I did a grand gesture this year. I never do grand gestures. To be honest, when I see other men perform them, I always assume they’re doing it for attention, hoping to go viral or something like that. It’s a petty thought, for sure, but not without some truth in it. And yes, I am jealous of their bravery. If I ever perform some public gesture and a woman rejects me, I will die right there on the spot. It’s true. I saw it on my cardiologist’s report.
The grand gesture in question that I performed this year was more private. I performed the private grand gesture for a woman who came into my restaurant. By the time I did the grand gesture, I had only talked to her in person twice. The second time I saw her it was because I bought a fifty-dollar cheesecake from her bakery business. Until that point, I had never spent fifty dollars on any sort of dessert. I grew up on cakes from Food Lion.
Let me state for the record that I never let go of the idea that life is supposed to be a movie. I am twenty-nine years old. I have spent a decade now practicing mindfulness techniques, and I still spend most of my day trying to figure out what kind of story I am in. And I’m greedy when it comes to stories. I want them all bundled into one.
The woman who came into my restaurant was not named Miriam the Pastry Chef, but that is what I’m going to call her for the rest of the essay. The funny thing is, when I walked up to her table, I was expecting the worst. She gave me hipster rich girl vibes, and hipster rich girls can be a real peculiar kind of awful. They’re often pseudo-positive, self-proclaimed progressives who can be quite mean when they have a captive audience in the form of waitstaff. I braced myself.
But then she was lovely, and I had one of those that’s why you shouldn’t make assumptions kind of moments. I can’t remember a lot of our conversation, but I have specific beats I play back. I know she was excited about her business (an online bakery) in a way I found endearing. It didn’t sound like she was selling herself. That kind of din I hear all day in LA. But Miriam the Pastry Chef was genuinely proud of what she had made, like a child showing off her sandcastle. Come see, come see. But she was also humble, even though she had won a Food Network competition. A typical chef-influencer type would have milked that, but I think it came up by accident. At one point I made a self-deprecating joke about her being a successful entrepreneur leagues above the rest of us common folk, and she spat out with a laugh: “Oh, right! That’s why I still have to bartend three times a week!”
Not only did this line give me hope that Miriam the Pastry Chef would not consider me a scrub, what with me being a twenty-nine-year-old food runner and all, it was the kind of joke I would have made. That meant we might have had the same sense of humor, and if you’ve ever seen a rom-com, you know that’s essential. She laughed at my bits. I can’t fall in love with a woman if she does not laugh at my bits. It just wouldn’t work. I know how that sounds, I yam what I yam. But she did bits with me, this random, stylish hot girl having brunch at some incredibly overpriced hipster restaurant. She thought I was fun, I thought she was fun, and if that’s not enough reason to get married, then I don’t know what is.
I use the “So, are we getting married or what?” joke a lot on women I’m attracted to, which is intentionally ironic because my big old fear is that I am not hubby material and that it is in fact my fault that I am still single. No one likes feeling like that. It’s not a good time. I think I also make that joke because part of my brain still feels like a teenager. Marriage? That’s for grown-ups. Aren’t I supposed to be all fun, wild, and free like those douche bro influencers who perform pranks from Lamborghinis?
I had the realization this year that I could never really live that Wolf of Wall Street, Entourage, TV-says-you’re-cool-if-you-party-and-sleep-with-lots-of-women kind of lifestyle. My stomach is too sensitive. That’s why I’m not fucking bitches and getting money, that’s why I’m not getting litty every night, my stomach is too sensitive. I get hungover just thinking about a third drink. I have my doctor’s note right here.
As Miriam the Pastry Chef was leaving the restaurant, I had that Oh no, it’s happening again kind of stomach twist. I had been infatuation-free for a while, but apparently that recess was over. So, I did what any thirsty young man does. I found Miriam the Pastry Chef on Instagram by googling the name on her business card. I followed her, because that’s the first thing you do to test the waters in our silly app-centric world. And she followed back. And then, miracle of miracles, she messaged me first.
Hot girls never message first. The world doesn’t work like that.
