Thank you for taking the time to read my essays. Your support means so much to me. If you enjoy these newsletters, please consider sharing Moxie with friends via email or on social media. You can also upgrade to a paid subscription which entitles you to an additional essay every Tuesday. Your support of my work allows me to keep writing on this platform and to keep making free content- with minimal ads- on other platforms. Regardless of subscription level, thank you for being here, I love you and am grateful for your support.
I do not think very many things are subjective. I think we wish they were.
A few weeks ago, I went on a first date that was not exactly bad. No potential but not an unpleasant conversation. I am going through a phase where I will say anything to a man, I will ask a man anything on a first date. This man was tastefully older than I am. Tall, with dark hair, attractive in a middle of the road way. Jeans, brown belt, button down tucked in, loafers. “How long was your longest relationship?” I asked him.
“Three or four months.” He said.
“You’re 40.” (I don’t know how old he actually was but I’m certain I said ‘you’re 40’, he was certainly one of the ages that I call 40 which for men is about 38-42.)
“I’m picky.”
“No one should be that picky, what are you looking for?”
“A wife.”
“No, I mean, what kind of wife? I should have asked who you’re looking for, not what.”
“I need someone very attractive and petite. Someone who is outgoing and charismatic. Fashionable. Very family oriented, that’s important to me. I need her to have a good job, I want someone who cares about her career. A woman’s career matters a lot to me. I would never want a stay at home mom.”
“That’s the problem.”
“What’s the problem, those are all good things.”
“I barely have a career, by the way.”
“I meant I want a woman with passions.”
“No, no you didn’t and that’s okay. I’m not offended, I’m difficult to offend. I know who I am.”
“I think writing is a career.”
“I think you’ve been single forever because that woman doesn’t exist. The woman with an amazing career is not the sparkliest girl in the room. The sparkliest girl in the room is broke.”
“That’s not always true.”
“It’s true enough. I think you need to decide a little bit, there is no woman who is extremely fit and charismatic and family oriented but obsessed with her career. I think you can pick two of those things, maybe three.”
“I think she’s out there.”
“I’ve been married. Being married to a man is a full time job, I promise it is. So is being fit, fashionable, and charismatic. So is an actual full time job. So is having kids. I don’t think any woman can do four full time jobs.”
“It’s a good point.”
“I’m not telling you what to do. Do what you want, it’s just my opinion.”
He smiled and nodded not unkindly and walked me home and did not seem offended by my instance that his standards were ridiculous.
(I recounted this conversation on the phone with a friend, a few days later. “Cindy Crawford” He said.
“What?”
“Cindy Crawford is all of those things, I think.”
“She’s a supermodel.”
“She went to Princeton.”
“Fine, but if there was ever an exception that proves the rule.”
“Could this guy date a supermodel?”
“I think his shoes were Cole Haan.”)
…
There is a scene-y and vaguely Italian seafood restaurant in my neighborhood. One or two or even occasionally three night per week, I go and sit at the bar and have dinner and talk to my favorite bartender. I’ll order a Negroni or a glass of red wine and my favorite clam pasta (I sometimes have clam pasta for dinner three times in one week, we’ll call it eccentric) and talk to other patrons, some of them regulars most of them not. After the date with High Standards Guy (my typical feeling is that dinner is a date and drinks are a meeting but I had spent too many July evenings at a two hour dinner that felt seven hours long. I agreed to drinks.) I walked to this restaurant and sat at the bar. It’s my spot, at least right now. There was a conspicuously attractive man around my age next to me at the bar. Extremely well coiffed, wearing all cream in a tasteful way.
“First date?” I asked him.
“Yes, you?” He smiled.
“Just finished mine. He wasn’t for me.”
“My guy is too young.”
“How young?”
“24.”
“Too young. I knew you were on a date because we have the same first date outfit.”
“All neutrals.”
“It says I won’t spill and I like when people look at me.”
We exchanged numbers and he said his dinner would be brief and if I was still around after his date we should have a drink and gossip.
I ate slowly and eventually a man who was too whatever he was for me (layered chain necklaces, a loose fitting thin tee shirt, tight jeans, you know the type) asked to buy me a drink. I said sure, because he was attractive though not my type and my new friends dinner looked almost finished and I love to speak to someone. My phone buzzed, my cream clad brother from the booth a few feet away.
Your guy is hot.
He is. He’s not my type but he’s very hot. Your guy is a young 24.
No sex appeal.
None.
“Who are you texting?” My Maroon 5 vibe suitor asked.
“The guy in the cream at that table.”
“What does he say?”
“That his date has no sex appeal.”
“That’s mean. He’s mean.”
“No it’s not, no he isn’t. Sex appeal isn’t good or bad, it just is.”
“Do I have sex appeal?”
“You know you do, that’s your schtick, that’s why you’re wearing that tee shirt.”
“I still think it’s mean.”
“I don’t think so. Maybe it isn’t nice but it’s just a fact. Think of it like this, most things are pretty objectively true or not. No sex appeal doesn’t mean he’s unattractive and a lot of sex appeal doesn’t make someone beautiful. Those are different qualities. Lenny Kravitz has a lot of sex appeal and so does Brad Pitt. Jon Cusack and Bradley Cooper are both very very good-looking but they don’t have much sex appeal. It’s not a bad thing not to have it, it doesn’t mean no one wants to sleep with you it means you don’t sort of reek of sex all the time.”
“Name a woman who is beautiful with little or no sex appeal?”
“I dunno, maybe Grace Kelly?”
…
I wish we could see ourselves the way other people see us. Wouldn’t that be a joy?
I love you!!!
Hannah Stella
I think Cindy Crawford would not have made the cut--too tall! He said "petite"--was that a retro polite way of saying thin or tiny or tiny and thin?! And maybe 1993 Cindy would have been ok with Cole Haans (they were preppy in an "I'm low-key and from the Northeast" kind of way) , but not 2023 Cindy.
This was cute and fun! More NYC dating stories please! 💘💘💘💘💘
-- lots of love from London xxo!