The Shrimp Pizza Incident

You know how they say you are what you eat? Well I guess I must have become unattractive and uncool the minute I took a bite of that slice. But being that I’m a calculated planner, I was kind of pushing some buttons to see if I would really be deemed a sinner. I would think other things I’ve done would make me one of Satan’s fallen rather than tasting the “forbidden.” Oddly enough, I met the freak on all hallow’s eve…well sort of – at a Halloween party.

So I was dating this guy for about a month. For me, an avid serial dater, who can’t seem to stay with one person for longer than 2 weeks lately, this was starting to be a long time. Of course, because I’m the most indecisive person on earth (yes, the flipping coin method works wonders), I was still uncertain if I liked this guy. This was mostly because he was a ‘nice guy.’ If you are an asshole, I am obviously very interested. Ignore me and I’m all yours baby. But I decided to continue things being that this guy did everything ‘right.’ He picked me up from my door, took me out well, and was always a gentleman. Yes, our conversations were lacking and he definitely didn’t get my weird sense of humor but maybe I would get to know him? Okay…at least we had physical attraction. But his incessant calling and ‘into-me-ness’ kinda made the walls seem like they were closing in. He took me out to dinner the night after we met, he texted me from a foreign country and then called me when he landed at 4:30 am. I was having major gag reflex issues. When he told me he missed me after being on vacation and then asked me if I missed him too, I almost broke out into hives. “Errr, umm yeah?” I’m a pretty bad liar.

In any case, he had some other issues I was a bit concerned with. Let’s just call it his Jewishness. Now, I’m a Jew and don’t consider myself nearly reform. So I definitely know a thing or two. But this guy was like a real Jew. Like didn’t go out on Friday nights doesn’t eat meat outside his house Jew. But no, he didn’t wear one of those hats with the curly Qs. He looked completely normal from the outside. At first I had no idea, but by the 3rd date when we were continually going to sushi restaurants, I started to probe and found out no meat, no shellfish, Friday night dinners with the fam. (Excuse me while I go dry heave in the bathroom- scary!) But from the solid advice of my friends, I decided I couldn’t just dump him on the sheer fact that he was more religious than me. Although my sister referred to it as lifestyle differences that were irreconcilable and the masses began to refer to him as “Jewbaca.”

So we continued to date and he continued to be intense and I continued to doubt. I was giving him 2 more dates before I called it ‘El Fin’ or decided to continue. And then came the fatal night. We planned to go to dinner and I rushed home to go get ready. He was ready before me so he said he’d come over while I got ready (once again, intense). What this really meant in boy language, which I was unaware of, lets hook up and then I’m tired and jet lagged and will pass out for half an hour. Cool, love it. I’m starving. I suggested we order in and then finally he came around and when I mentioned Krunch- the gourmet pizza bar. He was up for it.

We get to Krunch which is extremely close to where I live. As I’m eyeing the different slices, I think to myself, I wonder what he would do if I got something unkosher. I hadn’t done this yet but wanted to test the water. I glanced at the chorizo slice. It looked delicious, but decided that might be a little over the top. Milk and meat and a pig no less. I needed to downgrade a bit. Shrimp pesto pizza. Hmm..that seemed like a delightful choice. Our meal was quick and as we were leaving he decided he’s really tired and was just going to go home. I reply, “Are you sure you want to go home? You sure you don’t want to hang out?” He quickly kissed me and left. Maybe he didn’t want to touch my shrimpy lips. If he had only known I had bacon the last time we had seen each other.

The next day we played phone tag and the day after that a short IM. Then the weekend- nothing. For a guy who was crazy intense, it was hardly a fade out. And then there was the real kicker. Monday morning, I decide to IM him since I rarely contacted him. As I open my IM message, I find I can’t IM him with my normal AIM name..it is restricted to my work AIM name. And then I realize, he’s blocked me! I couldn’t even believe it was true. Seriously? Did he really just dump me over shrimp pizza? What a freak! So instead of IMing him, I text him that night playing the guilty card. “Are you okay? Haven’t heard from you in a while?” No response. I just really wanted to know if it was me or the shrimp pizza! Literally, nothing else happened. I was racking my brain—did I step into some bad lighting? So then I decided to IM him from my work IM just to try to stir him up. “Wow you’re an asshole. Here I am thinking there is something wrong but clearly I can see you are okay. Cool to be mature at 31.” Well I don’t know if he got that IM or just chose to ignore it because after that I surely got a text a couple days later. “I’m sooo sorry. I’ve been crazy busy …blah blah blah” Obviously I had no intention of responding if I wasn’t going to get to the bottom of it and clearly he wasn’t about to tell me it was because I was a bottom-feeder-eater. All I kept thinking was...I wish I got the chorizo slice.