Chaz. Not Charlies or Charlie but Chaz. I should have immediately understood this as strange and strange as impendingly awful. It was. The same night the apostle Josh was texting me about the girlfriend he apparently still had, I was at Slate in the Flatiron with Lana, the same girl I was with when I met the aforementioned Josh. Lana thinks she’s a good luck charm in terms of being with people when they meet other people. I don’t, strictly speaking, agree with her.

Chaz was attentive. Lana warned me that dating a man who worked in a bar was a mistake. Consider how many women they interact with and have access too. He was pretty smooth. I don’t usually like that. I prefer my men stumbling and insecure. But after the fiasco with Josh and Eric Bana, I was ready for a little more panache. I sort of, in a loose sense of the word (not to make a pun on my sexual morality here, although I guess I might as well) got that.

“He could read and he had a job, a Vespa and no girlfriend. An excellent start.”

Our first talk was great. I was obviously enraged over Josh suddenly having a girlfriend and may have slightly berated Chaz about men in general, the deception of dating and the lack of necessity for it, as many women are not in the market for a full blown bloody relationship anyway and all the games are basically unneeded. Chaz’s eyes may have lit up. It’s hard to really say. I was drunk and in a very dark bar.

He was sweet and mostly seemed to take in what I was saying. Women seem to complain a lot about men being inattentive but I’ve found, especially initially, that men can be remarkably sensitive and sincere when they can see down your top. This is a good trick actually. Have those arguments about how you want him to want to do the dishes in a sexier outfit and he’ll pay heed. Not necessarily to what you’re hoping he’ll heed, but it’s something.

He bought me a drink and even managed to cook up a good answer to my ultimate question for men I’m just meeting, that question being what book is currently being read by you, oh potential short or long term mate. I can usually tell more about the male in question right before he answers. A lot of guys actually get a little alarmed, their glaces shoot sky (or ceiling) wards in a little faint dance of panic.

Chaz had an answer, something obscure by Jack London, something I hadn’t heard of. Good answer. Very good answer. He was also in a band. At the time (back before I became jaded against all men who work in bars and are in bands), this seemed cute. A hobby. Something musical. Lovely.

But no. This is a warning sign. Or it should have been. If working in a bar is bad because of all the potential interaction with women, enabling even the greasier, yuckier specimens of guy to interact with and thus become a honed manipulator of women, then being in a band is like…double that. And this douche was both. I should have run from the place and been thankful I hadn’t caught something from him just via conversation.

No though. I prefer to learn my lessons the hard way. And yes. That was another pun.

It developed (once Lana beat a retreat) that Chaz actually lived very near me and had a Vespa and could drop me off. Charming, no? I just had to wait. He was finishing up some things at work and then we would go.

A job, a Vespa, a band, and no girlfriend to speak of. I know because I specifically asked. I hadn’t thought you need to ask a man who was pointedly hitting on you if he had a girlfriend. I had previously thought this was a big fat implied no, no girlfriend. Josh had taught me something. Like the slow learning dating robot I am, I was applying that knowledge to the next loser. But so far, Chaz didn’t seem like a loser. Chaz was shaping up to be very plausible as an adult.

He drove me home, an adequate driver and he intelligently didn’t attempt anything too forward when he dropped me off. Except a kiss goodnight, which began sweet, his eyes like honey, and ended heavy and breathless. There clearly wasn’t all that much potential here. But he could read and he had a job, a Vespa and no girlfriend. An excellent start.

It all went wrong almost immediately. He was somewhere and commenced to texting me, encouraging me to come join him at whatever bar he was at. I declined and he instead decided to come pick me up and we went to another bar. Nice, yes? He likes me so much and is therefore so desperate to see me that he will go out of his way, changing his plans even, to included me. My ego purred and preened.

These things are never as good as you expect however. He had a large, strange friend in tow with him, someone charmless and large called Moose, who was also in the bad and who had somehow lost $500 dollars that evening. He was high or drunk and seemed hell bent on proving that even if you were a very bearded, big, fat and scary adult male, you could whine about things just like a little baby.

I really really wanted to know why he was fool enough to carry that much cash around on him and how he’d lost it. Gambling? Had he just placed a roll of bills somewhere casually, as one would a wet umbrella and sauntered off? I fished for a bit, trying to discover the answer, but no one bit, making my imagination run wild. Grunge band ponzi schemes, drug deals gone awry, a beautiful prostitute who suddenly had a penis.

At the next bar, Chaz and I attempted talking. Something was gone. He wasn’t trying anymore and conversation became like an unruly piece of furnishing that belonged to neither of us, that neither of us seemed inclined to move. He looked at me with the eyes of an animal that won’t remember, one that is patted so frequently on the head that he’d forget your hand once your out of sight. He bought me a Pabst without asking, which was fine, but definitely different from the other night, when ever drink order had been a little inquiry into who I was as a person and what that person desired.