The Oracle Of Dating

The Oracle Of Dating

Allison van Diepen

www.miraink.co.uk

To all of the guys I’ve ever dated.

(Yes, you. And even you.)

* Find Tracey a great boyfriend

* Make a choice about my hair: straight or curly, because wavy just isn’t working

* Cure cereal addiction (possibly through hypnotherapy—see Yellow Pages)

* Write more blogs for the Oracle of Dating Web site, give lots of dating advice, make stacks of $$$ and quit job at Hellhole

* Take the Oracle of Dating to the next level!!!

YOU MIGHT THINK that September is a weird time to be making New Year’s resolutions. Well, Mom never accused me of doing anything on time, especially tidying my room, loading the dishwasher or Swiffering the kitchen.

“I don’t see how you ended up with an eighty average last year, Kayla,” Mom says. “You’re always chatting online or on the phone.”

Which implies that I am not being productive.

The truth is, she has no idea what I’m really up to.

Brrrrinnnggg!

I clear my throat and answer, “The Oracle of Dating.”

“It’s client number zero-two-four.”

“Sabrina?”

“You remember me!”

“I do. What can the Oracle do for you?” I scoot over to my computer and open up my PayPal account to see that her five-dollar payment has been received.

“It’s about this guy, Shawn, I’m dating. I hate going out in public with him.”

A case of total butt ugly, perhaps?

“Why’s that, Sabrina?”

“He always embarrasses me somehow. Like when we went to the school dance Friday night, he was dancing like a maniac. Everybody was staring at him.”

“He’s a really bad dancer?”

“The worst. It’s not just that. Wherever we go, he says or does something dumb. But when we’re alone, he’s really sweet!”

“Mmm-hmm.” Listening noises are very important.

“What do you think I should do?”

“Have you talked to him about this?”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t get it.”

“I have another question for you, Sabrina. Do you love him?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. We’ve only been dating for a couple of months.”

“Why not find a guy who wouldn’t embarrass you in public?”

“It’s not so easy getting a boyfriend. He’s only the second one I’ve ever had.”

As I well know. Sabrina’s been calling me to discuss every crush and flirtation in the past six months.

“Ask yourself this. Are you with him because you really like him, or because you like having a boyfriend?”

“Er, maybe the second thing.”

“How would you feel if he answered the question the same way?”

“I wouldn’t like it.” She sighs. “I guess I have to break up with him?”

I lift the phone away from my ear and pound a tune into my little xylophone.

“The Oracle has spoken.”

“Thank you, Oracle. I know it’s the right thing to do.”

“Good night, Sabrina.”

I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE thinking. What makes me such an expert on dating? Have I had lots of boyfriends?

Um, no.

There have only been two, and both were disasters. But I’ve learned from each one, and now I think of them, with total detachment, as Case Study No. 1 and Case Study No. 2. I even made retrospective notes.

Case Study No. 1: 9th Grade, November.

Lead-up to relationship: weeks of note-writing and flirting, a subtle ass-grab at a school dance and a kiss behind the portables.

Relationship length: one month.

Activities: playing video games, kissing in his basement, playing more video games.

Conflict: He often wouldn’t answer the phone because he didn’t want to interrupt his video game. His gaming addiction resulted in a thumb injury for which medical care was required, and he was unable to hold my hand due to a thumb splint.

Outcome: He didn’t see me as a girlfriend, he saw me as a gaming partner, make-out buddy and occasional history tutor. So I gave him an ultimatum: “What do you care about more, me or your video games?” He answered: “They’re my thing. I’m a gamer, babe.” Babe?

Case Study No. 2: 10th Grade, March.

Lead-up to relationship: I met him at a party. He remembered my name and added me on Facebook. We chatted online for a couple of weeks before he finally asked me out.

Conflict: None. He was totally sweet. Or so I thought.

Outcome: After three weeks of going out and making out, he changed his Facebook picture to one of him kissing another girl. ALL of our friends saw this. I called him immediately: “Are you trying to tell me something?” He answered: “Sorry, I didn’t know how else to say it.”

