John told me he was half Japanese, which I found interesting because at times I've thought I was…read moreItalian, but Reilly likes to remind me my Italian only extends to Loro Piana and Gucci sizes, fits, and fabrics. He works at a bank. He didn't say which bank. Men who work at good banks say the name. Men who work at banks you've never heard of say "a bank," the same way men who drive Nissan Altimas say "I drove here." He suggested All Blues, the listening bar on Walker Street, which I thought was either very cultured or very strategic, because a venue where you're discouraged from talking is a convenient place to take a woman you'd prefer not to answer questions.
I wore The Row. He wore a French chore jacket. For those who don't know, the chore jacket, or veste de travail, was designed in the late 1800s for French laborers, farmers, and railway workers. It was built from moleskin and dyed blue to hide the stains of manual work. John's was spotless. It had never been near a chore, a farm, or a rail. I asked him what railroad he worked on. He looked confused and started telling me about the bar. I clocked it immediately but said nothing, because the evening was young and I wanted to drink a few spirits that were older than I claim to be (I'm 29 btw).
All Blues is a vinyl listening bar in Tribeca. Moody lighting. JBL speakers the size of armoires. A listening theater in the back where you sit in lounge chairs and do not speak. The rule is "let the music do the talking," which is my worst nightmare on a first date. I have questions. I have follow-ups to the questions. I have theories that need to be confirmed or denied under gentle cross-examination, and Miles Davis is not going to do that for me.
We sat at the bar, which is mercifully looser. He ordered a Japanese whisky. I was going to order a martini but the cocktail menu leaned toward yuzu mules and mango margaritas, so I ordered a Negroni. He asked if I'd ever had Japanese whisky before, which is the male equivalent of showing someone a YouTube video unprompted. Then he started talking about it. The region. The distillation. He said the word "peaty" three times. It somehow led to a golf trip in Edinburgh and a friend who "almost went pro." I held the whisky in my mouth and nodded. It tasted like a campfire someone lit inside a shoe. This went on for what felt like an entire season of a show I didn't choose to watch.
I couldn't take it anymore. I excused myself and shuffled to the bathroom, trying not to make noise, but Manolos on raw wood floors are not built for discretion. People looked up from their vinyl reverence. I did not care. I swung the door open and there it was. A Toto. The seat lifted automatically as I entered, like a sign from God or Gwyneth. I spit the whisky into the sink, sat down, and let the heated seat do what John could not, which was make me feel something. I had chosen to wear a skirt with no tights, optimistic for the season, arguably delusional, and the bar is all raw wood and beautiful mid-century furniture but it is cold. I sat there for a moment. Warm. Unbothered. Briefly considering whether a toilet could be a life partner. It was attentive. It anticipated my needs. It had better design taste than any man I'd met on Hinge. I collected myself, reapplied my lip, and walked back out to the bar like a woman who had just been to church.
I ordered a martini. The bartender started to say something about it being a whisky bar. "I know. Martini please." John was still at the bar, still alive, still wearing the chore jacket. He asked if I was okay. I said I was great. I was. The Toto had reset me. I was ready to pretend records were interesting again.
The watch, though. I'd been staring at it since he reached for the edamame. An Omega Seamaster. Four to six thousand depending on the reference. Respectable for a man who works at a bank you've heard of, and unusual for a man who works at a bank you haven't. I asked about it. Gift from his father. "What does your father do?" "He's in consulting." "Which firm?" "A small one, you probably wouldn't know it." And there it was. The chore jacket wasn't style, it was a misdirect. The whisky wasn't taste, it was set dressing. The listening bar wasn't culture, it was camouflage. Bring her somewhere she can't ask questions and hope the speakers do the work.
He texted in the morning. I left him on read. I had actual chores to handle, like Forma Pilates and scrolling The RealReal.
The chore jacket is in my head, though. Not because I liked it. Because somewhere in France in the 1800s, a farmer put that jacket on to go do actual work, and last night it was worn by a man I wouldn't trust to take out my trash, let alone wash my vintage martini glasses. John needs to keep looking for a girl whose chores he can do. All Blues, though, is great. I'll come back alone.
All Blues: 4.2/5. John: depreciating. The Toto: 5/5.
