was still holding a wart.

It's easy to know in hindsight what the correct response to a given situation should be. And, looking back, I can see clearly mine was
not
the correct response. But it was a very difficult situation; I didn't know what to do. I have to admit, I panicked.

I put the wart in my pocket.

Looking up, I could see this was the wrong thing: Even the man who'd been unsqueamish enough to cut it off was now regarding me with an open look of horror and disgust.

The date ended pretty much there and then. Paul was good enough to last through the end of the massage and the taxi back to Hector's. He didn't stay long once we got there, though.

“Did the date go okay?” Hector asked curiously as soon as Paul had left. I watched him dropping into a chair, exhausted from a frantic evening of getting the flat ready for Ang, the baby, and his new life.

“Hector, do you have anything stronger than beer to drink?” I asked him in a tone that suggested it possibly hadn't gone well at all.

Hector and I sat up all night drinking. I stayed long enough the next morning to see Ang and Grace arrive home. Then, hugging and kissing everyone, wishing them luck and thanking them for their help and hospitality, I caught a taxi to the airport.

I was ready to move on.

Date #71—Surfer Steve,
Perth, West Australia

As I flew out of Beijing, I curled up in my seat thinking about the date with Paul. Every now and again a primal whimper escaped, as I replayed the action lowlights of the evening again and again in my head.

It had all been going so well, too.

But even as I beat myself up with the shame of it all, I wondered if—apart from the embarrassment, the humiliation, the
can't get out of here fast enough
good-bye, and the subsequent all-night drinking with Hector—it would have ended any differently. I mean, I had liked Paul, and I'd really enjoyed meeting him, but he wasn't The One; there wasn't the instant attraction and solid sense of connection I'd felt on meeting Garry.

I felt relieved, since it meant that I hadn't really messed up anything with Paul after all, but also a little disingenuous. Was I going on the remaining dates just to check that no one else matched up to Garry? Was this like shopping for a new style of clothes, but in this case it was suitors I was trying on for size?

I hoped not: It was cold and cynical and not fair on the dates or Garry. But at the same time, how could it be any other way? And, perhaps more importantly, if in a twist of Fate, I actually did meet someone who measured up to Garry…what then?

I felt a little troubled as I flew southeast from Beijing across the Chinese mainland and down over northern Vietnam, Laos, and into Thailand. But I've never had a bad time in Bangkok, and during the drive from the airport to the city, the excitement of being there chased away any lingering anxiety.

The hotel turned out to be perfect: La Résidence was a boutique property near Silom. It was cool, quiet, and easy walking distance from Chong Nonsi Skytrain station, Bangkok's life saving monorail that allowed you to bypass the city's notoriously gridlocked traffic and pollution.

The weather was over a hundred degrees and insanely humid; I felt like I was being poached in my own perspiration every time I stepped out of the hotel. But Bangkok was not a place to stay in your room and watch MTV. With the gilded curlicues and ornate carvings of the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew and the Emerald Buddha, the seven-thousand-stall consumeropolis that is Chatuchak market, selling everything from snakes to milkshakes, you didn't have to go far to find something amazing.

In fact, Thailand in general was an incredibly easy, friendly, forgiving country to travel around. Asia 101: Wobble up the first-time-traveler learning curve here and you'll find it much easier than, say, India or Cambodia.

But it would be a mistake to stereotype Thailand as a living museum of tradition and culture, as special as these features were. Bangkok in particular was an educated, affluent city with sophisticated urban tastes.

This was clear the moment I walked into the lobby of the Conrad Hotel for my next date. Endless marble columns rose up from oceans of gleaming marble floors; tiny, beautiful women floated across the surface in sparkly, diaphanous outfits, like jeweled dragonflies. I was meeting my date in the Diplomat Bar at 9:30 p.m. and, depending on how it went, I would take him along or go on my own to meet my friend Joe at the ultra-hip Club 87 at 11 p.m.

