What an evening!

Naomi, a recently acquired London-based bestie from Ohio, was excited when I suggested going to the opera together. Naomi and I had met during covid, and foud we have much in common – fancy events, board gaming, even coincidentally some mutual best friends. I had recently acquired a fancy dress in Milan, and was lamenting I had nowhere to wear it (I figured I wouldn’t be invited to the Met Gala anytime soon). I also really wanted to see Otello, which I knew was playing at Royal Opera House on July 12th, because I’d really gotten into listening to the Jonas Kaufman Otello soundtrack while going on trail runs.

Naomi was a great wingwoman. She even volunteered to be a third wheel in case I wanted to invite Alex (see date 32 and date 35) to the opera. Unfortunately he couldn’t go. As a consolation prize, Naomi and I took our fancy dresses out to pre-opera dinner and post-opera drinks in London’s famous West End. (As well as to intermission drinks at ROH itself, during which

For the post-opera drinks, we talked our way into an upstairs bar in Covent Garden. The bartender was super chatty. Pretty soon, a 30-something suavely dressed Indian guy named Will took a spot on the bar stool next to Naomi. He introduced himself, and proceeded to spend the next hour chatting her up. They covered a wide assortment of intellectual and political topics, and I tried to be in the conversation, but it was noisy in the bar bar; meanwhile, his less-polished, far more drunk friends persistently pestered me with annoying small talk while. I eventually shed them. Will bought us a second round of drinks, but soon after Naomi had about enough and were ready to leave.

I paid my drink, and got up to leave. I walked past Naomi, who in turn started to pay. Suddenly, Will swooped in next to me, matched my movement, and stopped me. Out of nowhere, he stopped in front of me and started to say goodbye. He gave me one lingering cheek kiss, then turned to the other, “of course it’s 2 kisses, the right way” he says, and kissed the other. He then started commenting how stunning I looked. Not sure how to process this, he continued by asking me out and suggesting we exchange numbers. I was both flattered and taken aback, since all this time his attention had been focused on Naomi. I agreed, and gave him my number. Then all of a sudden, in the middle of this dark bar, he came right in and started kissing me. Unfortunately I found him to be quite a good kisser, and attractive. But I stopped him, feeling this was quite inappropriate behavior for a public setting.

I did promise I would write him back, but in the end I avoided his texts. Three small red flags: 1) He never once called out or even recognized his rude friends for their bad behavior; 2) Kissing me in public like that was inappropriate; and, 3) I’m pretty sure he played me by showing little interest in me for the first hour as a way to make me jealous. Influenced by 3 drinks, it had momentarily worked. But this was clearly someone playing a field and a bit too manipulative for me. No next date, sorry!