My two boyfriend disasters only confirmed what I already knew: teenage guys are less mature than teenage girls. Therefore, if I want to date my equal, I should date a guy who is at least twenty, which I would never do, because what sort of twenty-year-old would want to date someone still in high school?

It would’ve helped a lot to have someone to talk to during those relationships; someone nonjudgmental and anonymous like the Oracle of Dating would have been perfect. I never laugh at a client’s concerns or get too preachy. I wish I could’ve given myself better advice at the time, but it’s hard to see clearly when you’re emotionally involved.

I decided there was only one solution—to put off dating until college, when the scales of maturity will start to balance. I simply don’t have the emotional resilience to deal with immature high school guys. Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t change my mind if my ideal guy came along, but statistically, it’s highly unlikely.

For those teenage girls who are brave enough to deal with teenage guys, and for anyone else who needs me, the Oracle of Dating is there. I do a lot of research so that I can give sensible advice. When I’m not sure of the answers, I tell my clients the Oracle will have to get back to them so that she can “meditate” on their dilemma. My advice is serious, though I’ve put “for entertainment purposes only” on my Web site so I don’t get sued if something I suggest backfires. With all of this responsibility, I don’t have time for a love life, anyway.

Besides, I’m not the one who needs a man, my sister does. Tracey is ten years older than I am, and has been coming to me for advice since I was twelve, often trusting my guy radar more than her own. She’s even been afraid to introduce certain guys to me because she knows I’ll see what she prefers not to see.

Tracey lives on the Upper East Side—it’s about forty minutes from Brooklyn by subway. I usually meet her in Manhattan on weekends for lattes, which she insists on paying for. (She says it’s fair, considering I don’t charge her for advice.) I’ve also given lots of free advice to her friends. It was actually her best friend, Corinne, who called me the Oracle in the first place. After that, the name stuck.

Nothing would make me happier than to find a great match for Tracey. She’s an amazing sister, and never makes me feel like a pain when I call her. She’s kind, hardworking and selfless—sometimes to a fault—and I won’t let her settle for anything less than she deserves. In any other city, she’d have been snatched up by some wonderful guy already, but New York is tricky, since there are far more single women than men, and the dating culture is downright strange. Since she’s twenty-six now, I figure she has another few years of trying to find a good man before I’ll suggest more extreme measures.

By extreme measures I mean going to Alaska. I see nothing wrong with that. People move for their careers—why not to find a man? In some parts of Alaska, single men outnumber women ten to one. Tracey would have absolutely no trouble finding a guy there. And I think an Alaskan man—big, strong, not afraid of bugs or heavy lifting—would complement Tracey’s personality. The only problem is that she’d be so far away! I guess she’d have to convince her Alaskan man to move to, say, rural Vermont. Because Alaska is just the wrong time zone.

True, there’s still a great woman-to-man ratio in the Silicon Valley in California, but I’d prefer she didn’t marry a high-tech guy. Dad is in tech, and I don’t want Tracey to end up with a guy like him. He and Mom divorced ten years ago, and since then, he’s reverted back to the lifestyle he was meant for: the lifestyle of a bachelor. He’s traveled the world with his company, living in Singapore, Johannesburg, Berlin and now in Ottawa, Canada. We only see him a couple of times a year, Christmas and summer vacation. And that’s fine with me.

I remember the day he left. Mom and Dad sat down with Tracey and me, explaining that he was going to move out. Tracey didn’t argue. I think she was sick to death of the fighting. But not me. I thought they should make it work. I used any rationale available to my six-year-old brain to stop them from breaking up. And when none of my arguments worked, I started to cry.

The truth is, Mom and Dad were a disaster from the start. I’m surprised Mom didn’t see through his hollow charm right away, but I guess she was young and innocent, and trusted love. Too bad no one had the guts to stand up at the speak now or forever hold your peace part of their wedding, since the only things they had in common—good looks and ridiculous eighties hair—were not enough for a happily ever after.