Andrew (Date #67)
was a friend of my Australian friend Lorna (the one who'd set me up with her
he ain't heavy metal, he's my brother
William in Stockholm). I hadn't had any previous contact with Andrew because—and this shocked me almost more than the incident with Paul, Lorna's brother, Garry meeting Kelly, and every other crazy thing that had happened on this trip—he wasn't on email.

Imagine.

Andrew was a wine importer and was clearly nice, but a little bland for my tastes. Or, to be more specific, there was no chemistry; he just wasn't my type. He made a bit of a fuss about ordering the right wine and then spent a long time telling me how if it was more
this
and less
that,
it would have been superb. He had very fine blond hair which he fiddled with constantly. He'd sweep his bangs across to the right, smooth them into place, then once they were perfectly neat push them back off his face and start all over again. It was mesmerizing, like watching clothes in a tumble dryer go round and round and round.

I didn't take him to see Joe, and as it turned out, I didn't get to see Joe myself: Popping into the toilet on the way down to the club, I managed to
misfaucet
(as in Japan, Thai toilets favored water over paper and had little extendable hoses for that purpose). A combination of high water-pressure and poor coordination meant that at the vital moment, a jet of water shot up from between my legs, soaking the front of my skirt and drenching my fabulous Rodeo Drive boots. The look on the faces of the beautiful women around the mirror (who'd probably never peed in their lives) as I emerged confirmed my worst suspicions regarding how bad it looked, and I decided to call it a night.

I stopped for a drink in a laid-back bar round the corner from my hotel on the way back, wanting to take a moment to review how everything was going before I went to bed. It was time to face something I'd been trying to ignore but couldn't any longer. I was developing a bit of an attitude problem regarding the journey—my attention was beginning to wander and I was in the grip of Date Doubt.

“You've come so far,” I told myself sternly. “You have to focus. Your job is to stay in the Date Zone; the reason for what you're doing will become clear when the time is right.”

In truth, I was struggling to see where all this was leading. I mean, I loved dating and I wanted to give the Dates my very best. But acting as a counselor to Will, then the drama with Paul, then the so-so date with Andrew just now, made it hard to see what purpose these dates served in the larger scheme of things. And the less I was absorbed by the Dates, the more I missed Garry (which, of course, made me wonder anew why I was still dating). I wished he was here with me now.

But, I told myself severely, Garry
wasn't
here now. I was, though, and so were my Dates. I needed to keep to the course, navigating from Date to Date, as planned and plotted by the Date Wranglers and me.

I had to take another leap of faith: to believe there was an important discovery still to be made on my quest, and that the course I was on would lead me to it. I had to trust in that now, as I had when I'd been “looking” for Garry.

 

Giving myself a talking-to must have worked, because the next date was brilliant.

My friend Katia lived in Bangkok, but bad timing meant she was in London when I was there. “I don't know how you expect to find a date in Asia if you won't date anyone shorter than six foot. Tall Asian men aren't exactly the norm here, you know,” she'd remonstrated earlier that month. But Katia was one of the Date Wranglers who seemed to think that the belief I'd met my Soul Mate needed to be tested:

This, of course, reeked of The One Who Could Have Been, but that was fine. As Katia had rightly observed, my height requirement had made Asian dates thin (and short) on the ground. And
Toi (Date #68)
turned out to be the perfect cure for my severe case of Date Doubt.

There was no doubt that he was a model. Tall and slim, with high cheekbones and beautiful soft brown eyes, he was as striking as he was elegant. People stared as he passed by. Not that any of this was the reason he was the perfect cure (in fact, good-looking and confident, he should have been the perfect nightmare), he was just lovely. Full of energy and enthusiasm, Toi was completely unaffected. He was also really into music, and we twittered on about the Asian and European music scene for ages. He was also fascinated by my journey and couldn't seem to hear enough about it.

Toi took me to a traditional Thai festival for our date.

Loi Krathong took place during the first full moon in November. Across Thailand, people gathered at rivers and floated boats made from banana palms as an offering to the river goddess. It was a huge occasion, and in Bangkok thousands of Thais came to the banks of the Chao Phraya river by the Shangri La hotel, all looking for the best spot to launch their krathongs from.

