Dating Fail #8

Evan loves early Woody Allen movies, so it was almost uncanny how closely his bad date resembled a scene from one of Mr. Allen’s earlier films.

There Evan was, the guy with the ‘fro so legendary that it once swallowed a golf tee (no lie—it emerged three days later on the other side of his head), going on a date with a thoroughbred New England WASP. Despite his date’s WASPy upbringing, Evan figured she ought to know her way around ethnic food. Seriously, growing up in proximity to both Boston and New York and not being able to navigate anything beyond vanilla and white bread is sort of like defying physics. It simply can’t be done.

Evan thought so too.

Evan was wrong.

He took her to a Jewish deli, and as they walked in his stomach growled in anticipation of pastrami on rye (and possibly a nice Hebrew National hot dog if he wound up feeling ambitious). As he eyed the menu—growing hungrier by the moment—she looked at her menu skeptically. She turned it over. Turned it back to the front page. Turned it over again. Fidgeted with the edge.

The waitress came to take their orders, and Evan eagerly listed off his requests—replete with extra pastrami.

His date, with all the enthusiasm of a hibernating eel, ordered a hamburger.

It was like they fell out of the scene from Annie Hall when Woody Allen takes Diane Keaton to a Jewish deli, where she WASP-ifies a classic Jewish dish by ordering pastrami—not on rye, but on white—with mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. In fact, if this hadn’t happened after Annie Hall had been filmed, I’d be convinced that it was the inspiration for that scene. Failing that, though, had Woody Allen actually been there he would have practically wet himself laughing.

“That scene was supposed to be a joke,” he’d holler. “Not real life! A hamburger? At a Jewish deli? What’s she going to ask for next, bacon?”

Evan wolfed down his food, and his date picked listlessly at her burger. She didn’t say a word, despite Evan’s best attempts at starting conversation. And so, with each passing bite of pastrami on rye, Evan grew increasingly convinced that, in this case at least, her bland palate was indicative of a similar personality.

They parted ways after this fateful meal—she to the land of white bread and vanilla, he to the land of Jewish delis.