IT’S A WINDY SUNDAY and I get off the 6 train at Seventy-seventh Street and Lexington to meet Tracey at Starbucks. I see all of the Sunday couples walking around holding hands. Sunday couples are young couples who stay over Saturday night (if you know what I mean) and have carefully assembled designer sweats, sneakers and baseball caps to wear on Sundays. They always look freshly showered and slightly hungover and you find them ordering greasy breakfasts at Second Avenue diners before spending their afternoons browsing shops, buying artwork for their tiny apartments and crowding neighborhood cafés so that I can hardly ever get a seat.

Tracey is looking beautiful today, though she has puffiness under her eyes, indicating that she either slept too little or too much. She has rich dark hair the color of a flourless chocolate cake and shining brown eyes to match. Her cheeks are slightly pink from the windy day, and her complexion is flawless. At five-nine, she’s four inches taller than me, giving a sleek elegance to her figure that many girls would kill for.

As for me, I’ve inherited my dad’s Shredded Wheat–colored hair and my mom’s hazel eyes, which are mistaken for green or brown depending on the day, light conditions and my mood.

Today Tracey is wearing fresh unscuffed New Balance sneakers. Sunday is the only day of the week you won’t find her in heels of at least two inches—an error in judgment, IMO, since it tends to narrow her pool of possible guys to those five-eleven and above. But I guess that’s her choice, her preference being men over six feet—not always easy to find unless you’re in Denmark or Norway.

She gives me a big hug and two European cheek kisses, and I know I’ll have to take my compact out to see what lipstick smudges she left.

At the counter, we’re served by a skinny guy we privately nicknamed Pip. He’s there every weekend and talks like Mickey Mouse.

“Tall soy iced Tazo chai latte,” he says to the huge guy behind the espresso machine.

“Tall soy iced Tazo chai latte,” the huge guy repeats in a booming voice.

“Uh, no foam, please,” Tracey adds.

Pip turns to me. “Miss?”

“I’ll have a tall soy latte.” (Lactose intolerance runs in the family, if you haven’t guessed.)

We find a little table on the upper level in the midst of several twentysomethings on laptops. An old man is dozing in one of the comfy chairs, his mouth hanging open. I angle my seat so I don’t have to see if a fly swoops in there.

“Did you go out last night?” I ask.

Her lips spread in a smile. “It was awesome.”

“Tell me, tell me!”

She giggles. “His name’s Miguel.”

“Your salsa instructor?”

“Yes. We had drinks at Bar Nine. He was telling me that he does an hour and a half of yoga a day—talk about self-discipline! Anyway, after drinks we went to a salsa bar. I was stepping all over his feet, and I actually got super-dizzy when he spun me around, but I didn’t want to tell him that.” She leans closer to me and lowers her voice. “It was so hot.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“I know what you’re thinking, Kayla. You’re thinking that a salsa instructor is obviously sleeping with half his students. But he’s not like that at all. In fact, he won’t even give bachata lessons—it’s too personal.”

“I think he sounds fab.”

She blinks. “You do?”

“Sure, I do.” I sip my latte. “I only have one piece of advice.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Don’t sleep with him for at least a month.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

Tracey and I are pretty open about her sex life. (Well, the fact that she has one.) She promised to tell me everything I want to know if I agreed to stay a virgin until I was at least eighteen. I told her we had a deal. I didn’t plan on having another boyfriend before then, anyway.

“How’s business?” she asks.

“It’s good. Look what I’ve got.” I open my knapsack and pull out a bunch of business cards.

She examines one. “This is fantastic! How’d you do this?”

“I just did it on Word. It’s easy. I got the card stock from Staples.”

“Can I have a few? Maybe I can get you some business. A lot of my colleagues need a service like this.”

I give her a stack. “I have hundreds.”

She puts them in her purse. “Maybe I’ll ask for a commission. Say, ten percent?” She winks.

“How’s work going, anyway?”

“Ugh, it’s a gong show! We’re supposed to deliver this software to clients at the end of the month and we’re running into all these obstacles we didn’t expect.”

That’s another thing about my sister. She speaks an alien language known only to Gen Y guys in square-rimmed glasses: the language of computers. She’s a software developer for a company called Hexagon. Unfortunately, I don’t share her smarts in technical stuff. But I can blog easily, and only need her help for the Web site design.

