It makes a lot of sense to do some groundwork before a date – ask Adriana.
When Adriana was introduced briefly to Avram at a birthday bash for her friend, she was quite impressed with his intellect and knowledge of all that was happening in the world. And Avram was impressed with Adriana for things that had to do far less with intellect.
The introduction was, as it usually is at bashes, rather brief. But the amount of chatter happened during that brief period could have only led to one thing – a date.
A new date was hardly new to Adriana – hers was the profile that was rarely swiped around in Tinder. When a guy landed on her picture, the retention period was much higher than average.
Which was why Adriana had made it a habit to have a bit of advice from Shreesha, her closest friend, before she went on any date.
Avram had chosen an idyllic venue for the date, starting with the cafe name – Valentinos. And it only got more romantic as one proceeded into the dining area with its well-thought out lighting, and romance spilled over to the menu as well – which contained options such as Lightly Kissed Sandwiches and Arm-in arm ice creams. After all these, it was ironic, Avram felt, that the cafe had missed out a prominent item out of its fruit basket – dates.
This was not the first date for Avram either, but he considered it his most important. He had never seen someone as beautiful and charming and Adriana. If only he could impress her on the first date, who knows!
If Adriana had prepared for the date with advice from her close friend, as if on cue, so had Avram. Phil, someone who claimed to be a master of anything around romance, had practically tutored Avram for close to three hours. Having read up a bit about Adriana from her social media posts, Avram and Phil had decided that the best way to reach her heart was to show a deep concern for the planet. Every second post of Adriana seemed to talk about sustainability and climate change.
Now, you need to know something about Avram. He definitely topped the charts when it came to IQ and intellect, but it will be a stretch to extend this high rating to his concern for environment. Put another way, he was as concerned about the environment as the average human – which, as we all know, isn’t much to write home about.
The three hours of tutoring however got him up to speed. His high IQ helped him in getting the most important part of the climate pretensions fairly quickly into his head.
One could say that he could have been easily mistaken for an authentic greenophile even by expert greenophiles. One perhaps could thus extend the high rating to his pretension talent.
And thus it was that the world saw two youngsters, sitting opposite each other suitable romantic lights at Valentino’s, discussing for well over two hours about the importance of sustainable lifestyles and low carbon living. There was so much of their talk that floated around that Giorgio Rossi, the natty owner of the restaurant was even informed by the waiters that ###
Fibbing was not exactly new to Avram, but he broke all records that day. And boy, was Adriana impressed. He could see her looking at him with eyes from which poured sheer admiration and respect. In this day and age, those beautiful eyes seemed to be suggesting, is it even possible to have idealistic fellow like Avram who cared so much for the world. And when Avram mentioned to her about how he had saved three days of food and travelled three miles in the cold to give it to some hobos so that three hobos went to sleep without hunger and more important, not a single pound of the food was wasted, he felt that there was a high likelihood that she would lurch forward and give him a full kiss. That it did not happen, felt Avram, had as much to do with the table being too wide – a metric that Grossi had somehow missed – as it had to with the fact that a waiter chose just that precise moment to butt in with a glass of wine.
(Adriana was really encouraging him to go on and he went exponential with his lies)
All the while, a part of Avram was of course begging him to stop, reasoning that there was no way he could put into practice even a fraction of what he claimed himself to be, but his more confident part was telling him that these trivial matters could be taken care of at a later stage. He knew, or at least he thought he did, that once a woman loses her heart to a man, no amount of pretence will make her take it back from him.
It was nine at night when they somehow managed to tear each other apart from the other’s company and trudge home.
On the way back, Avram called his dear friend.
“How did it go?” asked ##
“My dear chap, no words can thank you enough,” said Avram.
“Oh, just hush the words, Just tell me how it went”
“Man, you must have seen her eyes open wide and her face lighting up every time I told about some sustainable thing I did”
“Or did not do,” corrected his friend
“Fair enough, but you get the point. If ever there was a competition for the biggest hits on the first date, mine should be in the top 3 in the very least”
“Hmmm, ” said #, “but you know what, you have caught the tiger by the tail, You have to pretend all this nonsense every time you meet her, which I presume should be many times, going your gushing report”
“I do hope so, chum, that there are many more. And as to my pretending, perhaps there is no need. For Adriana, I’m ready to become super sustainable”
“Now, now,” soothed his friend, “Calm down, will you. We do not want you to become anything like that, not right away at least”
The exuberant phone discussion between the two friends went on thus, for well over 15 minutes.
Around the same time, Adriana was talking to Shreesha.
“Hello girl, how did it go?” asked Sreesha.
“Oh Sreesha, I’m glad I asked your suggestion before this date. Once again, sweetest darling, your suggestions helped me no end.”
“From your joyful tone, I gather that you two hit it off well.”
“My dear friend,” said Adriana, “the joy you noticed in my tone was not one from happiness, it was from relief.”
“Relief!”
“Yes, relief!”
“Explain, will you,” commanded Sreesha.
“Of course, I’m about to. You remember, you told me to make sure that Avram was a normal guy and not some idealistic weirdo?”
“Yes, dearie. We both agreed that the combination you so aptly mentioned was a clear no-no for a life partner, despite what you claim to be passionate about in your life”
“And I agreed. It is bad enough to have one idealist in a family”
“That was precisely the term we two settled upon. Now, tell me what happened. I thought Avram was a hotshot”
“As hotshot as a cold fish. He happens to be a bigger climate nutcase than I’m. He was talking all the time about the various sustainability activities he undertook every day. Jeez, he is a climate nerd, he is. I’m not sure you have realized yet Shresha, but you have saved me from a lifetime of torture…”
She was silent for a while…and then continued, “All I was looking for was an ordinary, fun loving guy”