Who?

(Originally published 4/10/2006)

I was sitting at home alone recently having quality nose-picking-in-front of-the-television-time when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but muted "The Simpsons" and took the call anyway.

"Hi, Tony," the voice on the other end says, "This is Tom."

My brain is suddenly jerked awake, staggering about in my skull like a drunk person ripped from sleep by a fire alarm. Tom. Tom. Tom? Let’s see. Who the h*ll is Tom? Is Tom that dude who showed me an apartment last weekend? Is this that Tom guy from work? Is Tom that boy from Champaign I mugged down with over the Christmas holidays? Then it hits me. Tom is a guy I met almost three weeks ago. We exchanged numbers. I left a message for him a few days later and never heard back from him.

"Tom from a few weeks ago?" I ask.

He confirmed that he indeed was that Tom. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why someone would wait so long before the initial pre-first-date phone call. Maybe he was calling to tell me that he was recently diagnosed with Syphillis and that I should schedule a doctor’s appointment as soon as possible. Oh, wait. I didn’t sleep with him.

"Sorry I’m just getting around to calling you back," he says, "I’ve been busy."

I’ll say. Just how busy do you have to be to wait three weeks to return someone’s phone call? My imagination runs wild. Perhaps he was camping and suffered from a poisonous snakebite. Or what if he was kidnapped at gunpoint and has been held hostage in the back of a black van by sexy, Russian bank robbers? Or the lottery. Yes, he won the lottery and has spent the last couple of weeks trying to decipher what to do with his newfound millions. And now he’s calling to invite me to Paris for the weekend!

His story couldn’t be further from my exciting "Knots Landing" type story lines. He blames work. Hmph.

This has become a recent trend in my life; meeting a guy, spending a week or so feeling sorry for myself because they never called, spending another week looking over my shoulder for them when I’m out with my friends, then a week forgetting that I’d ever met them in the first place, only to have them then call me out of the blue. I’m left holding the phone, scratching my head in outright confusion. Was this guy the teacher? Was he that Republican who bought me a beer and a shot? Or was this the guy that shagged my friend Eric? Maybe this is the guy who was the FBI agent. Have I ever met an FBI agent? No. That was a porn I rented last weekend.

I’ve been told that I have the attention span of a gerbil with ADD. It is not helpful that these guys follow up with me so long after first meeting me. It is especially difficult when these guys ask me to dinner "sometime next week," as Tom did. Now am I not only expected to remember Tom, but by the time I pull the chair out from under the table and join him for dinner it will have been almost a month since I laid eyes on him. And given the fact that I met him in a bar, the eyes that I laid on him were probably blurred and fuzzy through a haze of Miller Lite and cheap fruity shots.

This level of "busy" astounds me. I doubt that even the Pope or Oprah are so busy that they can’t squeeze in a four-minute conversation with someone. I don’t know anyone who makes plans with someone weeks in advance. He couldn’t have called me while he was waiting at the dry cleaners last Saturday? Couldn’t he have put down that eleven-year-old People magazine and given me a call while waiting at the dentist’s office two weeks ago? Who do these types think they are anyway?

"I’ll be at the Starbucks on Broadway Thursday, March 27th from 11:15 to 11:19 in the morning. Come by. We’ll chat for a bit while I wait on my latte."

There has to be a better excuse than work. My theory when you don’t hear back from someone within a week is that you are not the only person they met that night. The other person got the phone call 2 days later and the dinner date the following weekend. They were instantly drawn to this other person and half way through dinner they were daydreaming about what their best friend would say during their toast at the reception. Unfortunately, the other person turned out to be married with six Mormon children and a mortgage out in the suburbs. And suddenly they’re not too busy to call you back.

But I’m a sucker for a free meal, so I accepted anyway. I’m aware that I’m getting Ishmael’s sloppy seconds, but after the second bottle of wine I doubt I’ll give a sh*t.