But Miriam the Pastry Chef was exactly my type, which means she was cute-hot, mostly because she was quite short. Short girls mess me up. I don’t know why, take it up with my subconscious. I also like girls with high, clear voices. It’s incredibly heteronormative, which is funny because everyone thinks I’m gay. C’est la irony.
Anyway, Miriam messaged first, and then, miracle of miracles, it turned out she was the cousin of a college friend. That was good. This cousin could vouch that I was not a serial killer.
But then the conversation died out. I was losing her. And that’s when I decided to buy the aforementioned cheesecake. To be fair, I didn’t see the price when I decided that. But to be fairer, I still bought the cheesecake after I saw the price. I was thinking about Miriam the Pastry Chef every day. It was getting in the way of my ever-growing to-do list. I had to see her again.
Like I said, it’s very helpful to know someone who can vouch that you’re not a serial killer.
And here’s where I also have to make a deep, dark confession, the kind that threatens my status as a liberal Jedi, the kind that could get me called something real awful, something like…an Entitled White Man.
Sometimes I really resent it when women don’t want to be with me.
I’m trying not to. Nobody likes that guy. I don’t like that guy, and yet, I let him live rent-free in my head. But that’s how it is, because I’m human, and when I want somebody and they don’t want me, it hurts my feelings. It especially hurts when they wanted me once, or at least seemed to, and clearly want me no longer. That one really stings. Of course, when someone does want me, I don’t really know what to do with that either. I’ve never been stellar at relationships.
Obligatory reference to childhood. Obligatory reference to Attachment Theory.
When I planned the private grand gesture, I told myself that I could not resent Miriam like the other women, even if she rejected me. I needed to make a real clean cut here. Old Boz and New Boz. Bitter Boz and Enlightened Boz. Traumatized Boz and Boz Who-Paid-For-Years-Of -Therapy-Out-Of-Pocket.
And I haven’t resented Miriam in that way, which is funny. I didn’t expect that. Keeping my vow was easier than I thought it would be. It’s that super cliché I tried to be mad at you, but I couldn’t kind of line you don’t dare put in a script unless you’re submitting to the Hallmark Channel. There was something about her whole vibe that makes me smile in retrospect and assume the best concerning her intentions. I think that’s part of why I chose to take a risk on her versus all the other times I imagined grand gestures and then did nothing. I knew on some level that Miriam the Pastry Chef would be nice about it even if she wasn’t interested.
That’s why they call me a polite bitch, she texted me at one point, and I thought it was the cutest thing. It was fun to watch her code-switch between the over-courteous rhetoric of customer service and the Middle Eastern version of a blaccent.
Buying the cheesecake didn’t go well. She showed up to deliver it and I was incredibly awkward. I was trying too hard, talking too fast, making too many jokes, I even invited her to my birthday party. It’s funny now, but right after she left, I felt all kinds of pathetic.
But then another miracle happened. Miriam the Pastry Chef messaged me on Instagram again.
I mean, it was an emoji, but still. She was responding to one of my jokey stories because I am oh-so-funny. I know this because Miriam the Pastry Chef messaged me a laugh/crying face. I made a follow-up joke. And then we bantered. We bantered for a good bit.
It was some real cute shit, is what I’m getting at.
But then the conversation died again. This time it didn’t matter, though, because I knew what I had to do. Miriam the Pastry Chef was speaking to me in code. It wasn’t enough to buy a cheesecake, I had to do the unthinkable.
I had to perform a grand gesture.
I sent Miriam the Pastry Chef an edible bouquet. I did. I sent her an edible bouquet asking her to dinner. Can you believe it? Because I can’t. No, I must have dreamt that. I would not do such a ridiculous thing in real life.
Except I did, because it felt like make it or break it time. I was descending into the Thirsty Rando On Instagram trap. I was going down with the sinkhole if I didn’t make a leap.
Hi Miriam, I had them write on the card that came with the edible bouquet. I’m really hoping this falls on the right side of the Dobler-Dahmer Effect, but ever since you came into [name of my old restaurant redacted], I just can’t stop thinking about you. If you’re interested, I’d love to take you to dinner.