“You won’t guess who’s back working in the office,” she says.

Uh-oh. Don’t say it. “Scott.”

“Yep. And he had the nerve to ask if I wanted to go out for drinks with him and Matt and Chris on Friday. I told him, ‘Sorry, I have plans.’ Can you believe that guy?”

I can. It’s Scott’s style. He was her boyfriend for seven months only to end it with “I’m not sure if I’m ready for a full-blown relationship.” As if it were a disease.

Yes, they were once one of those Upper East Side Sunday couples.

But Scott hadn’t stopped with dumping her. That would be too quick and easy. Over the next few months he kept calling, pretending he was confused, tortured. And in spite of my warning to ignore his calls, she always answered them, hoping that he’d want something real.

His calls faded, eventually.

But now he’s back.

Intelligent woman that she is, I should be sure that she won’t give that loser the time of day, right?

Wrong. Tracey doesn’t always have the best judgment when it comes to dating, which is why it’s so important that I weigh in. I always wondered if Tracey was messed up by my parents’ marriage (not by their divorce—that was the healthy part). She was sixteen when it happened, and it sent her skidding off in the wrong direction—grades sliding, bad boyfriends, borderline eating disorder. Thank God Mom managed to get her back on track, but I wonder if the scars remain. Is she destined to be attracted to unreliable types like our dad?

“Don’t you dare, Tracey.”

“I won’t. What, you think I’m stupid?”

That’s the thing about being the Oracle. Sometimes you know things you don’t want to know.

I USED TO THINK SUNDAY nights sucked because the excitement of the weekend is over and a whole week of waking up early stretches ahead of me. Plus, ever since Mom gave me the choice of whether or not to go to church, I usually sleep until noon, so I can never get to sleep at a good time.

When I realized that my friends were going through the same Sunday-night blues, I decided to take action and organize a weekly get-together. And now, Sunday night embodies everything we love (to hate): the rich bitches, the beautiful people, the trash-talkers, the sex-crazed and the backstabbers. In other words, Glamour Girl. Or, as Mom calls it, potato chips for your brain—they taste good but have no nutritional value.

We’re in Viv’s basement on beanbag chairs in front of the flat-screen TV, except for Amy, who is stretched out luxuriantly on the sofa in her Don’t Feed the Models tee.

On the coffee table is an assortment of traditional East Indian faves: samosas, pakoras, badgies. It’s one of the things I look forward to about our Sunday nights here.

“Your mom is such a great cook!”

Viv gives me a funny look. “These are from Costco.”

“Oh.” I suppose it makes sense. Her mom is a doctor at New York Presbyterian and hardly has time to make us food.

Viv’s parents are strict and traditional and from the same part of India as Gandhi. Her parents are too innocent themselves to know what this Glamour Girl business is all about. That, plus Viv’s quick reflexes with the PVR, makes it possible for us to watch the show here in the first place.

Poor Viv will never even admit to being attracted to a guy who isn’t Indian, and there are only about five Indian guys at our entire school. I suppose that gives her an excuse for not having a boyfriend—an excuse the rest of us don’t have.

Well, maybe I shouldn’t include Amy in the not-having-a-boyfriend category. Amy is a blue-eyed blonde, very good-looking, and knows it. She calls Chad her boyfriend, but we all know that he’s a MOB (make-out buddy). I’m not knocking it. Although the Oracle would say such relationships aren’t emotionally healthy, there’s a certain practicality in them. I mean, she’s horny as hell, and so is he. And while he’s a little simple, he has cute dimples and a soccer bod.

I’m munching on a samosa when Viv pauses the show. Amy curses. “But it was just getting hot!”

Sharese smacks her knee. “They’re finally gonna do it!”

Ryan grunts his agreement, hairpins in his mouth. He is braiding Sharese’s hair. She always complained that no white person could do a good job with it, but Ryan has proved her wrong.

Viv says, “I was just thinking—what would the Oracle of Dating say about this? I mean, isn’t Harrison obviously just using her?”