In Bangkok, krathong-making was a thriving cottage industry since people buy rather than make their own. The stall-holders that lined the street were doing brisk trade in what looked like colorful cakes, but were in fact huge lotus flowers. Their green outer petals were folded neatly back, creating a frame of little green triangles around the flower's center, which was then studded with marigolds, orchids, candles, and incense sticks. I exclaimed they seemed far too beautiful to float. “Ahhh, but we float them for love, and what is more beautiful than that?” Toi replied.

I laughed, thinking how Toi's head may have been Thai, but his heart was pure Italian.

There must have been five thousand people on the street around us, pushing their way down to join the thousands already on the riverbank. We stepped out of the crush to buy krathongs of our own.

“You see,” Toi explained, “krathongs are an offering to the river goddess, but they also tell the future of your love.”

I stopped trying to choose from the stall's array of krathongs, each more beautiful and delicate than the next, and listened more closely. But Toi shooed my attention back to the stall, clearly intending I should listen as I chose.

“When single people place their krathong on the water, it represents the baggage of old relationships. It floats away, leaving them free to find someone new.” Toi sounded very serious as he described the ritual. “And then when you've met someone new, you come back the next year and place your krathong in the water as an offering of thanks, and to ensure a happy future together.”

I inspected the krathongs even more closely on hearing this; I wanted to say the best possible thank-you for finding Garry.

I looked up to tell Toi this, but then suddenly thought maybe he didn't know about Garry. I wondered if he'd mind that I'd already met someone. I could tell he liked me, but, now I came to think about it, the vibe I was picking up from him was one of preoccupation rather than of interest. I watched him as he talked and wondered what could be the reason.

“When you meet someone, you should bring them here,” he continued, “and you both launch your krathongs into the water. How far they float downstream together tells you how long you can expect the relationship to last.”

It was a beautiful story and one that felt extremely pertinent to me. But I was now also intrigued by Toi. Maybe because I knew of his Italian connection, there was something about his tone that reminded me of sorrowful Solimano in Verona, weighed down by the thought of playing Romeo in perpetuity.

But the stall-holder had no time for our poetry-of-the-soul moment; she was in the business of selling krathongs, and so far we were all talk, no action. Growing impatient with my distracted dithering, she grabbed the nearest krathong, shoved it into my startled grasp, and held her hand out to be paid.

I was too shocked to be polite. I shoved it right back at her in indignation: I was picking the krathong that was both the thanks for meeting Garry and the down payment on our future together. Was she mad? One wrong krathong, and that was my love life sold down the river, gone forever, thank you very much.

But fair enough, it was time to make up our minds.

Toi and I picked out—to our eyes anyway—the nicest krathongs and once again joined the dense crowd of families, couples, teenagers, and pickpockets squeezing over the bridge to the water's edge.

There was such a crush we could hardly move, so as we inched along, we chatted about my journey and how much traveling Toi got to do as a model.

Impetuously, I suddenly asked: “Toi, is everything okay?” We couldn't move much because of the crush, but even so, Toi jerked around involuntarily at my question.

“Why do you ask?” he demanded, not angrily, more intrigued, as if I could see something he couldn't.

“I don't know.” I shrugged neutrally. “It was just a thought.”

I'd learned two things on this trip. One, my dates always seemed to be at a crossroads and therefore thought (probably rightly) that I was too. Two, they agreed to date me because, in my role as
pair of ears today, gone tomorrow,
they wanted to talk to someone outside their circle about the cause of their crossroads.

Toi sighed, turned to face me, and assumed an expression of
you asked, so
…(Mentally I checked all the aforementioned boxes.)

Apparently, he wanted time out from modeling. He'd gone into it because it was easy: He'd been spotted by a scout when he was twenty and had worked regularly ever since. “But you know, Jennifer,” he said without a trace of irony, “I keep thinking to myself, ‘Is how I look all I amount to? Am I really just a face and a pair of shoulders?' ”

It would have been easy to tease Toi but I didn't; my conversation with International Correspondent Will in Beijing was fresh in my mind, and I didn't doubt that glamorous jobs could be lonely.