the romantic

My friend in Manhattan admits that he is a romantic. His stories are delicious. We analyze and we debate the finer points of email flirting and real phone conversations versus IMs. He doesn't complain about the women he can't seem to meet or the quality people he can't seem to spark with. Romantics do not bitch. They are the pleasantly amused individuals who have inexhaustible hope for incredible conversation over burrata mozzarella appetizers. The kind of conversation that makes people excuse themselves from the table and while in the restroom, stop to note the frigid temperature of the water coming from the faucet over the sink to ensure that they are indeed awake. He searches for this. And the women, how he adores them. He is not the type to speak of proportions but rather the feeling he reads from them, not the feeling he gets because of them. He gauges every reaction. He tallies every sentence. He is a mind man.

While I do not wish to trade what I have with the boyfriend for what he, the romantic, has...I do revel in vicarious living. The dating pool is small on that island, but for him, it is as expansive as the fruited plains. I adore his dance card for it is filled with innumerable women, each of whom despite her predecessor, he has relished with the same fervor. His positivity is inexorable. But make no mistake, he does not kiss and tell. He does however, recant the appropriate details of his vespertine adventures with an effusive, dreamy twang that leaves me wanting cotton candy.

He's going on a date tonight, my friend in Manhattan. Maybe he will meet her at the restaurant or maybe they will walk together to a bar. There will be taxis that pass and pedestrians who glance. Perhaps a hurried passerby will accidentally bump him and given the law of physics and the turning of the earth, he will be forced to nudge her. Brush her arm, pat her shoulder, tease her waist. She might stumble but she'll delight in it. They will laugh next to a pile of garbage bags outside a pizza parlor, next to the steps that lead to the greasy basement and it is there, under a foggy orange streetlight that she will see him clearly through her carefully mascara-ed eyes. He will catch the scent of her shampoo on the tip of his nose. She will become breathless. He will try to inhale but it's too late; she has taken his breath away. Where does it go? It swirls into the snowy night. They will kiss. Moisture escapes their lips and binds to a snowflake that will settle onto the ground. On the next sunny day, it will rise up to the sky, recline on a cloud and watch them on their picnic in Central Park, their 5th, 10th, 50th date. One day, after the wind has chosen its path, this little glimmer of their date will rain down on someone, maybe another couple somewhere on the Eastern seaboard. Perhaps they too will fall in love.