Sushi

He's a really good writer. The kind of guy that sends emails straight to your heart. He says things that make me think, make me feel laugh, make me happy. Make me want to meet him.

So meet we must, and he tells me to pick the place. It's a simple afternoon meeting, casual yet fun so I choose my favorite Japanese restaurant where every day until 4 pm is half price sushi. Now, I'm not the hard core sushi lover some of you are. I can't pull off eel, squid, octopus, or (heaven forbid) sea urchin. I'm way tamer. I like cooked things. Ok, yes, I know that defeats the point of sushi in general, but I'm sorry, so NOT interested in putting raw fish in my mouth. Ew. What is this? Survivor Island???

I digress.

We get to the restaurant with the typical lunch crowd. A few ladies. Some couples. Too many waiters being overly attentive to the level of your water glass. I order us both green tea with extra sugar. He pores over the menu, seeming suddenly uncomfortable. This place serves Chinese AND Japanese food, which online he said he loved, but now I fear the choices are overwhelming for him. Poor kid. I try to make conversation, make a few jokes, but he's seriously staring down the menu and visibly shaking. I ask if everything's ok, what would he like to eat. He tells me he's tired of ordering the same thing all the time, it's boring and he wants to change. Asks if I can please order for both of us. He'd like to try something new.

The adventurous type. I like that.

So I order a shrimp roll, a crab roll, a cucumber roll and some wontons. (Let's face it, everybody likes wontons!!!) He's witty and jovial until the food arrives. And there it is. The unmistakable look of sheer terror. I ask him *again* if everything is ok and did he want something else but he says no, he wants to try the food, he's just never eaten anything like it before. (This is modern America and he is 30 years old, but I'm trying not to judge.) So I pick up my chopsticks and he his fork (I know, I know) and we both choose to start with the cucumber roll. I down mine with a little soy sauce in one fell swoop but he tries to bite the poor little sushi piece in half and most of it ends up falling onto the plate. He chews...and he chews...and he chews... and he swallows. And by swallows, I mean chokes / gags / gulps the half a piece of food washed down by a big slurp of water.

I smile beatifically at him. He covers his mouth and runs to the bathroom.

I have time to finish pretty much all of the sushi (and some of the wontons) before he makes his way back from the men's room, pale and shaking. (What? Like you wouldn't have eaten your lunch? I was hungry and he wasn't gonna finish it!!!) Like a true gentleman, he offers to pay the check, which I politely refuse since he didn't eat anything and again *again* I ask if he's ok.

Turns out he has a "weak stomach" and never eats more than a plain salad, plain hamburger, plain chicken breast with nothing, and I mean nothing on it. Drinks water. That's it. So the tea and the fish and most of all the seaweed sent him over the edge and right into Pukesville. Would you not have thought he'd mention this when I picked the restaurant? Like, "Hey, by the way, I don't really eat much of anything, ever, so sticking with a simple cup of coffee woulda been a better way to go." Nope, I had no warning, no hint of disaster yet to come. But all I could think while eating all of that delicious food alone, waiting for him to finish wretching his guts up and come out of the bathroom, is that it would be really hard, nay impossible, to be with someone who has no real taste for food.

We walk outside and head towards the cars. He says he knows the date didn't go perfectly, but asks if he could kiss me anyway.

Um. No. Cause...Ew!!!