back at craigslist again

so many people might remember the whole episode where i put out an ad searching for the man i kept meeting up with in recurring dreams. and how it turned into this magical night. and that night led to a year abroad in amsterdam living in high drama (see: most of 2008).

yes, kismet's a tricky little fucker.

so clearly i've learned my lesson, right? romantic notions are great. but end of the day, settle for a nice chinese engineer or accountant.

but yet, here i am again, putting my big toe into the murky waters that is craig's list missed connections.

it was saturday, may 9th. i was finally back in la after a year of so much travel that my idea of home is obliterated. but brian is happy to see me and so we head out to the other room in venice. i believe it was also around a full moon, where i seem to be strongest, at my most magnetic for karma. my notes from that night:

An unusually high number of froderists, Tim Meadows looking sharp in a white shirt, 2 grown men scared out of the bar by lioness psychic seduction, 1 raging queen in a vest (not Brian). Somewhere in there, i'm pretty sure someone grabbed my boob and while it was too crowded to tell, I think it was a girl.

Had spark of inspiration before we left home that I'm looking to meet a stranger with a true spirit who's uncanny in his ability to communicate with computers. I figure we'll know what we're supposed to do when we get there.

I asked B to point out one non-douchebag, someone good enough for me, and I would talk to him. He pointed out a guy with intense eyes by the door. I said, funny, we've already been looking at each other. He's the kind I usually go for, but the kind who probably cries after sex. The guy watched us discuss and suddenly ran out the door. RAN. Even though there was no way he could have heard what we were saying. We just made a guy run out of a bar, I said. I felt bad. His issues, B said.

what i didn't go into detail about was the tall guy by himself in the corner. kind of looked like that dude jennifer garner used to be married to, pre-michael vartan homewrecking. mid 30's. we had made eye contact earlier, the kind where you think you know the person, realize you don't, but then you WANT to know the person. the unknown strangers you recognize...undercover soulmates on full-moon nights inside dark corners.

my type.

we kept looking at each other, then brian appeared by my side with drinks. crap. we always look like a couple when we go out together. let's go over here, brian said, and leads me to a space right next to the guy.

now it's kind of awkward because he's looking at us and brian and i are busy making fun of the people around us, so now not only do we look like a couple, we look like a couple of assholes.

but i want to know this guy, know why he seems familiar.

hey, brian, i said. ask that tall dude over there if he's good at computers.

i remembered my spark of inspiration from earlier that night at home. maybe he's the one i'm looking for. he seems shy, maybe the type that gets along better with machine than man.

i'm not going to talk to that guy, brian said. you wanna talk to him, you go talk to him yourself.

fucker.

but the truth is, i'm kind of shy sometimes.

so i just kind of steal glances at him, my feet like cement, my mind gummy. working up the nerve, working up the nerve. laughing at flaming queens wearing vests, but quietly deliberating inside, working up the nerve.

and then he leaves. squeezes by us, careful not to touch anyone, walks right by me, and i could have reached out and stopped him, given him a reason to stay, but i didn't.

enjoyed the rest of the night, left the bar with a giant round moon trailing us, only minor havoc on the night's scorecard, but deep in my secret depths, disappointment.

i forgot about that guy. mostly because i decided that was my new favorite bar and i met other interesting characters, like greg, the guy i asked if he was a serial killer within minutes of meeting him, then looked him up, had drinks with him a week later to make nice about "it's not you giving off weird vibes, it's totally me. i just like to check the way prostitutes ask a john if he's a cop first."

but then last night, i got home from vegas coming off a big party weekend, very little sleep and a long solo drive listening to a boring-ass audiobook that made me scream into the desert wind to stay awake, and brian wanted to go to venice for dinner.

do you wanna, like, put on a bra or anything?, he asked as we stepped out the door. i'm in fact, wearing the t-shirt i've been doubling as my pajamas over the weekend, because i was too tired to shower and change in the morning.

would you feel better if i did?, i asked.

i don't fucking care, he said.

so we went off, me looking like i was coming off a 72-hour binger which i basically was, titties to the wind.