Best,
Boz
When I tell people this story, they often give me a look that’s half horror and half amazement. You actually sent that?
I did. And I felt so smug when I placed the order. I had nailed the audition for my personal rom-com. They had to give me the part.
But the day it was slated for delivery, I started having a big old panic attack and tried to cancel the order. Too late. The bouquet born of fruit and idealism was already on its way.
So, I waited. I waited the whole day. And nothing happened. The package was marked as delivered online, but there was no confirmation from the recipient.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…
I checked her stories on Instagram. One showed a picture of a parking ticket: “It’s always when you’re already having the worst day,” the caption said.
The worst day? Say what now? That bouquet had cost me like thirty bucks. It had also cost me the last bit of stubborn pride I kept pocketed away for real emergencies. And she was just going to ignore the whole thing, leave me on read, file it all away in her folder marked Crazy Guy Stories. That, or she’d just get a restraining order.
The next day while working brunch, I pretended for myself that I was over it. Pfft. Women. It was just another scene in my private little movie anyway. Clearly, she was just that girl in the beginning who is sneakily cold-hearted, and who the protagonist learns was not the right one after all.
But when I took my break and checked my phone, there was a message from her.
WELL, she said, just like that, all caps. That has to be the most elaborate way I’ve ever been asked out, but I’m about it.
If this was some comedy movie from the 90s, a Hallelujah chorus would play.
It turned out that she had not gone to her work address, an industrial kitchen space she rented, on that Friday. She came in Saturday and found the bouquet in the fridge. And she didn’t want a restraining order. She wanted to get dinner.
It was Halloween weekend. I was thirsty and suggested dinner on Halloween night, but she was going out. That’s what fun-sized hot girls do; they go out. So, the date was scheduled for Monday. I had done it. My rom-com had finally been greenlit. Filming started Monday.
But that Monday I woke up to a text that was not in my script:
Hey, she said. I know this is annoying, but I’m going to have to cancel tonight. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.
She was using her customer service tone, which I found both cute and cutting at the same time. I realized that there were three options at my disposal:
1. I could text back something polite but curt.
2. I could text back something confrontational.
3. I could text back something the Nice Guy Protagonist would say in a rom-com.
I chose Option Number Three (see earlier references to insisting that life must be some sort of movie). I said something like, “It happens, is everything alright?” But that text was a trap. I’ll admit it. I knew I was being blown off, but I needed confirmation in writing. By texting back all nice and concerned, she had to clarify and come up with an excuse. And I was real curious to see what she would come up with.
Yeah, she said. I’m just really behind on everything, so I need to sit my ass down and get some work done.
Well, if I didn’t know it was a blow-off before…
I texted back another Nice Guy Protagonist line. “I guess these are the hazards of wooing motivated entrepreneurs haha.” The “haha” showed that I was all chill, confident, and cool. Unfortunately, it was all for naught. The conversation ended there. That was it. The whole grand gesture had culminated in one brief text thread of anti-climax.
And against all logic, that meant it was time for Phase Two. It was time to double down. Because you can’t blow off a guy who sends you two punny bouquets, that’s just cruel. You can go viral for shit like that.
At this point I wondered if I had gone off the proverbial deep end, but even as I wondered that, I was already on Amazon ordering the next grand gesture. I found a sampler box of organic flours, ordered them gift wrapped, and included a note that said this:
Hey Miriam,
This is more of a lay-up in terms of shooting my shot, and I did steal the idea from Stranger Than Fiction. That being said, enjoy the flours and let me know if you still want to go to [date spot name redacted].
I’m biased, but I thought it was pretty damn smooth.
Except not, apparently, because I got no response. And no one-day fake-out like the first time. Weeks went by. Nothing. Not even a customer service-y letdown text.
And yet, I still imagined the next scene of our rom-com during my loops around the restaurant. Something had to happen. This was the part where the main character thinks all is lost, but then it’s not, and then some pop song plays. I rehearsed all the clever, cute, funny things I would say when she inevitably reached out. Any day now.
When I finally accepted defeat and unfollowed her on Instagram, the final rite I perform in my attempts to say farewell to Women I Should Be Over By Now, I got a text almost immediately. Apparently, fun-sized hot girls have a sixth sense for when someone unfollows them.
