Dating chronicles, part one mere mortals

There are guys with light blue eyes, the color of the July afternoon sky - freckled but hopeful, with hair that resembles the ripened rye, slender like Canadian maples and femininely overeducated.
They would always pack lunch, record the lectures and sometimes even wear green turtlenecks in winter. They are a delightful dihybrid cross of Urban Outfitters and Gap, Lakewood and Los Angeles, Gandhi and soy-no sugar-added frappucino…
If you are an opinionated, dressed-to-impress, foul-mouthed, well-read carnivore of a woman in the mid-twenties, with a soul and imagination that can fit two Pacific Oceans and entire Southern Hemisphere, the guy like this bores you to death.
However on the monotonous background of rapidly tick-ticking biological clocks, you hear the concerned voices of others: “He is good for you!"(As good as vegetarian diet for a lion I guess). and " You are 25, and it's quarter of the century!" ( boohoo)
So here starts the story of Michael….
He asked me out in a very clichй way, clichй from Victorian Era:
“Young lady in blue blazer (still don’t know what the hell is the blazer exactly?), would you be so kind to have a cup of coffee with someone stunned by your beauty? Plus you look exactly like my brother’s ex-girlfriend Becky and she is such a cutie”

And back then, I was that kind. Plus he was the only single guy in the entire nursing program, the only one of two of available guys.

Michael (don’t worry, I did not change the name) was obsessed with white table grapes, rock-climbing,Global Warming, consumerism in America, poverty in Africa , fitness and Archangel Michael (the latest were obviously connected as he explained).
When he announced the connection, I almost fell over the bridge we were crossing (of course, he took me out to marvel at nature): “Archangel Michael? The Field Commander of the Army of God? And working out? Working out in the name of Archangel? What YMCA brainwashed you so bad?”

He nodded. Well, nothing wrong with loving an Archangel, I guess everybody loves one. And everybody loves to work out. In this very very strange country of America. My thoughts were suddenly stumbling and I felt as if I was back in the psychiatric Emergency Room of St’Vincet hospital (my last clinical rotation), place as cheerful and uplifting as crematorium.
Michael went on explaining his obsession with Archangel, secretly enjoying my sheer bewilderment.
“One day I will die (semi-pause-sob) …. Archangel Michael is going to meet me at the gates and this then I am going to show him – look how I lived and how I took care of this body! And He will say : Now you join us, with that beautiful body and soul!”
We were walking in the park as Michael -the-mortal was delivering the speech. I suddenly imagined - the heaven, the Gates, and the skinny boy in the shorts staying tall and proud in front of Archangel Michael.
Too heavy for the casual afternoon date I must say.
If I drank back then, I would have wanted a drink.
Of course I had words I wanted to say. Something about the vanity of all the human-beings, of the spirituality that was required “upstairs “more than anything, of the mortality and decoy of human flesh, finally about Archangel Michael being busy with more important business (like defeating the Satan) rather than checking out Mike’s biceps and six-pack… I saved the words. My Russian mother wanted me to be married by 25; I was running out of time.
Shortly after our promenade, we stopped by at his house because Michael forgot something at home (infested with cats and cactuses), and on the fridge I saw “To-Do list”. Note to myself and others: that list can be read by others and should almost always exclude people!
I started browsing through the list with in boredom while enormous grey cat was taking a nap in my London Fog burgundy trench coat.
Few seconds later, I was no longer bored – right after buying toilet paper (yes, Michael was consumed not only with heavenly matters) and before laundry, there was: “TAKE OLGA OUT FOR COFFEE!” I don’t know what was more disturbing – the screaming yellow permanent marker, the exclamation mark, or the fact that he never did take me out for coffee? Hmmmm…..
Although the prioritization was also strikingly unpleasant (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs never seemed more true than now), but I went on with a date. Again, I was almost 25. And I handled reality better than now if it’s possible to believe.
After the cheap dinner in a local diner on wheels (oh the places we went, the dinners we ate in our hungry poor youth!!), where the dinner was served by a pleasant waiter in the stained T-shirt , and too long of a conversation about humans ruining the planet driving SUVs (vehicle of my dreams, preferably the color of old venous blood), I almost begged Mike to take me home.

In the environment-friendly car (my knees were almost hitting the ceiling), Mike informed me:
“I am going to do something that my friends tell me not to do. They say that’s why I don’t have a girlfriend.” He looked into my eyes so intensely I almost saw the reflection of my scared face in his dilated pupils…

“Is he going to kiss me while driving? “ – gushed Little Scarlett O’Hara in me…

…Next was happening like in slow-motion comedy movie (only no one was laughing); he pulled out the toothbrush and toothpaste (I don’t even know where from? Where?! Did he keep them in the back seat? In a special case in the back seat?) and started vigorously brushing his teeth, spitting out through the window, swallowing Crest toothpaste while driving the car, smiling and trying to talk to in me in a garbled speech : “I hope you are Ok with what I am doing”

I watched him in disbelief, automatically registering in my mind two distinct thoughts:”Oh, that’s what he forgot at home! And - Just chewing gum would have done it!”

In between spitting, swallowing and gagging on the toothpaste, he informed me: “Well, you strike me as a smart woman, so you would rather kiss someone with nice white pearls rather than yellow teeth?” Teeth were truly “pearly”, his dentist, mother and Archangel Michael had their expectations met, and I was just about done.

I took the conversation about kissing as a fair warning, and literally flew out of his car.
I never returned his calls. Not because of the excessive oral hygiene, speech about the angel or To DO list on his rusty fridge no, not at all…or maybe because of all of it together.

I just concluded that my 25 years of Earthly existence were not nearly enough to comprehend his eccentricity, and that I would go on dating normal people…

How little I knew about dating and people back then… But it’s a completely different story.