I realize that's me thinking it, of course.
Marina is so wrong about this guy. He's so not my type, it's almost laughable.
Sadly, Jon is my type, except I need a man who's loyal and dedicated to me. Who wants to be with me and me alone. Who's also smart and ambitious and exciting and fun and makes me brave.
Jon's smart and ambitious and exciting and fun and makes me brave, but he's a lovable male slut who can't be tied down to any one woman.
He's totally wrong for me, in other words. Marina seems to think Thomas is the man for me. If so, I don't see it. And, what's far more important, I don't feel it.
I promised her I'd give it a shot. She wants to test out their app and I agreed to be a guinea pig. Thomas is her first real test.
I think MATCHED is a flop, personally, but I'm willing to give him, and it, the benefit of the doubt.
Thomas finally looks my way after spending the last fifteen minutes telling everyone else all about his flight and his lecture and the person who was seated beside him and his terrible in-flight meal.
He smiles. "I have reservations for Callandre at eight. Shall we?"
Callandre is a top restaurant in San Francisco. It's all the buzz, so I'm pleased that at least I'll get some good food out of this whole venture.
He stands and holds out his hand, so I stand up and take it. Across the table, Jon frowns at us.
"Have a nice time," he says acidly. "Don't be too late. We have a defense contract to finish tomorrow morning."
"I'm aware of my responsibilities," I reply, miffed that he feels the need to remind me about something that I set up.
Thomas and I leave the bar. He escorts me to his car, which is nice – a sleek Mercedes – and we drive to Callandre, him talking the entire time about himself and his life and his car and his career. I barely get a word in edgewise during the drive, and try not to feel upset by how he monopolizes the conversation. Instead, I go all out, asking him about everything, and he seems just as happy to talk on about himself.
We arrive at Callandre, and I'm impressed as we walk thro
ugh the doors. I've read about it in the dining section of the paper, but I'd never gone. It's all waterfalls and classy grey Zen décor, and we get a great booth in one corner of the dining room, next to the large bay window. Thomas seems to know the wait staff and they fawn over him like he's some big shot, but he's really just a professor.
He lets me sit first and then sits close beside me, smiling like he's the king of the world. He drapes his napkin on his lap and turns to me.
"You like it? Pretty impressive, isn't it?"
I glance around the restaurant and smile. "It is nice. I hear the food is really good. Do you come here often?"
"Weekly," Thomas says and then tells me all about how he knows the chef and how he's good buddies with some of the backers of the restaurant. I smile and listen, resting my chin on my hand while he tells me everything and anything about the whole business.
Not once has he asked me about myself.
Our food is great, and comes on delightfully presented plates. I eat with relish and listen while Thomas talks about the politics of his department at Stanford and how he's always the one who has to problem-solve when it comes to matters before the committee.
An hour goes by, and I keep him busy asking questions about his past, his education, his classes, his house on the cliffs overlooking the bay, his car, his family.
Finally, precisely eighty-six minutes after we arrive, our meal is over and we're drinking coffee and he turns to me after a pause in the conversation.
"So, enough about me. Tell me something about India. How did you get that name?"
I laugh, amazed that he's talked about himself for so long.
"There's not much to tell. My mother took a trip to India after she finished her first degree and fell in love with Kashmir. When she got pregnant after my brother was born, she liked the name India. They're hippies, to tell you the truth."
Thomas smiles and then launches into a fifteen-minute discussion of Eastern philosophy and how he's taught a class in London about how England's colonial history in India affected British culture.
So, in total, I get in three sentences about myself before he goes back to talking about himself.
Three frickin’ sentences.