Hey! She said. I’m sorry I never thanked you for the bouquet of flours I found when I got back from my trip. That was so sweet. Thank you.
It reminded me of when online businesses send you a coupon because you haven’t bought something in a while, but then you forget and the email sits in your inbox, so when you remember and try to redeem said coupon, the code has expired.
At this point, we were going off-script. I had no clue what to say. I waited a day, because I was busy with other things (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), and then I texted back something like Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting that. But you’re welcome. I’m glad you liked the flours.
When she didn’t text back to that, I started to think this woman was trying to give me an aneurysm. So, against all logic, it was time for Phase Three. And this was a real risky phase, but one that might just have been crazy enough to work.
I had to text her high.
I asked her if she had seen the film Stranger Than Fiction. She texted back right away and thus began a whole conversation, a conversation too long to transcribe in italics here. It was another banter session, but this one was straight out of the rom-com I had been rehearsing for weeks.
I did a bit pretending to write our story as a romance novel. I wrote a scene with her dog talking to her, telling her that she should take a chance on this guy, he might just be different. I told her she should bake me a rejection cake. She slipped in a joke about boxing. That was her main form of exercise. That’s what kept her in tip-top shape as a fun-sized hot girl. I asked her to name another guy who made rejection this fun, I would wait. She told me how she always reads the last page of a book first. I pretended to be horrified. Maybe we couldn’t get married after all.
I knew she was laughing her ass off because she kept texting that to me. Lmao. Lmao. One time even an extended version: Lmaoooooooooo.
It was some real cute shit, is what I’m getting at.
But, she clarified, as much as she was touched by my grand romantic gestures, she was not looking to date right now. And the conversation died after another one of my fake novel scenes. It died a death so sudden I didn’t notice it at first. Hours went by and there were no more coveted iterations of the Lmao.
But since I was high, and since it was late, I texted something sappy. And you know what? I’m going to keep that one to myself. But then, because I was high and because I was me, I had to try another goofy Nice Guy Protagonist line to cushion the sappy one:
Ooh, that went through right at 11:11. That’s good luck.
If this was some comedy movie from the 90s, the sound of crickets would play.
I did plan a Phase Four. A third bouquet. This one with real flowers. Rule of three, and all that. Maybe all those things she said about how she was the problem, that she just wasn’t ready to date, her joking reference to therapy, maybe all of that was real, and not just some overly polite, fun-sized, hot girl letdown line. Maybe it really wasn’t me. She was just afraid to trust again. A third bouquet would free her, then we could be together, and then a pop song would play.
But the next day I logged onto Bumble and she showed right up. Her profile had a “New Here” badge on it.
Well, damn.
Sometimes, I still want to send the third bouquet. I’ll admit it. I thought of something real cute to write on the card. I picked out the perfect flower. She’s a proud Lebanese girl and Google told me that the national flower of Lebanon is a Persian Cyclamen, which is a perennial flower, which is perfect because…
Then I remember Bumble. Clearly, she wanted to date someone, and it wasn’t me. And I remember that the classic struggle for fun-sized hot girls is that they are always being put in positions where they have to say no, which is hard for them. It’s one of those toxic masculinity thingamajigs they’re always talking about on Buzzfeed. And come on, I had sent her two punny bouquets, I had said all the Nice Guy Protagonist things, and she still didn’t want to get dinner. At a certain point, self-delusion stops being cute.
When I was twenty-five and in the throes of trying to get over a different woman, I had a mantra that I used to pull myself out of similar storylines from the big book of Maybe She Does Want Me After All. The mantra was this:
If she wanted to talk to you, she would talk to you. If she wanted to be with you, she would be with you.
I’ve been on the other side of it. No one has sent me an edible bouquet, but I’ve hurt many wonderful women who took chances on me. I could not feel a hundred percent about them because of some missing x factor. The longest relationship I had was also the most problematic. I tried to be with someone that I knew I was not very attracted to, someone sweet, kind, and caring, someone who did all sorts of nice things for me, and it did not end well. She knew that I wasn’t into it, and I knew that she knew I wasn’t into it, and yet, we both kept pretending until we couldn’t anymore. The whole ordeal taught me a lesson. You can’t discount chemistry. All the nice gestures in the world can’t replace a missing x factor. And clearly, Miriam the Pastry Chef saw some missing x factor in me.