Everybody groans.

Amy rolls her eyes. “The Oracle is full of it! It’s just somebody making a quick buck. Don’t buy into it.”

“The Oracle didn’t make any money off me,” Viv insists. “I just read her blog.”

I stuff another samosa into my mouth.

“I bet the Oracle is some fifty-year-old businessman trying to exploit us,” Sharese says.

Viv shakes her head. “I think you’re wrong. She’s definitely female, and she knows what she’s talking about.”

Way to go, Viv! She is my sole defender in a sea of haters.

You really can’t blame me for keeping my true identity from my friends. I love them, but I know that being the Oracle of Dating would make me the object of constant teasing. I need one thing that’s safe, and just mine.

two

“MICHAELA, WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

I snap to attention. Practice kicks in. Instead of saying, “Huh?” I say, “Sorry, I’m not sure I understand the question.”

Ms. Goff starts to reword it, but stops when she hears a choked laugh from the seat across from me. “Something funny, Jared?”

“Nope.” He squelches a smile.

Ms. Goff goes back to her question, and I manage to answer it, taking the heat off. But as soon as she turns back to the board, I shoot the guy an I don’t appreciate you laughing at me glare.

He turns his head and looks directly at me, blue eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement.

Oh, I get it. He’s onto my little strategy.

Jared Stewart is a snob if I ever saw one. He doesn’t socialize with many people, and it’s not in a shy, sweet kind of way, but in a why bother way—I can tell the difference. Worse, he’s totally good-looking in an I don’t care sort of way; I’m talking messy almost-black hair, careless clothes and torn-up shoes, obviously vintage. He’s lean, but muscular lean, not coked-up rock-star lean, and he’s got big hands, and feet that have to be at least a size thirteen … and why am I thinking about this?

The bell rings. Well, it’s not actually a bell, it’s a dingdong over the P.A. system. Speaking of Ding Dongs, thank God it’s lunchtime. By this time every day I’m so hungry I’m ready to play Survivor and chew the bark off a desk leg. Not that the lunch menu in the caf is much better.

I pick up my books and walk out, sensing Jared behind me. In the hall, he touches my arm, says something. I notice he’s got a red spot on his chin like he shaved over a zit this morning. I can’t help but think that shaving is sexy—that it separates the men from the boys.

I realize I’m not listening to him. “What?”

“I said don’t take it personally, all right?”

“Uh, okay.”

And he walks off.

I make my way to the caf, where Sharese and Viv are in line getting food and Ryan is already at our end of the table, playing solitaire.

Amy has a different lunch period. Sadly, the office doesn’t accommodate cliques. Not that we’re much of one. Anyone can hang around with us if they want. But if you’re totally into chess or computers, you probably won’t. And if you’re really popular, you won’t, either. But anyone is welcome.

After getting my lunch, I join my friends at the table. “Who’s winning?” I ask Ryan, whose head is bent over the cards.

He snorts. “You working tonight?”

“Five to nine. You?”

“Four to eight.”

Just the thought of Eddie’s Grocery (aka the Hellhole) fills me with dread. If only being the Oracle of Dating paid more, it could be my only job. I scan the cafeteria. So many potential clients! I could make a fortune on the Chess Club alone.

I take a few bites of the caf’s low-fat pizza. It tastes like cardboard. “So, what’s the status of Operation Dairy Freez?”

“Shh.” Sharese looks around conspiratorially. “Honestly, I don’t know what to do about it.”

“We’ll kidnap him,” Ryan says. “You can have your way with him in the back of my parents’ SUV.”

We giggle.

“Has anyone found out his last name?” Viv asks.

We shake our heads. We know him only as Mike P., or the future father of Sharese’s children.

All we really know about him is that he works at the Dairy Freez ice-cream shop on DeKalb Avenue, and that he’s tall and gangly, with big, kind eyes. Also, he has good customer-service skills. Like when that fat guy’s third scoop fell off his cone, Mike P. not only replaced the scoop, but apologized for not pressing it down hard enough the first time.