it's a cute little place on abbott kinney and when told there was a 40 minute wait, i got really irritable, but felt better after a walk and a cup of coffee. we came back after half an hour and they had a table for us. as we were led to the table, the tall guy from the bar a month ago walked past from the direction of the bathroom. he gave me a shy little crooked smile and i involuntarily stopped in my tracks, watched him take a seat at the bar. brian asked me if i wanted to sit inside or outside, with the inside seat facing the room (the one i would usually take). but i was staring at the guy. brian had to ask me again twice, and i said i would take the outside one because i wanted to go to the bathroom, a decision i wish i had thought through because i would spend the rest of my night craning to look at him as i decided what to do.

apparently, on some level i not only hadn't forgotten about this guy, but he had the ability to stop me in my tracks, then pace in the open space of a restaurant wrestling with myself over an impulse to approach him and being scared that this was one of those moments right before i do something that in hindsight, was totally awkward and embarrassing. fear won out. i went to the bathroom then slid back into my seat without incident.

after we ordered, i pointed him out to brian and asked him if the guy seemed familiar to him. brian didn't recognize him. i told him he'd been there at the other room the night we'd gone out, and that he'd seemed familiar then as well. he met up with an older guy in a hat, but at some point, the guy in the hat stepped out to make a phone call. the tall guy was sitting at the end of the bar, alone, and i had a total opportunity to settle this once and for all, open the goddam door of conversation and find out why i had such an instinctive pull towards him. but i didn't.

brian and i finished our meal. oysters, burrata, proscuitto & nectarine plate, amazing lamb sausage pizza. the waiter was a dick.

tall guy and his hat friend met up with a woman and another man and moved to a table in the corner by the door. i checked the seating arrangement and he sat across from the woman so she wasn't his girl. which i'm glad, because she was in her 50's.

at the end of the meal, i didn't know what to do. brian went to the bathroom which was what i was hoping (brian hates it when i talk to strangers), but the guy was having a meal with 3 other people and it's just completely inappropriate to walk up to someone and start hitting on them in the middle of a dinner, unless they're a celebrity and you're a girl who wants him to sign her cleavage with a old Bic pen as his wife glares.

brian came back and headed for the door. i was looking at them, trying to decide and i realized hat guy had well noticed me staring and was looking at me with an amused smile. so i walked behind brian and as soon as he was out the door, i turned to tall guy, waved and said a shy goodbye, which was really a hello.

he broke out in such a surprised, wide happy smile, but one in which my going out of my way to say goodbye to him wasn't coming from a complete stranger exactly, that it stopped the table's conversation and everyone turned around. i slipped out the door. we rounded the corner where their table was next to the large paneled windows and i could see they had all turned around to watch us go and the woman was saying something to him and he was craning his neck to see me with that same big smile, but i was afraid to look back, as much because i didn't know what to do, as the fact that now i really wish i had showered and put on a bra if i planned to attract attention to myself.

when i got home, i couldn't get it out of my mind. who is this guy? why does he seem inexplicably familiar? isn't this how i always get into trouble, this magnetic karma-fate thing, like a moth to a fire.

but i got on craig's list, and with clenched teeth, i put up my only other missed connection post:

I've run into you twice now and both times I can't shake the feeling that you seem familiar, but I can't place it. The first was at The Other Room, last month, I think. You were by yourself. I'm an Asian girl and I was with my roommate, a white guy. The second was tonight at Gjelina. You sat at the bar with a guy in a hat before moving to your table. I was having dinner with my roommate. I waved goodbye to you as I left because I couldn't not do anything, but it wasn't the easiest social situation to ask you...do we know each other? So here's a shot in the dark. It would probably be easiest if you saw this and we could solve this mystery, but perhaps that is lazy thinking. If not, well...if this question has an answer, then perhaps we'll run into each other again.

The winds of fate. They can pull you out of a storm, or they can dash your ship against the rocks into bits. And will you want what you get, when you get what you want? What if I find him again and it turns out he's deeply troubled, or has the brain of a 7 year-old or worse, is boring?