But still, I sent an edible bouquet, I feel like that’s worth at least a pity date.
And of course, even as I type the conclusion to this essay, the fantasies sing their siren songs. Maybe she’ll see this. Maybe she’ll be oh-so-touched. Maybe she’ll want to be in a rom-com with me after all.
I also keep fantasizing about using the sick angle. Isn’t that awful? I keep imagining some Golden Jewish writer/Lebanese-American pastry chef reboot of A Walk to Remember. It sounds all kinds of problematic and that’s sort of become my thing. Miriam the Pastry Chef would be oh-so-sad about whatever this mystery illness is. I would be all stoic and charming, putting on a brave face, doing all kinds of Nice Guy Protagonist stuff. I don’t think it would be such a bad movie. A little hokey, but not too much. Maybe it would be a guilty pleasure film that turns out to be a classic. We couldn’t know it at the time, but it was part of the zeitgeist.
It could be some real cute shit, is what I’m getting at.
People love to shout at me, “What’s the worst that could happen?” in situations where I am too nervous to ask someone out. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, I could send a fun-sized, hot-girl, pastry chef two different edible bouquets, I could shoot my shot with everything I’ve got, and have it all fall oh-so-flat. And then the very next day she could show up on Bumble. That’s pretty cringeworthy. And yet, I didn’t die like my cardiologist said I would. It seems I’ve got a stronger constitution than I thought. That’s something. Maybe this is a lesson about resilience and all that self-affirming jazz.
But here’s something that worries me…it’s been almost a year, and even after everything I just said, sometimes I still think about sending that third bouquet, mostly on days when I’m bored with real life and hope for the umpteenth time that maybe I could be living in a movie after all. Then I must do my mantra:
If she wanted to talk to you, she would talk to you. If she wanted to be with you, she would be with you.
I told this story of the grand gesture to a friend recently. I could see the same mixture of horror and amazement in his eyes that I knew so well from other retellings.
“I have to write an essay about it,” I told him. “That’s the only way to redeem the whole thing. Otherwise, it’s just sad.”
He laughed uncomfortably. I laughed uncomfortably back. C’est la conversation.
I liked who I was those two days between sending the bouquet and the day dinner was canceled. I kept walking around with a big dumb smile on my face. I could feel the sour residue of past disappointments melting away. I went from half battery to full. I had done some silly grand gesture for someone I was one hundred percent into even though I barely knew them, and against all odds, it had worked out. That meant anything was possible.
But when it didn’t work out, part of me was relieved. I had no idea how to be a boyfriend to some fun-sized hot girl when I was barely taking care of myself. It would have been a lot of pressure, plus the brewing symptoms of my mystery illness were making me feel very un-sexy.
It’s coming up on a year since the grand gesture. The further away I get from it, the less real it feels. I don’t think I regret it. It’s the same way I feel about coming to LA and trying to make it as an artist: I had to know. Even if the answer was not the one I wanted, I had to know. Adulthood can be a grind. The moments of feeling one hundred percent tend to be rare. When those moments do come, I think the risk of embarrassment is worth it for a chance to make that feeling stay. That’s what I tell myself at least, especially when I’m debating for the millionth time whether I should take these essays down.
Usually when I replay the whole arc of the grand gesture in my mind, I start out smiling, transition into a cringe, debate sending the third bouquet, chastise myself for even thinking of such a thing, and then settle into a state of pseudo-Zen. I keep engaging in this ritual because the whole thing is a fun little story when I forget that it happened for real. I just wish the ending had been less anti-climactic. But that’s showbiz, baby. Even if it’s your script, the studio will make changes, and the story you had in mind might be warped into a whole other thing entirely.
Regardless, I can take comfort in one thing. That cheesecake I bought from her was damn good. I can still taste it. It was not a bad use of fifty bucks at all.