Another [decaf] latte, a nosy cabbie, and a rejection
(in the key of pizza and a martini, a la "Lush Life")

I met up with guy number 3* at the new Starbucks in Charles Village. Like the 2nd meeting, it was a pleasant, good conversation, nice rhythm, etc. He's been the only person so far to even suggest that we might meet up again. We ran the gamut of jazz, his work as a video journalist (he's the guy who filmed that unfortunate bird's collision with Fabio's nose), and politics--all very amicably and with a greater degree of ease than I had with either of the first two. He offered to give me a ride home afterward, and though I sensed that I would have been fine, that he was totally safe, I declined. I just like to maintain my independence in these scenarios as far as getting myself to and from the destinations on my own terms goes. I told him, non-comittally, to e-mail me (about meeting up again).

I came away from this experience feeling that I could be this guy's friend.

It wasn't too long before I sucessfully hailed a cab. The true anecdote begins once I was inside the Checker vehicle. My driver was obviously not a native speaker because his language constructs were circuitous and awkwardly formal. This did not deter him from being chatty in the least, though. He asked me if I was leaving work. I told him that I wasn't, and tried to leave it at that. He asked if I was headed home, so I told him that I was. Then he asked me what I'd been doing, where I'd been, etc.

Me: Meeting a friend for coffee.
Cabbie: Who paid?
Me [bewildered by the acuity of his question]: I did.
Cabbie: Why?
Me: Because I'm the one who wanted coffee...
Cabbie: Did he drink anything?
Me: No, actually.
Cabbie: Why?
Me [intrigued but wanting to end the interrogation]: Because he didn't want anything...

He went on to ask me "how often do you do this?" I asked him if he was asking how often I meet friends for coffee or how often I drink coffee. I kept to the story of having met a preexisting friend for coffee because it was easier than explaining that I met someone for coffee that I don't actually know for a quasi-date, etc.

Suddenly I was in the unenviable position of having to keep up a lie about catching up with an old friend for coffee, that yes I had known him a long time (Is he your "growing up neighborhood friend?"), that no, even though this person was my very old friend that I did not know what he did for a living (when the cabbie asked me about my friend's job).

Then he upped the ante. Big time. My driver tells me that it is possible that this friendship can become something more. I laughed nervously and in an attempt to brush him off told him that I supposed anything could happen... He then said "these things always begin that way." I continued to laugh nervously.

Thankfully, he didn't say anything more until he dropped me off in front of my building, but what he said next was just as unnerving as anything else.

Me: Thank you.
Cabbie: Okay; good luck with your relationships.
Me [uncertainly]: Um... thanks.

Even though this driver was unusually oblivious to his customer's boundaries, I think I indulged it as far as I did because his comments were eerily prescient. Not so much about this guy that I saw tonight, but just generally, intuitively sound given what I'm purusing in my life right now.

On other fronts, a man that I contacted via the site today (I had not initiated contact with anyone in days) wrote back to say, in so many words, "Thanks, but no thanks." He used the pre-fab message "I've just met someone and I want to see what develops."

I've realized that I like it much better when a rejection is silent. I prefer it when the guys just don't write back at all.

* not the guy I saw the other morning. that date is still pending.