If you’re on a calendar year fiscal, you’d know we’re well into the second quarter of the year. It’s becoming sadder and sadder really, there was a time where I could write every day, then it became weekly, monthly and now we’ve arrived on quarterly.
An oft-repeated phrase in my life these days is “it is what it is” – don’t dwell and move forward, so let’s do it to it.
Here I am on a Friday night in the prime of my early 20s at home with my laptop, listening to a Michael Buble song, surrounded by candles. I’ve been in need of this kind of time for some time now; but you can go ahead and think I’m a loser, that’s cool. My feet need a rest from the stilettos and the bags under my eyes which I don’t even care to put make up on for work just might lighten a bit if I get more than six hours of sleep in one night. In fact tomorrow I’m going back to the dregs of suburbia from whence I came to retrieve my Birkenstocks and file my taxes. Isn’t that what home is all about?
I’ve been in this constant tug of war of trying to remember who I am/was and who I am/might be turning into. And this bipolar uncertainty is very much what the first thirteen weeks of 2010 were all about.
Throwback:
- A trip to Medieval Times (granted a more alcoholic experience than in childhood)
- John Mayer Concert
- Volunteering at non-profit events (albeit scoring more free bottles of booze than before)
- Keg party
- Long-lost friends
- A “standing” concert (even though there wasn’t a mosh pit quite like I remember from when I was sixteen, I realize I’ve been sitting down for way too many shows these days)
- Tequila Thursdays
Flashforward (of no relation to the television series):
- Hangover Fridays (with a 9 am start time regardless)
- Delivery of custom designed sofa
- Purchase of first piece of original art
- Charity poker games at the Four Seasons with bankers in tuxes and the working girls paid to “love” them
- Wine with a three digit price tag on a first date
- Porsches
As you may be able to tell, there are some parallels (Tequila Thursday = Hangover Friday) and even some interesting overlaps between the throwbacks and flashforwards. And you may be also able to tell I want to tell you about them.
I love events: the behind-the-scenes thrill of what really goes on is a high that I absolutely love. Moreover, I love people watching and some of these hoity toity charity events bring out the best (worst).
In one week I gate crashed an event a charity poker game at the Four Seasons (I’m just practicing for crashing weddings, I promise). It was a $5000 buy-in, but if you are wearing the escort uniform of 4+ inch heels and a black dress you can just walk right in without using your fake alias of Alice Yang from the Power Group at BMO. Thanks
I couldn’t help but feel like a call girl; they (we?) were all standing between tables and watching the men play. It gets worse, and no I’m not talking about the open bar, the event was also complete with an absolutely pointless lingerie fashion show. If you put open bar and Sarah Chan in the same sentence, you can bet I started spouting some bitter feminist sentiments and also how this was at all relevant to the children’s charities (of which I could not find any representation of, but was kindly told by some drunk banker dude that the night was for the SickKids Foundation and Ronald McDonald House). I mean, if it’s all for the kids show as many taut stomachs and heaving cleavage as you’d like, right?
The very next night, I volunteered at an invitation-only preview event for SNAP the photography auction for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Sadly, this time I missed the dress code cue and was not attired in all black (albeit sensible flats versus stilettos), however I was there to work: I spent this evening bussing the cocktail reception. From one glamourous extreme to the next, maybe I’m inherently somewhat manic that way. This too was an open bar event, however volunteers don’t get to drink (as much) and the only person I needed to use my feminine wiles was the catering chef to score the food I wasn’t allowed to touch, but only serve. Plus he was the only one my wiles could work on, as you may or may not be aware, the community that the AIDS committee serves tends to skew more to men who have sex with men. Instead of a lingerie fashion show, the AIDS committee hires (and yes, such a service exists) beefcake waiters/event boys by the half dozen. At the actual auction, these boys served as easels for the art and as the bidding got higher, they’d remove articles of clothing.
So there you have it, whatever the cause breasts, buns and biceps can make the sale. See – gay or straight, men are just the same.
But enough of my commentary of normativeness between heterosexual and homosexual male populations, you want to hear about the boy. Yeah! Drama! After all, you’re bored; why else would you be here?
Here’s what you need to know: dating an investment banker is a lot like Fight Club. The first rule of dating an investment banker is that you don’t want to be dating an investment banker. True statement, he told me that himself! Okay, so it’s not exactly like Fight Club because I did talk about it, but I digress.
A few very uncharacteristic things happened on the first date: the waiter picked the wine, but I didn’t limit him to the upper range of the list where I usually would (thus the three digit price tag), he also picked our food, we didn’t really read the menu, but I give the waited mad props for doing a supreme selection job. And then the most un-me-like thing happened: the bill was put in front of the XY chromosome carrier and I didn’t even flinch or say a word in contest of the assumption that a man would pay. I sat there, smiled and said thank you. A short month later he decided that he didn’t want to go down that “path” with me, because he was adamant that it could never end well with him. And he would rather not take the chance, than to have it all blow up in our faces and have it hurt [me] like a bitch. He did give me fair warning on our first date that he had absolutely no idea how to balance his life, and I guess that much is glaringly obvious. So he dumped me before I could dump him. [edited to add:] And I warned him that I always love a good story and that I'm some kind of wannabe writer, so let me warn you all - if I know you, I might write about you. Fair warning.
The upside is that I got to ride in his Porsche Cayman for 2.3 km (I couldn't resist looking it up) from College and Bathurst to King and Bathurst before I got the big heave-ho. Sweet. That’s about the most abridged version I’ve ever told of that story. I will say that my attendance at "hooker poker" had nothing to do with him; he declined a seat in the game and instead went out to dinner and drinks with lawyers from New York instead. Don’t worry though, for you ladies or gents who still dream of dating a banker, there are plenty who can make it work – but better still, there are hedge fund managers.
For the time being, I’m resting my party girl stilettos and retrieving my hippie Birks, but maybe it’s not about one or the other. I’ve always found a way to somehow balance people in my life who are night and day (well actually the solution is that those people tend not to cross paths with each other except for the celebration of my birth, which in fact happened in the last quarter), instinctively I should be able to balance myself. Then Q2 perhaps isn’t for redemption or retrograde behaviour, per se, but finding a better balance – and isn’t balance what we’re all trying to achieve? All but one investment banker.
No comments:
Post a Comment